Homelessness And Discrimination Essay

In the United States the homeless population continues to grow rapidly. Homelessness has been a public health issue for many decades. Often times these individuals feel as though society has turned a blind eye to them. This at risk population is seen by society as lazy or chose to live a life on the streets, but if one would examine this population closely would see that there is more to this at risk population than what society has labeled them as. The forces, which affect homelessness, are multifaceted. Social forces such as family breakdown, addictions, and mental illnesses are in combined with structural forces such as lack of low-cost housing, insufficient health services, and poor economic conditions. Many would

Many of the anti-homeless polices that have been previously mentioned focus on improving the quality of life for the community rather than reducing the causes of homelessness and for these reasons it is imperative that these anti-homeless policies be reformed. Reforming these polices can be tricky due to the way they are framed. For example, no one is going to advocate that public urination should be allowed. A more effective argument would be to advocate for increased public spending on public restrooms. This is just one example of how allocating public funds away from criminal justice and towards public services could help improve the issue of

Adoption of laws and policies that punish homeless people rather than addressing the problems that cause homelessness is an ineffective approach. Penalizing people for engaging in innocent behavior – such as sleeping in public, sitting on the sidewalk, or begging – will not reduce the occurrence of these activities or keep homeless people out of public spaces when they have no other place to sleep or sit or no other means of living. With insufficient resources for shelter and services for homeless people, enforce punishment for unavoidable activities is not only pointless, it is inhumane (Brown,1999, July/August). Relying on law enforcement officials and jails to address homelessness and related issues, such as mental illness and substance abuse, that are more appropriately handled by service providers, causes problems and widespread frustrations within the criminal justice system. Police officers are not adequately trained to respond to the situations that arise, the criminal justice system does not provide the necessary treatment

Homelessness has been a consistent concern since the colonization of the United States and the separation from England. However, despite the desire for new beginnings once arriving in the States, old circumstances remained and an adoption of previous solutions was implemented. The term used for those homeless has transitioned throughout the decades; however, the beginning expression used was vagrants (Levinson & Ross, 2007). This term was given due to the connotation of being “…wanderers without a home, but also likely to participate in criminal activity” (Levinson & Ross, p. 1, 2007). Though this terminology is not as prevalent today, the negative association between homelessness and crime still exists.

On any single night in America, there are 610,042 people without a home (SIRS). Just think about how much space that would take up in prisons for people who are not causing a crime but are just without a home.Criminalization of homelessness is becoming a popular and widespread topic throughout the US. States all over America are beginning to make laws that prevent homeless people from living in public spaces. Homelessness may be temporary, chronic, or perpetual. The growth of homelessness within and outside of cities puts a new strain on shelters and has led to an increase in panhandling and loitering. Some people think these aspects of homelessness should be criminalized. Those who disagree say criminalization would only worsen the problem

Homelessness exists as a prominent issue that plagues society in various ways. It brings about hardship and controversy as individuals struggle to survive on a daily basis. Additionally, this complication tears families apart and ostracizes individuals from a society where they once belonged. A specific problem regarding homelessness consists of lack of interest from bystanders; some of these spectators refuse to even acknowledge homeless individuals sitting at their feet. As homeless people live their lives on street-corners, the more fortunate members of society choose to engulf themselves in their personal problems alone. Displayed by their clothing and accessories, most of these individuals possess the ability to help in some way;

Homelessness affects men, women, families, children, youth, and veterans. While structural factors, like the unequal distribution of income and lack of affordable housing, cause homelessness, certain vulnerabilities may determine who is at higher risk for homelessness. These include addictions, mental illness, domestic violence, medical conditions, and lack of education or job skills. This research paper will shed some light on the issue of homelessness and how we can prevents it with some suggested solutions.

Michelle Alexander makes some very interesting claims in chapter 4. We can honor the validity of her clams because she has the proper credentials to argue her points. “Michelle Alexander is an associate professor of law at Ohio State University and holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity” (back cover of The New Jim Crow). In order to teach these laws, you must thoroughly understand the issues that you have studied and we know Alexander understands the laws very well because she is teaching them. As a result of studying and teaching these laws, she can see the flaws in these laws more clearly that we can.

