八○年代美國遊民的分佈及其社會結構因素

The Distribution and Structural Determinants of American Homelessness

根據1990年戶口普查資料，全美的有千分之一（226,802）人口是無家可歸的遊民。就地理區位而言，遊民主要聚集在中部大西洋區、南部大西洋區及太平洋岸的紐約、華盛頓、費城、芝加哥、舊金山、洛杉磯、及聖地牙哥等地處陽光帶或具有工商大城色彩都市。造成遊民出現的社會結構因素極其複雜，不是任何一個單一因素所能完全解釋。分析全美1136個人口超過一萬又有遊民出現城市，我們發現，婦女離婚率高、人口多、白人比例低、低廉租金房舍比例高、及租金佔收入比例多都市，其遊民比例也高。至於人口10萬以上都市，其結構因素除了地理區位外，主要在於窮人太多。

Based on the 1990 census data, there were 226,802 (about one per thousand) homeless people in the Unitd States. Most of the homeless ness were found in sun belt or/and large cities like New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, etc.. The structural determinants of homeless ness look like a complex array of social problems and is hard to single out the cause. Analyzing 1136 homeless cities with population over 10 thousand we found that cities with higher female divorce rate, larger population size, lower percentage of white, higher percentage of low-cost housing unit, and higher median rent as proportion of income tend to have higher percentage of homelessness. Nevertheless, for those cities with 100 thousand population or more the main structural causes can be narrowed down to poverty and geographic reasons.