Obstacles Contributing To A Community

Going on the end of the year service trip to Denver really opened my eyes to how many people are affected by homelessness. Homelessness can have many causes and can happen to anyone. In our societal system today once someone has reached poverty and become homeless it is very hard to recover from this cycle of poverty.

In Rudy’s case he had to move into a janitor's closet at Notre Dame because he couldn’t afford anywhere else. First when Rudy thought no one knew about it, Rudy went through the window. Then, the man in charge of the janitorial staff gave Rudy the key because he knew how badly Rudy needed it. It wasn’t the best living conditions, but for Rudy it would do for then because he strongly believed he would be in Notre Dame soon, he was correct. On the contrary, Shawn was living out of his car because of his family. Shawn was living with only a few clothes, football clothes, and football gear in his truck. Nobody was there to help Shawn out in that time, he did it all on his own. Shawn persevered through it and was tough enough to ber it until he go to college. Rudy and Shawn were both homeless, but found strength in themselves to keep going until they achieved their

theres a homeless man that live on the streets of DC, he had nothing and no where to go. one day he thought to himself, i want to do better but he didn't know where to start. i had met him on a school event called YSOP and we worked out in Washington DC homeless kitchen. Watching him for the next three days opened my eyes and showed me that if you really want something you have to motivate yourself cause sometime no one will.

Poet Dylan Thomas once spoke, “Dark is a way and light is a place , Heaven that never was nor will be is always true”. One's life is not charted by how much money they make, or how big their house is, because in the blink of an eye, it can all be gone. I believe life is charted by the impact you have on others. Starting this book has reshaped how I think about the growing problem of homelessness. How I address the problem, and how I see and want to find ways to fix it more than ever.

An experience in my life that influenced my academic goals was being homeless at the age of 15 to 17. i was living on the streets stealing from stores to eat and other people too who i saw to weak to fight back. My child hood wasn't the greatest but i had the support

After being homeless for two and a half years with a single father and two little brothers, I learned that all things are not given to you and have to work hard for what you want. I have seen my father work very hard to raise three kids who were surrounded by this vicious cycle of crime and poverty in San Francisco Public housing before passing away due to kidney failure. Watching my father pass away before my eye may have been the hardest thing ever to face as 16 year old. The experience of losing my father as well as many of my friends to prison, drug trafficking, gangs, and neighborhood violence motivated me to aim for a better future. College, I realized (and still do), became my outlet for achieving my dreams. I believe that, if peers in the urban areas of San Francisco been given the right guidance, support, and resources they would have graduated and moved on to excel in higher education. It is this belief that has led me to dedicate much of my time to providing support and resources for underprivileged youths during my undergraduate career through a camp program called Camp Towd. My long term goal is to open a non-profit organization as I want to be apart of a team that serves at-risk youth that encourage them to take the right path in life. Instead of allowing youth to repeat the cycle of crime and dropping out of school, I want to be an example to them that you can grow-up in poverty,nonetheless still manage to beat the odds and go to college to obtain a stable job in the future. I feel that people should have a second chance at life where they go to rehab programs and have a mentor to help them achieve their goals in life, as I want to be that mentor one

Always, I was told from parents and elders that anyone can achieve their dreams through arduous work and dedication. Surprisingly, I hadn’t pondered this until I observed a shivering homeless person standing at the corner asking for help on one snowy, frosty winter day. This affected my life greatly. On the way, I just started thinking about the life of homeless people and how they are not fortunate enough to get their own place to live, their choice of delicious food to eat and several other amenities that we all enjoy in our everyday lives. An incident, like this, sparked an enthusiastic sense of compassion and empathy in me. Along with my family, I started thinking deeply and my thoughts to help the homeless expanded to other areas and I wanted to start helping the community around me as much as possible.

I grew up in poverty in Douglas County and have a personal goal to help people in my community overcome struggles. I come from a text book dysfunctional childhood. At times I did what I had to for pure survival growing up. I have done a lot of self-reflection and realized while I have went through struggles it has made me the strong, nonjudgmental person I am today. I feel my personal background and education will benefit me as a human service professional.

