Homeland Generation Research Paper

Some Americans are lucky and do not have to rely on their families to help them after they get their own jobs. However, this is not a possibility for the working class poor. Many of Ehrenreich’s fellow workers rely heavily on family to meet their basic needs of housing, food, and help with childcare. Many Americans will put excessive demands on the family unit before going to the government for help. Ehrenreich only had herself to take care of. Many of her coworkers had to go home and take care of their children and household.

“The National Center on Family Homelessness currently estimates that as many as fifty U. S. children (1.5 million) are homeless or “precariously housed” in temporary quarters such as motels and shelters” (Cohen, 2009). Today’s economic crisis is not helping this growing number of families that are being relocated as home foreclosures and loss of jobs add to the overwhelming number of homeless

This perspective holds the view that the causes of homelessness lies outside of an individual’s control, and are often the result of a failure of public institutions. Structural causes are often those that affect the opportunities and the social environments for individuals, and as a result leads to a critical shortage of affordable housing, a lack of adequate income, and even discrimination (Gaetz, S., Donaldson, J., Richter, T., & Gulliver, T. 2013). For many, the lack of affordable housing - which is arguably the main contributor to immigrant homelessness in Toronto - may materialize from interwoven forms of discrimination and oppression based on an individual’s race, gender, social class, and even religion. Due to the low average household incomes of immigrants, the demand for affordable housing is further heightened. A study done in Toronto comparing homelessness and housing issues amongst women, revealed that compared to Canadian-born women, non-status migrant women had the most unstable pre-shelter housing, and stayed in shelters much longer compared to the other groups that were interviewed (Paradis, E., Novac, S., Sarty, M., & Hulchanski, J. D. 2010). This study supports the perspective that immigrant homelessness is the result of the failure of public institutions who are responsible for the policies which govern the

People naturally like to generalise over a large group, it puts less stress on our brain. One such generalisation is the generations that people talk about, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millenials, and Gen Z. In “Move Over, Millennials, Here Comes Generation Z” Alex Williams discusses a possible outcome of what Gen Z is to be as compared to the Millennials.

It is not uncommon to drive through a city without seeing a person holding a sign stating that they are trying to feed their family, had lost their job or need money to pay their rent. During recent years, particularly the ones following the financial crisis of 2008, American citizens have felt the burdens of providing for themselves or their families. The lack of affordable health care, rising costs of housing, mental health and substance use addictions, along with lack of sufficient employment have forced many from their homes to live with family, friends or on the streets and shelters. The purpose of this study is to

As the author moved from locale to locale she identified a variety of recurring hardships faced by the working poor. The chief concern for many was housing. Finding and maintaining economical housing was the principal source of disruption in their lives. For many of the working poor it’s not uncommon to spend more than 50% of income on housing. These leaves a scarce amount of money left over for anything else and creates a situation where the person is always worried about losing their shelter. In a nutshell, it’s Ehrenreich’s conviction that wages are too low and rents are too high. She does speak with many individuals who simply cannot afford the high rental rates and are forced to live with family, friends, or in some

“The home is the wellspring of personhood. It is where our identity takes root and blossoms, whereas children, we imagine, play, and question, and as adolescents, we retreat and try. As we grow older, we hope to settle into a place to raise a family or pursue work. When we try to understand ourselves, we often begin by considering the kind of home in which we were raised” (Desmond 2016, 293). Evictions! The root of poverty? Matthew Desmond’s novel “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in America City, portrays the lives of tenants, landlords, and house marketing on the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee. Desmond gives the reader overwhelming evidence and revealing testimony illustrating the major impact of inadequate housing on individuals, local, and national level. Desmond’s analysis and observation of his case study enables him to portray the reality of poverty, and to persuade the readers that evictions are a major consequence, and primary contributors in the relentless cycle of poverty. Desmond build his argument using two Aristotelian rhetorical appeals, ethos, logos and inductive reasoning to illustrates the importance of ending the cycle of poverty.