One of the most contested rights a felon loses is the right to vote; however, in Kentucky felons automatically lose the ability to carry/own/possess a firearm, the ability to hold public office, and the ability to receive certain types of professional licenses (McGuire, 2014). Depending on the crime, in many jurisdictions felons who have served their sentences and are no longer under any state supervision may never be able obtain certain types of employment, receive SNAP benefits and other public assistance, qualify for student loans, maintain parental custody, or even pick up their children from school (Saxonhouse, 2004). In Kentucky, felons who have committed a drug related felony can receive SNAP benefits after a certain amount of time has passed and they have completed treatment. Another obstacle a felon could face is ineligibility to receive public housing (McGuire, 2014). Since people with a felony can’t get certain professional licenses and employment, they end up with low income jobs and often won’t qualify for public housing, and often find themselves

Among general population, homelessness has been a social, economic, and public health concern in the U.S. for at least three decades.

Recently I learned in my American Government class that one in three African American men will be in prison at some point in their lifetime. The statistic is slightly less common for Hispanic men, but all the same, the percentage of Hispanic and African American men who’ve served in prison at some point in their lifetime is astronomically higher than the percentage of Caucasian men. So how does this affect minorities? Removing felons from the electorate causes minorities to be less represented in elections. This results in minorities being less capable of affecting policies that could potentially benefit them. Furthermore, status as a felon unfortunately often goes hand in hand with a lower socioeconomic status. The consequence is that both minorities and the poor are less represented come election time. One simple way we could insure that all minorities are more capable of voicing their opinions and influencing policies is allow felons to vote after serving their

Homelessness is a year round issue that needs to be addressed. People that are homeless will most likely commit to crime, because it is almost impossible for homeless people get a job. Think about it, a job application requires a home address, phone number to get in contact with and social insurance number. Those are all things a homeless person lacks. The origin of homelessness can be traced all the way back to colonial America. Homelessness arise during the American Revolution and Civil War. It is still an ongoing issue today in the City of Philadelphia. It has become a problem today due to factors such as, unemployment, insecure jobs, low incomes, addictions, and mental issues.

According to this estimate, a greater percentage of inmates have been previously homeless, (5% of general population versus 15% of incarcerated population with history of homelessness), which illustrates that homelessness often triggers incarceration. (Metraux S, Culhane , 2006.) Individuals with past incarceration face great barriers attempting to exit homelessness due to such policies which disqualify them from most federal housing assistance programs due to their criminal records. One of the federal housing assistance programs of the community is through the Great Falls Housing Authority, also known as “Section 8 Housing”. This program offers privage landlords contrated with the Housing Authority which approves the home for Housing Quality Standards and subsidizes the rent for the client which pays approximately 30% of their adjusted income as rent. Due to people with previous felonies of sorts being disqualified from such programs, these individuals may feel it necessary to engage in criminal activities to attempt to break the cycle of homelessness, only in turn perpetuationg the viscious cycle of homelessness, and being

When convicted of a felony, the highest class of crime, that individual becomes a convicted felon for life even after time in prison is served. Many people believe that the only person more threatening than a convicted felon is one who has not been caught. As a result of this notion, laws have been set in place to prohibit felons from traveling abroad, owning guns, obtaining certain jobs, voting, etc. Voting is a constitutional right and commonly considered one of the exceedingly precious civil rights, and furthermore believed those rights should not be taken no matter the person’s morale. Others strongly believe if you are a felon, you should not be trusted. Voting rights are only lost completely in two states, only while incarcerated

Vagrancy is a frequent liability in regards to the legal system (Polcin, 2016). In fact, there has been several documentations done in the large amount of homeless criminals departing from penitentiaries (Petersilia, 2003) and state confinement centers (Freudenberg, Daniels, Crum, Perkins, & Richie, 2005; Petteruti & Walsh, 2008). Moreover, once these individuals become homeless they are more susceptible to partaking in additional illegal actions, often leading to recidivism (Greenberg & Rosenheck, 2008). The vulnerability of homeless individuals lies within the inability to have a place to call home, resulting in victimization of violations of law (Gaetz, 2006).