Unemployment and lack of education plays a major role in these individual homeless people’s lives. With unemployment and high school dropout rates rising, homelessness cannot be prevented. Kids are taught from a young age to stay in school because the ones that dropout around high school is more than likely to become homeless. High school dropouts are likely to become homeless because they are likely to get kicked out of their dysfunctional home, or possibly run away from home feeling as if they are not good enough for the family. Dropouts will find it difficult to preserve a job, most will turn to drugs, becoming an addict, only hoping that it will make things better, really just increasing the rate of poverty and homelessness.

The issue of homelessness is one that I can relate to all too well. About twenty five years ago I found myself among the homeless. My story is simple, I had no formal education and was working a job making minimum wage. I couldn’t keep up with my rent and other living expenses and was finally evicted from my overpriced apartment. At the time I was on a waiting list for public housing for which there was at least a two year waiting period. The fact that I was single, with no children did not help me either. For a while I lived on the streets and in shelters, too ashamed to approach what family members I had with my problems knowing that they were

Transition: Now that i've discussed how poverty is constructed, I will share with you how personal problems play a role in homeless.

One of the biggest changes in history is how the responsibility for helping the less fortunate has shifted from community members such as the wealthy would help the poor during the protestant era, or 11th century (Martin, 2014). To now a more individualistic society, that generally tends to utilize stereotypes and lacks compassion (Martin, 2014). Where the way a person decides to live their life, and what material possessions seem to be important (Martin, 2014). Therefore, anyone that deviates from this belief of success is a thought to be a failure or lazy. Thus, as a society, perhaps we tend to be more subjective than objective, thus continuing to feed into the cycle of homelessness (Martin, 2014). After all, homeless individuals of all ages are not using resources are much as they should (Martin, 2014). One suspected factor is that homeless people feel a high level of shame as it is, that using resources would only heighten the shame (Martin, 2014). This same thought process is what may be contributing to the 2 million adolescents living on the streets in the United States (Martin, 2014). Some of the runaway youth end up on the streets due to running away from an abusive environment, being kicked out by family, or because

The homeless stand down was an eye-opener experience for me. I had the opportunity to interact with several individuals, and one family. Initially I conducted some interviews with them to help complete the questionnaire; and the remainder of the time, I escorted the individuals and helped them choose items that were necessary for them. As I talked to each of them, I realized that the present state of these individuals were a product of the current economic situations. According to the National Homeless Coalition (2009), work factors are one of the many reasons why individuals are homeless. One of the individuals that I spoke to informed me that he was working a regular nine to five job at a construction site, but now due to the

“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure” (Bill Cosby). Reflecting back on my life I have dealt with numerous downfalls but I always bounce back. I was born in India and moved here when I was six years old. As I grew up in California I was not a bright student at first. I was enrolled in Carmichael Elementary in which I was the only one with Turban on my head, which caused me to get into a lot of fights with other students who were making fun of turban. Not knowing how to speak English at the time affected the way interacted with teachers and students. On the other hand my family always had a tight budget at home. Both of my parents worked at the store we owned which was the only source money. At school kids were always talking about their new shoes and the iPod which his or her parents got them. I didn’t get everything I wanted as a kid but as I got older I understand if did I could be a spoiled brat. When I moved from Carmichael to Sacramento and I was enrolled at Maeola R. Beitzel elementary. Going to this new school I already learned English so I made marvelous friends and was surrounded by positive people. Going from a chaos environment to this harmonious environment in part because I was speaking English, made me have unique personality .I was playing sports and growing as a student. Those years went by in no time. Now I am in high school and my family’s income has been growing. My mom changed her work to now at Jack in

Throughout my educational experience, I have endured countless hardships that made progress difficult at times. Although it was a struggle through my strong dedication to education, I have also earned a list of achievements for my hard work. These experiences from, failing two of my English classes, to excelling tremendously in mathematics, have molded me into the type of student I am today. I am a student with a growth mindset and, an optimistic outlook on education and, the bright future ahead. I now understand the impact that a positive mindset can have on your future. I am definitely proud of the student I have become. I feel like my journey is unique, but is also very relatable.