Homelessness in America

Political forces, which are controlled by the government, can majorly influence and change the way people live their life. From the Federal Housing Administration, which enabled citizens to become homeowners by underwriting mortgages, to the Interstate Highway Act, that change the route of expressways, political forces can dramatically change the way a city runs and functions. Wilson (2011) states, “In short, public housing became a federally funded institution that isolated families by race and class, resulting in high concentrations of poor black families in inner-city ghettos” (pg. 14). Wilson describes political forces as

For the past fifty years the shift from meeting the housing needs of the poor through government projects-based housing to a more individual approach, has been slowly implemented. Housing vouchers now enable underprivileged populations to move from high-poverty, segregated neighborhoods to more un-segregated, low-poverty neighborhoods. Low-poverty neighborhoods have less crime, better opportunities for employment, and more diverse schooling options. Some housing advocates however, contend that housing assistance is unnecessary and is an income subsidy that should be combined with other social safety nets (Clark, W. 2008).

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,

Wilson (2011) research proves that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), contributed to the early decay of inner city neighborhoods by withholding mortgage capital and making it difficult for these areas to retain or attract families who were able to purchase their own homes. As the federal government created this program it excluded certain inner city neighborhoods. This exclusion created “redlining” which assessed primarily on racial composition. People who wanted to get out of public housing and purchase a home in a redlined neighborhood were denied proper mortgages, even if they had sufficient funds. Wilson (2011) says that such restrictions such redlining restricted many opportunities for building or even maintaining quality housing in the inner city, which in many ways set the stage for urban blight that many Americans now associate with black neighborhoods. Policies like this one were created to make blacks stay in the inner city

Public and Federal administration insisted that public housing was essential for a successful urban revival program. City leaders asserted that cities needed public housing in order to redevelop the slums and alleviate the post-war housing shortage. New York,

Whose responsibility is it to help the homeless in the United States? I believe that it is everyone’s responsibility. As of January 2015 the homeless count in America was 564,708 people (Fluit, 2015). Even though this is a decline in homeless in America this is still unacceptable. As Americans we need to do all that we can to decrease these numbers. There is so much we could do that would go a long way to help our homeless, like donating time or money to the proper organizations.

Government housing for the homeless and at-risk families could prove useful in preventing people from living on the street. A policy called Rapid Re-Housing has been proven effective to help the homeless obtain a permanent living space. The cost per person to house the homeless would cost

In this study, I will take the time out and investigate the effects that every day citizens have on homeless citizens and how we can play a big role in helping homelessness decrease. Over the past years many citizens haven’t established safe and stable places to live. I will then elaborate on how you can be sheltered and unsheltered and still be considered homeless. My main objective is to find out what the government and citizens of America can do to help provide for homeless citizens and enable them to provide and function on their own. Homelessness is one of the top major issues

Public housing first originated during the mid 1900s when the Housing Act was passed by Harry Truman. Public housing is meant to provide housing to low-income families with financial help from the government. Public housings are usually located or set up in low-income areas. Some public housing areas are run down or falling apart because of how much is being spent on it. The federal government should increase its funding for public housing.

Can you imagine if you had no house and had to sleep on the street in the United States? You are sick and need to see the doctor. What do you do? People who have no house are called homeless people. When they don’t feel well and need to see a physician, they do not know where they can go and ask for help. Homeless people have the barriers of access to health care in the US. Therefore, the government should ensure that homeless people gain information about health care services and can access those services. To understand the extent of the problem, we first need to understand what the definition of homeless people and health care are, and what are the connection between them. Then we can discuss what the barriers of homeless people accessing

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

There are 7.125 billion people in the world. 3.25 million of those people live in the United States and 564,708 of those people are homeless. They live on the streets and disturb the peace by asking for food or money as people rush through the city. A simple solution to the homeless problem in America is to make them live in landfills. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. has 3,091 active landfills and over 10,000 old municipal landfills and this would be more than enough space for the homeless, but will there be enough trash for them? The average human throws away 4.5 pounds of trash every day. Each human will produce enough garbage for every homeless person.

It is important to understand the events which led to the adoption of the Section 8 program in order to determine the intent behind the adoption of the legislation in the first place. Federal government did not intervene with housing programs until the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Due to high levels of unemployment, high levels of home foreclosure rates, a failing banking system, and a stagnant construction industry, Congress passed the U.S. Housing Act of 1937, which represented the beginning of federal housing assistance in the United States. It aimed to provide funds to develop high-quality public housing units for low-income tenants in order to stabilize and reinvigorate the economy.

Housing policy in the mid 20th century was predicated on the notion that only certain people could gain access to class mobility and all subsequent policies were constructed in that vision. Those who benefited from those policies exploited the very people, whose denial of mobility propelled them into their position, leaving a class long neglected by the U.S. government stuck in the same position of exclusion with no aid in sight. The current affordable housing crisis in the United States is an outcome of decades of misguided policy making and capitalist ideology that began in the mid 20th century.

I chose to focus on the rent voucher/section 8 housing, because it is very common in my town and the surrounding towns I grew up in. Section 8 housing was created to help those who could afford housing, particularly for those who are low-income. Voucher housing better known as section 8 housing “allows low-income people to live in a private-market housing unit, the landlord, who is in a contract with the government, is not allowed to take anymore than 30% of your income for rent” (Palen, 255). “In 2000, there were more than 1.4 million families that lived in section 8 housing, but many families could not find apartments that they could afford to qualify, because their income was to high” (Palen, 255). Because of the lack of section 8 apartments “the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has increased the amount of apartments open to receive section 8 housing” (Palen, 255). Although section 8 housing is very popular for developers and business people, “many section 8 housing apartments have had many tough times because of dishonest officials” (Palen, 255). The “construction of new low-income housing has seen its share of failures in the past”, which is why rent vouchers tend to be more common rather than building a whole low-income housing unit that could