United states of America
STREET SOCCER USA (SSUSA)
SSUSA is a registered non-profit organisation that promotes and develops a national network of Sport for Development programs based in social service agencies across the country. SSUSA creates positive community through sports around youth and adults who are homeless, dramatically transforming the context in which participants live from one of isolation and marginalization to one of support and encouragement.
SSUSA organises the Homeless World Cup Team USA, bringing players from 19 cities ranging from California to Washington, D.C. together via the Street Soccer USA Cup.
Country
Statistics
17 out of 189 in Human Development Index rankings (UNDP 2020)
Average salary per person $70,930 (World Bank, 2021)
18% of the 330 million population live below the poverty line (World Population Review 2021)
Homelessness in the US is recorded by counting those experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. In 2020, this was over half a million (Dept. of Housing), though critics say this method excludes many living in temporary accommodation and on the cusp of extreme poverty.
The UN reports more than one in every eight Americans living in poverty (40 million, or 12% of the population). Almost half of those (18.5 million) are living in extreme poverty, with reported family income below one-half of the poverty threshold. (UNHCR, 2018).
In imagining the poor, racist stereotypes are usually not far beneath the surface. The poor are overwhelmingly assumed to be people of colour, whether African Americans or Hispanic ‘immigrants’. The UN reports there are 8 million more poor Whites than there are poor Blacks. (UN report 2018)
Punishing and imprisoning the poor has been an American response to poverty in the twenty-first century. Many sub-groups of poor people, including the homeless are often rounded up and incarcerated as a means of hiding the extent of the problem to the public eye. (UN report 2018)
STORIES from the region