Another topic demonstrated in the book is inequality at home. For many, home symbolizes stability and physical security; for others it signifies an investment, an identity, or a crucial mark of citizenship. Yet, not every home and community offers all of these advantages, and not everyone takes the same path home. In recent years, buying a home has become more difficult as both wealth and race matter. High cost of home ownership is just one of the many reasons underlying the stratification of secure housing in a strong

The housing crisis in New York City disguises itself well, hiding in the back of commercial zones or illegal tenements. Jacob Riis, a reformer at the end of the last century, spoke through photographs of the City’s poorest neighborhoods to impress the issue upon the world. His book, How the Other Half Lives, was a cry to the public for affordable housing and livable conditions for the city’s poor. Ironically, as an October 1996 New York Times article points out, 100 years under the bridge has not created even a marginal move of progress. Contrary to the popular belief that hard work and fair play yield access to the “American Dream,?the Times article depicts the conditions of the working poor, the “all but homeless?class that exists day by day.

Last month, the Obama administration released a plan designed to end homelessness in 10 years. The goal reflects new optimism among academics and advocates that homelessness is not an intractable feature of urban life, as it has sometimes seemed, but a problem that can be solved. This belief is fueled by recent research debunking a number of long-standing myths about homelessness in America -- and showing that many of our old policies were unwittingly making the problem worse.

Gish Gen and Barbara Ehrenreich’s works outline the struggles and challenges that the Americans undergo today in their pursuit of the American dream. Gen points to a Chinese family that is weaved between maintaining ties with their traditional Chinese way of life and culture, and adopting the American dream (Gen 107). Through this rather humorous and attention catching treatise, Gen confirms the struggles the American immigrant population face in order to streamline their thought, actions and philosophy with what the American dream represents. A majority of immigrants survives on low wages and struggles to put food on the

As the child of Mexican immigrants, I am always encouraged to work to the best of my ability because of the sacrifices and struggles my family went through to get where we are today. Too young to remember, I am constantly reminded of the difficulties my family experienced as they attempted to rebuild their lives in a new country with nothing but their clothes on their backs and the few cash they had in their pockets. The place we called home was a shabby, old apartment in a neighborhood where the crime rate seemed as if it doubled in a matter of seconds. At a point in our lives my family begged for pennies to afford medicine from gas stations, and even the dollar store when we fell ill. It was never that we were out of money, but we were just financially unstable. We had a roof over our heads, food on our table, clothes, and even a family car, but my father’s income was not always enough to support the life of a growing family and on top of that, enough to invest in my family’s future.

The HBO documental Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County shows us the cruel reality of one of the richest counties in the United States. Due to our previous economic issues that the country had suffered, families similar to the ones in the documental are not able to afford rent or own a home, putting families in situations where a family of five or more has to live in a one-bed motel, where the children suffer the most. The main reason for families living in such harsh conditions is unemployment; householders are not able to find stable jobs to support their families, and both parents have to work multiple jobs to sustain and provide a decent living to their families. In some cases families have to have more than both parents working to

These changes include globalization, housing markets, education and family income and wealth. Newman found that global competition has a profound effect on young adults in countries like Japan, Spain, Italy, and United States who find themselves facing extended unemployment (Newman, 2012, p. 45). This is forcing many to live at home with their parents. Young adults new to the labor market feel a great increase in competition and in the downward shift of wages (Newman, 2012, p. 45). Young adults see globalization as competition for already scarce jobs, which means that young adults who have little work experience have to compete for jobs with people who have vast working experience (cite?). As a result, it is the youth that suffers from globalization. The rate of unemployment is also high in countries with weak welfare states such as Japan, Spain, Italy and the United States (Newman, 2012, p. 61). Weakened welfare states are another cause to the increase in accordion families due to governments and states leaving young adults to be their own responsibility during economic trouble (Newman, 2012, p. 61). Compared to generous welfare states including the Scandinavian countries that offer those in trouble higher education benefits, affordable rental housing and unemployment benefits, unemployment for those with a weakened welfare state face higher rates of unemployment (Newman, 2012, p.

Did you know that you are considered part of the first generation symbolizing the decline of the nation? Generations are labeled all the time by historians, novelists and journalist in an attempt to capture the spirit or essence of an era. But the term Generation X carries all the negativity of propaganda and stereotype.