Homelessness In America

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,

Homelessness is an aspect of society, which most people chose not to acknowledge. With the increasing amount of issues the United States faces, homelessness tends to be forgotten when the time comes for the government to establish what issues they should assist. Due to the substantial amount of issues the government concerns itself with, homelessness does not receive the necessary attention required and is improperly handled. In today’s society poverty-stricken individuals or families is too much of a common occurrence to be treated as lightly as it is. Additional government intervention is necessary in order to supply the needed resources, which can prevent the further spread of homelessness. The United States government is obligated to protect its citizens and should care about the constant growth of homelessness. Through economic policies and community advertisements, the government can control the issue of individuals who are facing poverty.

Everywhere you turn in the United States people are sitting on the corners of streets asking for assistance or digging in trash cans for meals. The epidemic of homelessness in the United States has reached an all-time high since the 1990’s. Unfortunately, the adage of people chose to be homeless was not accounting for families that live paycheck to paycheck and lose their job and therefore their housing because it is unavoidable. Alternatively, many individuals that are homeless have some type of mental illness or substance abuse problem thus creating a barrier to maintaining housing. Many of these individuals are incapable to preserve stable employment and have limited support to get off the streets. However, there are several programs that the federal government fund to assist with combating the problem of homelessness in America.

Homelessness in the United States is a serious problem that can be helped by giving homeless people opportunities to thrive in better conditions and/or communities. Although getting them off the streets is a huge step in the right direction, other actions need to be taken. Making sure they have somebody in their corner is a huge step in that process. There are 1,750,000 homeless people on the streets at this very moment. 1 in 30 children in the US, 40% of the homeless population are also Veterans. Some people wonder how someone even becomes homeless, there are multiple reasons, such as physical or mental impairments, living in poverty, and tragic life occurrences.

According to a study done by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, in America alone, more than 3.5 million people, including 1.35 million children, experience homelessness yearly (nationalhomeless.org). Of that 3.5 million, 35% are families with children (studentsagainsthunger.org). Worldwide, 100 million people are homeless yearly (homelessworldcup.org). These people are forced to sleep in parks, under bridges, abandoned buildings, shelters, and sometimes cars if available. There are approximately 1.7 million homeless teens in the US and 1 of 7 of every teen are runaways (dosomething.org). More than half of these teens will use drugs or alcohol to self medicate through their traumatic experience. Unfortunately, 5,000 of these teens and young adults die yearly because of assault or illness on the streets (dosomething.org). In most cases, homelessness is temporary, but is still a problem encountered by many. Homelessness and poverty are increasing epidemics around the world, striking millions of people every age, ethnicity, and religion.

During the Great Depression, millions of Americans were unemployed which was a huge issue. Unemployment led to homelessness and being poor. Millions of people were unemployed and struggling to find any jobs (Hayes). As the Great Depression got worse and worse, the number of hiring jobs decreased and less jobs were available. Companies were “Firing and not hiring” so many Americans were homeless and unable to make money to support their struggling families (Hayes). The loss of jobs did an incredible amount of damage to the Americans living during this horrific time.

The purpose of this assignment is to research and explain the aspects of a particular social issue. I will begin by providing a brief history of the subject. I will elaborate on the causes and factors of those who are influenced. Additionally, I will explain the demographics and geographical locations in which the problem most commonly affects. In this assignment, I will further discuss a few of the operations that are in place to accommodate those in need of assistance. Finally, I will express a consideration that offers an alternative solution to ending or preventing the matter.

“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.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of poverty on young children and their families. The focus will be on homelessness and how the child is affected in two major settings: the home, or lack of, and school. In both of these settings, children are impacted by different social forces and must push through barriers that are set before them given their circumstance. “Living without permanent, long-term housing creates a number of stressors for children and families, but being homeless can be particularly detrimental to the healthy development of young children” (McCoy-Roth, Mackintosh, & Murphey, 2012). “Homeless families with very young children are one of the fastest growing segments of homelessness. This period in the life

ow many homeless people do you see a day? It’s crazy that America is ranked 13th place for being one the richest countries in the world according to Global Finance Magazine (www.gfmag.com) and yet we have cities ranked worldwide for having the highest homelessness rates, WORLDWIDE. The American Council on Science and Health did a study “From 2010 to 2015, homelessness increased 42% in New York City and 12% in Seattle.”(http://acsh.org) They have a list of cities that had the highest homelessness rate and the top two are New York and Los Angeles, which are both are in the US. There are several other US cities are scattered among the Top 10. And yes, it may be their fault with alcohol and substance abuse, but why not help them? Or maybe it’s

Salt Lake city and New York City have gave homes to the homeless. The homes have been either fixed up to be livable in or the homeless person or family work on repairs before or during their time in the house. Seattle has actually created a tiny house village for homeless people to live and the price to live in the tiny houses are affordable compared to renting an apartment or house. I believe that this example of compassion and ingenuity should be repeated in other cities in America and possibly in other countries. Of course this would only be one drop in the bucket to combat homelessness, but it would be a start to something

Homelessness is like a diseases, increasingly taking down the most vulnerable of our population, but many Americans are insensitive to it. “The population of the desolate increased by two percent from 239,759 to 243,701 in the years 2009-2011 according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness” (Fagan 330). At this rate many could possibly face the same problem and have to deal with the harsh conditions homeless do on a daily basis. Although homelessness is frown upon for the common belief that it is a waste of tax payer’s resources, homeless assistance programs need to be funded in order to provide stability and prevent more diseases along with the risk of destructive behavior, for those who face these daily struggles.

The United Stated is a very wealthy nation. With only 5 percent of the world’s population, America produces more than 20 percent of the world’s output (Schiller, 2008, p.1). More than half of Americans, including adults and children do not have adequate housing or a place to lay their head at night. Homelessness has always been an issue for the United States. Since the beginning of this nation, there have been continuous problems with people who do not have a stable place to live. Many times those individuals stay with family, friends, or any place they can find. Often times when individuals or families have no family or friends, they often resort to shelters, on the street, motels, abandoned buildings, or in their car if they have one. The United States is the most influential country in nation; efforts to reduce or remove this epidemic of homelessness should be top priority.

Out of the thousands of homeless people hundreds of them die each year. The government should be on top of this problem to help these numbers dramatically reduce. Homelessness is a severe problem that can cause mental illness, addiction, and lack of healthcare. To reduce more than only the death toll of the homeless, but also the problems caused from this, more shelters and more permanent housings could be opened. This problem, according to National Alliance, “to End Homelessness was affecting 578,424 of Americans last year in 2014.”

This great nation has amazing power and great amount of resources but this nation and world is losing the battle against homelessness. Homelessness has always been such a huge problem in major cities across the United States and even across the world. The problem is so wide spread that it affects a lot of local communities and even all of us individually weather we know it or not. According to Richard C., “On a daily majority of Americans according to statistics, we are only one or two paychecks away from becoming homeless.” When you look on the street corners of every city in America the casualties can be seen you see homeless people holding signs saying “I will work for food?” Homeless shelters such as the Salvation Army whose missions is to help the homeless they are at full capacity. While there are many reasons a person or family can become homeless, a majority of those come from a lack of income. Anyone that has researched this problem has understood the issue and how complex the homelessness problem is. People of the communities still continue to struggle with this social-economic problem while attempting to understand the causes and implement reasonable solutions.