Homeless Woman Research Paper

The homeless are a vulnerable population. They are defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as “an individual who lacks housing (without regard to whether the individual is a member of a family), including an individual whose primary residence during the night is a supervised public or private facility (e.g., shelters) that provides temporary living accommodations, and an individual who is a resident in transitional housing.” (The National Health Care for the Homeless Council, 2016). They are a social group throughout the US who are susceptible to all of the life’s cruelties. They are much more at risk for adverse illnesses due to their lack of available resources and medical help. Many have predetermined illnesses which need daily treatment but cannot acquire the medication needed. The homeless population lacks the funding for life’s necessities, thus the luxury of insurance and medicine is a dream.

Majority of homeless individual are women. They are at a greater risk than men because they are most likely to bear child-rearing responsibilities and are vulnerable to become victims of violence.

Tampons and sanitary pads usually top the list of needs at shelters, since they’re pricey and supporters don’t often donate them. Many women feel hopeless when they get their period because they feel as if they’ll never be clean. It can take a toll on your happiness, confidence, and even health. Kylyssa Shay, a former homeless woman who experienced the struggle of not having products on her menstrual cycle, wrote that she almost went as far as shoplifting tampons because she couldn’t afford them with only a dollar in her pocket. If tampons weren’t taxed, that would bring the cost down and maybe more women could save money over time since they wouldn’t have to put money towards

The Homeless Period On average, women spend about $3,360 on essential feminine hygiene products throughout their entire lives, but what happens when a woman cannot even afford her monthly menstrual expenses? Every month homeless women are put on a crisis situation recurring to extreme methods to cope with their periods. These women want to feel clean; unfortunately, they do not have the means to do so because pads and tampons are expensive. In fact, they are taxed as luxury items in more than thirty states. As of today, there is not a clear policy as to where homeless women can find free feminine hygiene products when they need them. This is more paupers’ problem, it is a health, hygiene, and dignity issue. The government needs to make a legislation that allows homeless women to get free pads and tampons The means by which homeless women cope with their periods are unbelievable. In their own voice periods “brings inconvenience to the level of misery” (Shay). When these women cannot afford to buy feminine hygiene products, they use whatever they can to keep themselves clean. Some of the common substitutes of pads and tampons are “toilet paper, paper towels, plastic bags, towels, cotton balls, makeup pads, socks, and [old clothes]” (How do Homeless Women Cope with Their Periods). On bad days, some women even have to reuse the same rag multiple times by washing it, drying it, and putting it back in. Feminine hygiene products are expensive and sometimes half, if not all, of what

The United States of America is the place known to many as the land of the free, home of the brave, and the place to start a better life. With any place that has good qualities, some have not so good qualities. The homeless population in the United States is at a staggering high, and many individuals are suffering because many lack employment/financial resources, housing resources, support from family and friends, and others negligence; such as natural disasters or fires. Homeless individuals may have no other choice than to live on the streets, trains, and alley ways to name a few places where homeless people seek shelter. The history of homelessness, social problems, demographics, common clinical

My capstone project is on homelessness and preventative methods. Research on the various factors that are associated with homelessness and how to best reduce or end the homeless situation. Research shows that there are many suggestions on methods to reduce homelessness (the Homeless First Program) which have proven to reduce the numbers in various states across America (Tsemberis, Gulcur & Nakae, 2004). The homelessness problems are multifaceted with overlapping of other factors such as mental illness and risks, which include substance abuse, health disparities, and victimization, all of which have a role in the homelessness (Canton, Dominguez, Schanzer, Hasin, Shrout, Felix, McQuistion, Opler & Hsu, 2005).

Many who have experienced food insufficiency feel that health care is a lower priority when directing their personal resources. Another barrier is vision impairment, the person may be unable to navigate the system or collect needed health information due to poor eye sight (Baggett, O’Connell, Singer, & Rigotti, 2010). Finding transportation to clinics or provider’s offices to receive care may enable some from using preventive care. Another major factor is stigmatism. A homeless man or woman may feel they are being stigmatized by health care professionals (Hwang et al., 2010). Work for the homeless often comes day by day and is unpredictable. In addition their current job may be the only source of income for the individual or family. The consequences of missing work even for health reasons is costly to someone’s survival, making work their number one priority. These various reasons can lead to prolonged homelessness, loss of employment related to inability to work from being ill, and further health deterioration or possibly death (Hwang et al., 2010). The extent that homeless individuals are able to obtain health care is largely unknown (Baggett, O’Connell, Singer, & Rigotti, 2010).

