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.
There are specific statistics that illustrates the magnitude of the issue. According to Penn Current, there are approximately five thousand individuals that are homeless in Philadelphia. An article written by RRI, mentioned that there are one point five million people living in Philadelphia and almost twenty-six percent are below poverty level. Newswork provided the statistic showing forty percent homeless youths are LGBT. As for adults, about thirty-five percent are homeless due to lost of job, nine percent are due to alcohol or drug addictions, ten percent are disabled or suffering from mental illness, ten percent are due to change in family status, another ten percent are due to incarceration, fifteen percent are due to inability to pay bills, and eleven percent are due to abuse. As a
The purpose of this paper is to bring acknowledgement to the homeless population in Philadelphia. Research will be provided from scholarly journals as well as published, credible websites. We will explore the overall statistics in the United States but will have a focus on the city of Philadelphia. The homeless population is large and its evident there is an issue with housing and mental illnesses. While there are programs to assist, the homeless population outnumbers the resources available here in Philadelphia. This paper will explore the different types of people impacted such as families, youth, veterans and the elderly. This paper will explain and acknowledge that Philadelphia doesn’t provide enough support to assist the homeless. This paper will focus on the resources and support of local services and but also bring attention to the lack thereof.
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.
Homelessness is a national epidemic that affects much of our society. “In Texas, there were 29,615 persons homeless in 2013, meaning that approximately 12 out of every 10,000 persons in Texas are homeless” (Homelessness 101). Homelessness is a problem that is everywhere and unseen by many. There are many community outreach programs, religious organizations, including government agencies that aid in the welfare of homeless. Why is it that homelessness still remains a unsolved
Job loss is another large contributor to the increase in homelessness. I think that James Temple of SF Gate in his article titled “Striving to serve growing homeless population”, describes this best when he said “The chronically homeless stand alongside the newly desperate, people whose take-home pay didn’t last, who didn’t get the hours they’d hoped for, who unexpectedly lost homes or jobs”. Massive job losses are changing homeless culture. According to the Ken Homa, Goodwill Director of Housing Services in Traverse County, MN, “There has also been a significant increase in people
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
Homelessness has become an evolving epidemic of our time, and the health implications associated with being homeless makes it that much worse. Homeless people are at major risk for premature death and a wide range of health problems such as HIV, skin blemishes, and much more. It is very difficult for homeless people to fix their health issues due to the difficulty of accessing health care possibly because of missing health cards, or simply because of the stigma placed on them when they enter a public facility. Whatever the problem may be that is forcing more people to become homeless, it must be solved, and quickly before our world turns into a travesty.
Homelessness became a huge problem in everywhere especially in the USA. Most people heard homeless people, and they saw homeless people in the streets, markets, or bridges. Most people never try to understand why there is much homelessness. Most people do not know any facts about them seem the truth of homelessness, the state of homelessness in the United States, and the effect on people from homelessness.
First and foremost, how do we defined a homeless person? According to National Health Care for the Homeless Council, homeless is defined as “an individual who lacks housing, including an individual whose primary residence during the night is a supervised public or private facility that provides temporary living accommodations, and an individual who is a resident in a transitional housing” (“definition of homelessness,” n.d.). It is important to recognize that homelessness is worldwide and social problem because it is directly affected by large social forces that affects individual’s social life. In a research made by Coalition for the homeless says that in December 2015, there were 60,096 homeless people in New York city, including 14,553 homeless families with 23, 885 homeless children. Moreover, this becomes a social problem, due in large part to structural inequality and it affects a wide variety of people that can range from those people experiencing eviction, unemployment, family relationship breakdown, domestic violence, health crises, poverty, mental illness and substance abuse. These reasons can be the precipitating factor in the onset of homelessness.
Homeless people have been around us for a long time. It occurs when the family faces problems and leave each other with nothing on them. Disabled people often get rejected from social services and end up in the streets. Veterans get robbed by the government and end up on the streets too. Everyone dreams of living in a house someday and not living on the streets. The government should make rules that help and benefit homeless people. Sometimes kids, at a young age, leave their parents because they have a lot of conflicts going on around the house. Homeless people’s lives are hard. Homeless people apply to get the job but get rejected by the manager because they have nothing on them and because they are poor. Sometimes a person getting out of prison will have a hard time getting a job too. Let’s see how there are sociological perspectives and how they view homelessness.
I find it is most appropriate to begin with the causes of homelessness in America. The circumstances are unique and it is difficult to pinpoint one main cause. As stated in the most recent annual survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, major cities across the country report that the top four causes of homelessness among families were: lack of affordable housing, unemployment, poverty, and low wages. The same report found that the top causes of homelessness among solitary individuals were lack of affordable housing, unemployment, poverty, mental illness accompanied by the lack of needed services, and substance abuse. For women in particular, though, domestic violence is the primary reason for experiencing homelessness.
In Philadelphia, homelessness is all around. On every street in the city, there will most likely be a homeless person asking for money or sleeping on the ground owning little to nothing. Homelessness is not only a major problem in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania but entirely the United States. There are so many people living on the streets, in abandoned houses, and even cars. The majority of homeless people are veterans, drug addicts, unemployed people, people who have a mental illness and teenagers who have ran away. The best solution to getting people off the streets and able to work, make money and living in a house or apartment that they can afford is for the state to give more money to homeless shelters and organizations. If the state of Pennsylvania gave more money to homeless shelters, the shelters would be able to open up their doors to more homeless people and help them get back on track. The shelters would also be able to build more shelters so they can eventually get all of homeless people off the streets. They would be able to hire more people to help out with their mission and teach the homeless way in a crash course of getting their life together. For the drug addicts, there would be rehab offered to the homeless and it would then eliminate not only homelessness in itself but also drugs on the streets. With such astonishing numbers, homelessness has increased within the last few years like never before. There are more homeless
In the city of Philadelphia, one of the most prominent social issues is homelessness. Homelessness simply is the state when someone does not have a physical residence and resorts to living in public either on the street, in public places, and/or in public buildings. People often become homeless after living in poverty for quite some time, another huge issue in the city of Philadelphia. Personally, I am aware that walking around the city, whether on campus or downtown, I am more likely than not going to see at least one homeless person. There has been a lot of research done on the homeless and impoverished in Philadelphia and there were some very surprising statistics that were revealed. Based on these statistics, many claims also regard the
To begin with, individual conditions are major causes of homelessness, and they are quite numerous. For instance, the past of the individuals could be packed with shocking events. Some people have really hard time getting over them, and they always cause them many psychological or physical problems that may hinder their development in life. Shocking events may include loss of job or money. Research (as cited in Gowan, 2010) shows that 22.61% of homeless people are not working seriously to earn enough money. In addition, personal crises, whether social or economic have a huge impact on the individual’s present situation. If someone faces bankruptcy they have a higher chance of facing homelessness in the future. Also, mental illness
According to Social Solutions there are 564,708 people in the United States that are homeless as of 2016. 15% of the homeless are chronically homeless, which means an individual who has disability and has experienced homelessness for a year or longer. 35% are families who can’t afford housing, 8% of the homeless are veterans due to poverty and overcrowding in government housing, and the rest of the homeless are single young adults who either got rejected for being who they are or there was conflict and they ran away.( Social Solutions) The National Alliance to End Homelessness explains,
Homelessness is a major problem facing many cities. Some people are homeless because of unfortunate situations, and others are homeless by choice. Homelessness has been around since 1640.