For many of us, shelter and food are things that may come easy. However, the same cannot be said for many people in the world today. While we complain about the weather or the food not tasting the way it should, someone out there today may not even have a place to stay or food to eat. Homelessness is an issue that we’ve all heard of and probably witnessed as well. Most people will point fingers and say that it’s the individual’s fault for always doing drugs and not having a job. However, that isn’t true for most cases. A lot of people are not aware of the correlations and causations, magnitude, and demographics of homelessness. Often times, we are more focused on whose fault it is rather than what actually caused the problem and who is being …show more content…
According to an annual report by the Congress of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the number of homeless individuals in 2017 is estimated at around 554,000. From this number, 193,000 had no access to night shelters and were forced to sleep in tents, or the streets. On a given night in 2017, there was an estimated 134, 278 homeless individuals in California alone. Another thing is that, 44% of all the unsheltered homeless individuals are found in California. Of these number 37,360 experience chronic homelessness, which refers to people who have experienced homelessness for at least a year or repeatedly. Clearly, homelessness affects a large number of …show more content…
The factors that tie in with veteran’s homelessness have to do with the fact that a large number of them are affected by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is a mental health problem that is developed after experiencing a life-threatening event, such as combat, natural disaster, car accident, or sexual assault. Because of this, veterans are more likely to turn to substance abuse in order to escape from their PTSD. As well, the lack of family and support system takes a toll on them. On top of that, they have a hard time coming back to the workforce because the military jobs and training put them at a disadvantage when it comes to regular employment. However, as of recent statistics, the numbers of homeless veterans have actually been decreasing. According to the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs, “There was a 17 percent decline in the estimated number of homeless Veterans nationwide between January 2015 and January 2016.” There has always been some kind of push for the government to do more in helping veterans. Based on these numbers, it seems that they have finally made an effort to help out veterans and the results are looking
Homelessness is an issue in American society today that affects anywhere from 800,000 to 3.5 million people. There are a substantial amount of people that are without shelter, food, or employment, and there are numerous other people affected by poverty and homelessness. People living in nearly every city in the United States are affected by homelessness due to the large amounts of homeless individuals living on the streets and begging for money, food, and other necessities. The issue of homelessness has been a constant problem since the conquering of the New World, and soup kitchens and homeless shelters have not been able to fully end homelessness. Especially today, with a lack of affordable housing and high unemployment rates, homelessness is prevalent.
“One diverse population that has continued to increase over the quarter of a century is composed of people who are homeless” (Baggerly & Zalaquett, 2006, p.155). Homelessness has become a growing problem in society because more and more people are finding themselves to be homeless and not knowing where to turn. Many people do not
Here in Tahoe, we are lucky enough to experience a great quality of life, and only a few have to face the horrible life of poverty and homelessness. However, nationwide, even right outside the basin, homelessness is a growing epidemic across the country. There are many ways one can become homeless; for the most part poverty. There are also different concentrations of homeless in different types of terrain, such as urban or suburban areas. Last, there is the ever- growing homeless population, and how much money it costs us for others to live in poverty. These are the questions we ask ourselves about homelessness, and the only way we can help is to know the facts about this lingering
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
A place of safety and security is something that many of us take for granted, until we are confronted in our own neighborhood by someone holding up a sign pleading for help. Homelessness is a problem that has been afflicting hundreds of thousands of people around the world for ages. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, on a single night in 2016, 549,928 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States. That means that there were at least 500,000 individuals suffering without a place to lay their heads at night. In this report I will be discussing the causes of homelessness, who is affected, how it affects people, and homeless mistreatment.