A very important issue with homeless pregnant women is lack of access to medical care, and lack of support overall. Pregnancy rates of homeless women are upwards of 22%, and 75% of those pregnant and impoverished women reported having obstacles to receiving care, according to a study done by Thomas Jefferson University (Rand, 2011). Low-income, impoverished, and completely homeless women remain faceless, nameless, and inaudible, making them invisible to the modern world at times. Their pregnancies are often in conjunction with substance abuse and abuse in their relationships. The incidence of physical abuse in low-income women is shown to be higher during and after pregnancy than before pregnancy (Saltzman, 2015). Homeless pregnant women also not only have higher incidences of STD’s, but they also tend to be younger, without insurance, uneducated or have a low level of education, and unmarried (Stanhope, 2012). They are also at a much higher risk for multiple pregnancies overall (Crawford, 2012). They are the

From the literature review, using articles written on homeless populations across America and in Canada, the same conditions can be found. For example, chronic and communicable illnesses, mental illnesses, and substance abuse disorders, are linked to poverty and housing instability, lack of insurance, and access to health care services. Being homeless brings stigma, rejection, and judgement that results in the lack of trust in the medical community. This further creates a barrier to health care treatment or even the seeking of care by the homeless individual. One way to reach a transient population, who is in high need of medical and social services, is with an MMU. The literature has shown, that they can be operated by students, health

Access to health care for the homeless is limited because of lack of benefits and health insurance, money, attitude of some health care professionals, language barrier, fear, mistrust, inability to understand medical information, the inability to follow the treatment due to cost or availability, resources, education and transportation. The homeless contributes to their ill health due to their lack of self-care and access to health services as well as a high exposure to diseases and parasites easily spread in crowded conditions, such as shelters (Zlotnick, Zerger, and Wolfe, 2013, p. S199). Most homeless people are uninsured but have a significance in health care needs, which leads to conflict. Unfortunately, most homeless people are not able to receive health care due to the factors listed

Conducting a focus groups with women that are or have been homelessness and their caseworkers, separately, to (a) see how the living in a shelter on a daily basis can effect these women how to go about finding a more permanent home,

The homeless are under-served vulnerable populace because this population is at an expanded risk for adverse health-related outcomes. These groups of individuals take asylum in the homeless shelter, and others live in surrendered structures, in this manner, reaching homelessness people's turns out to be progressively troublesome increasingly. In fact, homeless has various causes, for example, “deinstitutionalization in the 1960’s… freedom from slavery, westward expansion, lumber and railroad work, the Great Depression, and the aftereffects of the war” (Karkness and DeMarco, 2016, pg. 374). Indeed, even though, this populace is hard to reach, there are numerous things being done to address this issue. For instance, healthcare is

Gender inequality, police brutality and transgender rights are just a few societal issues impacting the way our society functions today. However, the social issue I have chosen is homelessness, specifically the causes and effects of homelessness in America because of recent observations. Since moving to Akron, I have noticed that the amount of homeless individuals seems more present in urban areas. Considering this new observation, I began to wonder how people become homeless and how this affects not only Akron, but our society in general. Although the rates of homelessness are moderately decreasing, homelessness is a public issue because it influences our economy and public health. The stigma around mental illness plays a huge part in the rates of homelessness. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, about a quarter of the homeless population

In addition homeless people are also subject to abuse, both physically and sexually. It is estimated that homeless females are twenty times more likely to be sexually assaulted than a female who is not homeless, and many of these crimes will go unreported as well. Most homeless people do not have family members or someone who will check up on them. So they might be abused or even

Not only does homelessness occur after contraception but it starts affecting these children from before birth age. Due to many mothers in recent years being teenagers who ages are decreasing year by year, these pregnant mothers go through their nine month pregnancy without proper treatment or care (4). “Fifty percent of homeless women versus fifteen percent of the general population have not had a prenatal visit in the first trimester of pregnancy” (4). Also the “service reports a forty percent substance use rate among women