A Vulnerable Population: The Homeless in America

‘’As many as 3.5 million Americans are homeless each year. Of these, more than 1 million are children and on any given night, more than 300,000 children are homeless.’’

Homelessness in the United States can be ended, not just maintained. Allot of cities now have plans to eradicate homelessness. Homelessness and housing instability are large issues that afflict a diverse demographic such as: Families, youth, veterans, and chronically homeless single male adults. Ending homelessness may require specialized solutions that are specific to individual needs. Factors like these make defeating homelessness a difficult task. Although solutions exist for some of the demographics, such as housing for chronically homeless adults, scaling up best practices remains a challenge. For other subpopulations, such as transitional aged youth, evidence-based interventions need to be developed. In this paper we argue that ending homelessness is a Grand Challenge that is big, important, and compelling—one that the profession of social work should be adopt. Meeting this challenge will require a focused, organized response from social work researchers, clinicians, and policymakers. Ending homelessness will require innovation and interdisciplinary or cross-sector collaboration. Key words: Housing First, Permanent Supportive Housing, rapid re-housing, prevention, poverty. The notion that homelessness in the United States can be ended, rather than managed (Mangano, 2002; National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2012), represents a fundamental shift in expectations from the 1980s and ’90s. Since the early 2000s, researchers, policymakers, advocates,

It is estimated that 3.5 million people will experience homelessness during a given year. The fastest growing population experiencing homelessness is families, mostly made up of single mothers and her children. Families headed by women comprise more than half of the homeless population and 42% of this population is under the age of 5. Across the country about 2.5 million children are homeless, which is equivalent to 1 in every 30 children. The legal definition of homeless “refers to those who spend 7 consecutive nights in a car, abandoned building, public park, emergency shelter, nonresidential building, or other unconventional residence.

Homeless children is more of a problem than people realize. Children who are homeless have a greater chance of having heath problems than the other children since they do not have access to medical and dental care. "Children who lack a stable home are vulnerable to a number of adverse outcomes" (Child). These children are more likely to repeat a school grade, be expelled from school, and even drop out of high school. Most homeless children have experienced violence and they now suffer from anxiety and depression. There are two types of homeless children. One type is called "Family Homeless" which is when a child is separated from their parents and placed into foster care or they are living with some of their family members. The other type is called "Unaccompanied Youth" which is when children are out on their own and have no one with them which includes the runaway youth. It is very hard to count the number of homeless children because their living situation changes frequently.

“In January 2015, 358,422 people experienced homelessness as individuals (64 percent of all homeless people). There were 206,286 homeless people in families with children on a single night in January 2015, accounting for 36 percent of all homeless people. Homelessness among individuals declined by less than 1 percent (or 1,767) between 2014 and 2015, and by 13 percent (or 54,278) between 2007 and 2015. Homelessness among people in families with children declined by 5 percent (or 9,975) between 2014 and 2015, and by 12 percent (or 28,272) between 2007 and 2015” (Authors et al, 2016).

“On any given night, there are approximately 643,067 people experiencing homelessness in America.” Homelessness in america is becoming a severe crisis a crisis we need to find solutions to. There are not many sound solutions to homelessness unless the government wants to spend millions of taxpayer dollars. Some of the solutions to homelessness can be government housing for the homeless, increasing employment and Income, and creating a crisis response plan.

I Feel like homelessness is a serious yet under rated issue specially here in the United States of America. In fact, the economy is still recovering from a big recession in 2008 caused by the banks giving out loans to people who really couldn't afford to pay them. I recall watching the news back in 2008 and 2009 and seeing the rate of people getting foreclosures on their homes skyrocket that it made me think about my living situation. Although this is a circumstantial situation that would force some one to become homeless, There are people who voluntarily choose to be homeless as well. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/recession-leads-to-25-rise-in-homelessness-as-spending-to-tackle-the-problem-falls-7994416.html).

With the instability of homeless people around the world, it is difficult to come with an accurate number of homeless individuals however, on average 2.3 million American experience homelessness

Homelessness has affected many people; more people are becoming homeless every year. Over half a million people are homeless.138,000 people are children under 18. There are many reasons why people become homeless. Some of the reasons are divorce, poverty, mental illness, domestic violence, drug addiction, and sexuality.

Can you imagine if you had no house and had to sleep on the street in the United States? You are sick and need to see the doctor. What do you do? People who have no house are called homeless people. When they don’t feel well and need to see a physician, they do not know where they can go and ask for help. Homeless people have the barriers of access to health care in the US. Therefore, the government should ensure that homeless people gain information about health care services and can access those services. To understand the extent of the problem, we first need to understand what the definition of homeless people and health care are, and what are the connection between them. Then we can discuss what the barriers of homeless people accessing

The Students Against Hunger Organization has stated, “as many as 3.5 million people are homeless each year [and] more than 1 million are children” (SAH). This is just within the U.S. alone. Unfortunately, other countries see a much larger percentage of

Research indicates that two-third of the adults experiencing homelessness in the U.S.A have not received a high school diploma or completed a GED. In the 2013-2014 school year, public schools reported 1,360,747 unaccompanied homeless students enrollment. Unaccompanied youth are those who experiencing homelessness while not in the physical custody of a parent or guardian. Approximately 1.7 million youth experience homelessness on their own reported each year. They live in unsafe, dysfunction and unstable situations, including cars, parks, couch-suffering, shelters, and motels etc.... Most of these young individuals have left home due to unhealthy and unsafe family setting, including abuse and neglect: 20-40% of unaccompanied homeless youth were

The growth of homeless individuals has grown to 800,000 on any given day. 600,000 are families and the remaining 200,000 are children in homeless families (Varney and Vliet 2008). In the U.S., 52,000 children are homeless on there own and 1.35 million experience being homeless at some point in their lifetime.

In order to understand the severity of the homeless crisis, it is necessary to have an understanding of what homelessness is, as well as what causes it. Homelessness can be defined as, “the condition of not having a home or permanent place of residence—is at once a longstanding societal problem in America, an often contentious public policy issue, and a surprisingly ambiguous sociological” ("Homeless-Housing Hype Editorial."). As of right now, there are around 600 thousand Americans who can identify with the term homeless, but because of the different definitions of what being homeless means, it is really hard to pinpoint a specific number. (WATERS) Of this estimated 600 thousand, nearly 160 thousand of these people are under the age of 18, making up 1/6 of the homeless population. (Waters). Eighty-three thousand of these children are

In 2005, 50 percent of the cities in the US were surveyed and reported domestic violence, classified as a traumatic life event, to be the primary cause of homeless (Philipps). The cities that were surveyed include Cedar Rapids, Chicago, Los Angeles, Burlington, Nashville, St. Paul, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Trenton, Seattle, and Nashville. In addition, a survey carried out in 2003 about the homeless mothers across the country found out that one quarter had been abused physically in the past year and nearly all had witnessed or experienced domestic violence over their lifetimes (Fertig). Another report indicated that 47 percent of the homeless school aged children as well as 29 percent of the homeless children under the age of 5 have witnessed domestic violence in the families. Another study carried out in 10 cities indicated that 22 percent of the individuals who had left their last residence was because of domestic violence.