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,
Seeing homelessness develop is a process that the older generation can say they have been apart of. The young generation, on the other hand, cannot say they have seen the development of homelessness. People who are thirty years old or younger have grown up believing that homelessness was always part of the landscape. The younger generation has come to believe that there have always been homeless people sitting on park benches. When an individual is asked what they see most in a large city like Chicago or New York, ‘homeless people’ is a common response. According to the United States Census Bureau, 320.8 million individuals currently live in the United States of America. Imagine the proportion of individuals that do not own a car or even a house to live in. The National Law Center on Homelessness and poverty did studied to conclude that in America more than 3.5 million people experience homelessness each year. Those concerned with the issue of homelessness are curious as to what events had to have happened that lead to the individuals living on the streets. The reasons are different for each and every person. Some of the more major issues that contribute to this are lack of affordable housing, declining welfare assistance, and most importantly, mental illness. Resolving the issue of homelessness is very possible with new ways of housing and treatment for the mentally ill. The relation between the homeless and the mental illness has risen, and the United States as a whole
The Homeless are a vulnerable population. Homelessness is a social issue that anyone can almost be subjected to despite his or her age, race, ethnicity or geographical background. Kornblum (2012) defined homelessness as… “as a social condition in which people do not have regular housing and are forced to sleep in public places, public shelters, or facilities designed for homeless individuals and families” (p.280). The homeless population faces several adversaries in their lifetime of being homeless. Their adversaries are a lack physical and emotional disabilities, and possibly drug abuse. Grant some are homeless by choice, whereas most are homeless by mishaps, but nevertheless, they are humans deserving to be treated with fairness, dignity,
The issue of homelessness has been called as one that is "highly ambiguous and intangible" (Neale, 1997, p.7). Wright defines the homeless a "diverse, heterogeneous lot. No single catch phrase or easy myth can possibly describe them all" (p.46)
There are many ailments that face the contemporary American society, all of which shape the way of life for the American populace as a whole, no matter how minute. The most iconic of these is poverty, as the homeless population of the United States is on the rise, this in conjunction with the increasingly warped spending of the governmental system. These societal ailments go hand in hand for the horrid situation of the poor has been heightened due to the government’s lack of attention and spending directed toward solving the homeless population who is overwhelmed by poverty. All of which can be tied back to priority spending, which can be defined as the thought out use of money usage that results in the most needed areas of debt being resolved first based on what is truly needed in comparison to other spending options. Though, a change in the government’s policy for spending can easily
The severity of homelessness and poverty has been a much-debated topic in America. Some people believe that homelessness is one of the most serious issues in our country, while others think that the percentage is not high enough to qualify homelessness as a massive problem. In, reality, however, the subject of homelessness cannot be confined to simply “existent” and “non-existent”.
In our society today with a worsening economy and a lack of jobs or affordable housing, homelessness can affect anyone at any time. There are many root causes as to why people are becoming homeless. As outlined by the National Coalition for the Homeless, factors that contribute to the growing numbers of homeless people in communities revolve around poverty, eroding work opportunities, and decline in public assistance. Causes of homelessness are not limited to the stereotypical reasons of addiction and mental health anymore, but have also begun to include effects from the financial
Homelessness has always been a problem in major cities across the United States and even the world. This problem also affects out local community and even all of us individually. (Daily) A majority of the American people lives paycheck to paycheck, and according to statistics, we are only one or two paychecks away from becoming homeless. While there are many reasons a person or family can become homeless, a majority of those problems come from a lack of income. The job market of today is quickly dwindling and shows no signs of improvement. This market mixed with new government policies is becoming an issue for struggling American’s on the poverty line. Homelessness is becoming a vast problem
Although homelessness is an issue that most people admit exists, few want to come together and be a catalyst for change. Many people just want the problem to disappear because it inconveniences them, but their preconceived ideas about homelessness stop them from doing anything about the unhoused. According to Utah’s Comprehensive Report on Homelessness (2014), most of the conceptions we have about the homeless are actually myths with little basis in fact. One of these myths is that the majority of people without a home are chronically homeless.
As many as 3.5 million Americans are considered homeless each year. Often, people believe that homelessness is a complication only caused by the poor choices of a single person when they are typically the result of multiple uncontrollable factors. For some, the line between being homeless and not can be very thin, with several obstacles preventing stability. These individuals and families commonly come from more deprived areas. Those who are homeless can be very different to each other in how and why they came to be in their situation, but they all have in common their desire to find a way back to a normal and healthy lifestyle. Homelessness is an issue created by poor physical and mental health, a lack of money, and relationship complications.