Poverty And Homelessness

Homelessness has been a prevalent and contentious topic since its public emergence in the 1980’s. In fact, according to the most recent estimates, on any given night in the United States, there are roughly 645,000 people residing in homeless shelters or unsheltered street locations (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2011). And based on a local study done by the Mental Health Unit at the Houston Police Department in 2011, Houston has the largest homeless population in Texas and the eighth largest in the United States. While many great efforts have been put forth to aid the homeless population in Houston, “the public health epidemiology task of quantifying and tracking child and family homelessness over time has been complicated…by increasing rates of…shortages [in] affordable housing” (Grant et al., 2013), and restrictions on temporary encampments (Loftus-Ferren, 2013). In order to successfully reduce, prevent and combat homelessness, more policies must be put in place to create sustainable, affordable housing for homeless families and to modify current laws that harm homeless individuals.

The National Law Center on Homelesness and Poverty. “Homelessness stems from a lack of affordable housing. Increasing rents, destruction of traditional low-income housing, and cuts in federal housing programs threaten affordable housing with extinction.”

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

As a matter of fact,“[m]ost people are not aware of other realities different [from] their own and think it is a ‘social norm’ to have [basic necessities] and a ‘social abnormality’ to live in the streets” (Source A). These people fail to realize there could be a situation in which the homeless could not avoid the cause. For example, some homeless people are born to a family in poverty. According to research, poverty is the largest contributor to homelessness, and “the World Bank, as of August 2008, [estimates] 1.4 billion people live on $1.25 per day or less, and 2.7 billion people live on less than $2 per day” (Source B). Although poverty is the largest cause of homelessness and is often called ‘the silent killer’, natural disasters, in extreme measures, could cause a person to lose their life along with their home. Homelessness can become a reality also when people become evicted when their bills become high and are not paid on time. The government lacks public assistance for people who are homeless because “[e]ven though the government has provided some shelters for homeless people, overcrowding forces many [people] to live in the streets” (Source

Accessibility to affordable housing for the homeless in an issue that not only influences the impoverished, but people of all races. The insufficiency of stable housing forces individuals who are facing extreme poverty, at times, to make choices that are out of their control. The loss of employment and distressful events that have occurred in their lives can eventually lead to a person or a family becoming homeless.

The United States of America is the place known to many as the land of the free, home of the brave, and the place to start a better life. With any place that has good qualities, some have not so good qualities. The homeless population in the United States is at a staggering high, and many individuals are suffering because many lack employment/financial resources, housing resources, support from family and friends, and others negligence; such as natural disasters or fires. Homeless individuals may have no other choice than to live on the streets, trains, and alley ways to name a few places where homeless people seek shelter. The history of homelessness, social problems, demographics, common clinical

Poverty and homelessness are caused by racism, lack of education, alcohol, drug abuse, and individuals who have been born into poverty and are not able to afford the means to get ahead, such as going to college. Homelessness is defined as the lack of a regular, fixed nighttime residence, no matter whether the homeless live with relatives or sleep in parks, shelters or vehicles. About four million people experience homelessness at

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,

Last month, the Obama administration released a plan designed to end homelessness in 10 years. The goal reflects new optimism among academics and advocates that homelessness is not an intractable feature of urban life, as it has sometimes seemed, but a problem that can be solved. This belief is fueled by recent research debunking a number of long-standing myths about homelessness in America -- and showing that many of our old policies were unwittingly making the problem worse.

Race plays another factor in poverty and homelessness. The African Americans represent the biggest group at 57%, Whites is 30%, Hispanics is 10%, Native Americans are 2% and Asians 1% (Homeless Action Network of Detroit, 2015). What causes homelessness and what can be done to prevent it? There is no definite reason but there are several driving forces why people become homeless, such as job loss, chronic unemployment, losing home to foreclosure and domestic violence are a few reasons. Still, poverty is the driving factor for many families facing homelessness. According to Svoboda (2015), among the nations twenty biggest cities Detroit has a high poverty rate, which comes in at number two next to Flint. 41% of the cities residents live below the federal poverty line, nationality the number is 16% (Svoboda, S., 2015).

Sadly though, In the United States alone 549,928 people were homeless in January 2016 (“Snapshot of Homelessness”). Even though this number is so high a lot of cities do nothing about the homelessness in their area. One reason people do not help is they believe the homeless individual caused their issue. That is not always correct, though. The most frequent cause of homelessness is property destroying disasters (Griffiths 18). With housing being the main issue it makes sense Housing First would be the most successful. Another reason people are homeless is divorce and abusive relationship (Griffiths 18). Which again show housing programs would be beneficial. It makes people wonder why more states do not start housing

A time when we gave young people the opportunity to thrive. A time when we gave veterans the opportunity to find decent housing in the very country they risked everything to protect. A time when we gave all those who’ve fallen on hard times the chance to turn the page and start anew.” Everyone is helping families meet this need. Everyone is giving them new hope for the future. And because of every ones work, in just three years Castro has seen an eight percent drop in family homelessness. Society must create an infrastructure that gives everyone a fair shot at achieving the American Dream. A little over than one million people are served in HUD-supported emergency, transitional and permanent housing programs each year. There are four types of federally defined categories under which individuals and families may qualify as homeless, they are: literally homeless, imminent risk of homelessness, homeless under other Federal statues and fleeing/attempting to flee domestic violence. Other impairments such as depression, untreated mental illness, post traumatic stress disorder, and physical disabilities are also responsible for a large portion of the homeless. Two trends are largely responsible for the rise in homelessness over the past twenty thru twenty-five years: a growing shortage of affordable rental housing and a simultaneous increase in

In the technologically advanced world of the Twenty-First Century, where computer technology has eradicated borders in society, creating unique communication opportunities and business ventures worldwide without leaving home is phenomenal. The significance of the advances in technology is the fact that homelessness is not just a problem in the United States, it has global implications. The people that die and are displaced as a result of homelessness is a major challenge to social justice. Through the tenets of the Critical Race Theory, it’s been statistically qualified and quantified that minority groups are frequently targeted and suffer from socioeconomic neglect, resulting in homelessness. The Lack of equal access to supportive

While the idea’s that have come forth to try to solve the problem of homelessness, many people have come up with great solutions that are currently helping these individuals. The programs that are in place provide shelters for people who have been kicked to the streets and have no place to stay. These shelters provide food, clothing, water, and best of all a place to sleep. However, these shelters require the individuals staying there to seek a job during the day. The biggest problems these shelters have come from the rules that apply to those staying. The current rules allow homeless people to take advantage of the program by allowing them to stay there for up to 6 months, and then they must move to another shelter or live on the streets. The problem presented with this rule is in most cities they have more than one shelter, which allows people to abuse the system and live under the care of taxpayers indefinitely. However, most people understand that there could potentially be more than one reason why a person would need to return to a homeless shelter within 6 months to a year, but not spend almost their entire life using

Poverty is considered the most common and pervasive cause of homelessness because everything else is linked to it. Had someone not been poor, loss of his job wouldn't land him on the streets; similarly lack of public assistance is only a problem if you need it. In other words, when a person loses his job, or seeks public assonance or looks for affordable housing, he is doing it because his income is unable to help him meet his expenses. For this reason, he can be categorized as poor. Thus many poor people are forced to end up on the streets. Unfortunately a very significant portion of this population is composed of innocent children who are forced to live on streets because their parents cannot afford a house. "In 2007, 12.5% of the U.S. population, or 37, 300, 00 million people, lived in poverty. The official poverty rate in 2007 was not statistically different than 2006 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2007). Children are overrepresented, composing 35.7% of people in poverty while only being 24.8% of the total