Homeless Overwhelmingly Support Democratic President
By Joshua Kanary
The
Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless with help from Vote Today Ohio and the
NAACP transported nearly 250 homeless people to the Board of Elections during
the first week of early voting. In addition to the large number of people they
transported to the polls, other shelters and homeless people to the polls, and
by Election Day nearly half of all the people in the shelter system voted. Even
before November 4, staff at the Homeless Grapevine could see there would
be a huge turn out and naturally wondered who homeless people were voting for.
Thus, they held an unscientific straw poll of the homeless population at several
drop-ins, meal sites and shelters around Cleveland.
Support
for Obama was high with 84% of those voting saying they would vote for the
Illinois Senator. Not only was support for Obama high, but support for McCain
was extremely low. The 9% that said they were undecided nearly doubled the
number that said they voted for McCain.
The
issues that were of most concern to homeless voters include creating jobs and
housing followed closely by health care. These three issues were the biggest
problems that Cleveland’s homeless voters would like to see the new President
take on beginning in 2009. Nearly 30% of the voters had been homeless for one
year or more. Loss of job was the reason most cited as the cause of their
homelessness at 39%. More than half of those surveyed were over 50 years old and
80% were male. Sixty-four percent were African American. An additional 20 people
said that they were not going to vote.
The
Homeless Grapevine and the publishers of the Homeless Grapevine do
not take a stance on either of the candidates. Also, the demographic data
collected does not represent the whole of the homeless community. The surveys
were conducted at various locations on both the east and west side of Cleveland
during the month leading up to the 2008 election and was just a small sampling
of a much larger and more diverse whole.