Jonathan Standefer is a Texas businessman, a graduate of Baylor University and a former business owner who says he is taking some time off to weigh his options and plan his next move. He is thinking about starting a new venture that he would operate for the benefit of others.

He is greatly interested in troubling social issues, especially homelessness. Virtually anyone might become homeless at some point in his or her life, Jonathan Standefer believes. A person is considered homeless if he or she does not have a fixed, regular address that is adequately furnished and they can stay at overnight. There are an estimated 610,000 people who are experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States, he says, adding that those numbers fluctuate and are not considered definitive, due to the nature of the issue.

As Jonathan Standefer knows, while virtually anyone can become homeless, the public image of a homeless person is someone who is chronically homeless. This means a person who has either long-term or repeated periods of homelessness during their lives, often coupled with a physical or mental disability. People who are chronically homeless, he says, are the ones most likely to end up living in shelters for extended periods, and consuming the majority of public assistance resources. This group, he says, only makes up about sixteen percent of the entire homeless population.

His reading into the issue of homelessness has led Jonathan Standefer to understand that there are two trends that are major contributors to rising rates of homelessness in the United States. One is an increasing shortage of affordable housing, and the other is an increase in poverty. These two trends have developed simultaneously since the late 1980s and early 1990s. It is not surprising, he says, that people who are living in poverty are the most likely to become homeless. Are large percentage of people living in poverty live paycheck to paycheck, and are just one bad break away from becoming homeless.

All it takes is losing a job. This is made crystal clear; Jonathan Standefer says, by a U.S. Conference of Mayors survey that found significant numbers of fulltime wage earners, more than seventeen percent, made up the population in homeless shelters.

Jonathan Standefer says that there are no easy answers to the vexing issue of homelessness. But a good first step is finding a way to create more that jobs that pay a living wage, provide better support for people unable to work, more affordable housing, and better access to health care.