Poverty and Homeless People

Poverty and homelessness are serious issues in the U.S. today, especially because of the current recession, with levels of poverty and unemployment higher than at any time since the 1930s. Blacks and Hispanics are being affected disproportionately by homelessness, as well as poverty and unemployment in American society. This is just another example of the racial caste system and institutional racism that goes far beyond that of social class, and has always been the case in recessions and indeed with every other social and economic problem in American history. Even though the country elected a black president in 2008, wealth and incomes for minority groups, which were already far lower than whites, have been in severe decline for the past few years (Baumann 2001). Compared to the trillions of dollars in federal assistance that has been extended to the large financial institutions from TARP and the Federal Reserve, programs to aid the poor and homeless have been very inadequate, and are even being cut back on the local, state and federal levels. The poor and homeless also need a program of universal health care coverage, which the U.S. has never had in its history, and like most programs to assist those at the lowest end on the social scale has often been limited or blocked by conservative interests.

When it comes to homelessness it has played a huge role in the lives of my loved ones this is the main reason why I chose the topic. The issue of homelessness is all around us and in this paper i 'm going to show what problems homeless people face everyday. In this paper I want to explore the reasons why many Americans are homeless and how homelessness affects people and the society around them. In this topic I really wanted to be able to see through the eyes of the homeless people and i want to get into their shoes and see what they go through everyday of their lives. I know sometime in my life i 'm ungrateful for the things i have been given. There are times in my life when I wonder where do the homeless people go when its cold outside? Where do they go when a huge thunderstorm is coming? In my paper I want to see how Homeless people make it in this world with the materials they need but don’t have. As I was saying the beginning I have loved ones that faced homelessness and I want to tell you about them.

Quindlen assumes that her audience buys into the cliché of “home is where the heart is,” and believes that homeless people are different than people with homes. The author’s assumptions are reasonable because the idea of homeless that Quindlen is battling, is the version portrayed through the media. When Quindlen included the idea that home is a feeling, she specifically addressed an assumption that undermined her views.

Lately one question has been popping in my mind constantly. Before I present it to you, i need to contextualize my daily routine. I live in the downtown of one of the biggest cities of my country, and in the recent turbulent times we, as brazillian population, have seen an incredible raise in economic inequality. Everyday I walk 20 minutes or so to reach my University, and everytime I walk this path seems like there are more homeless, poor people. The look in the eyes of the people that make this same walk appear to be more cautious and reserved. The speed of their steps seems faster. Everything appears to be more turbulent, and everywhere i look, people seem more reserved and expecting the worst of tomorrow.

“The home is the wellspring of personhood. It is where our identity takes root and blossoms, whereas children, we imagine, play, and question, and as adolescents, we retreat and try. As we grow older, we hope to settle into a place to raise a family or pursue work. When we try to understand ourselves, we often begin by considering the kind of home in which we were raised” (Desmond 2016, 293). Evictions! The root of poverty? Matthew Desmond’s novel “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in America City, portrays the lives of tenants, landlords, and house marketing on the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee. Desmond gives the reader overwhelming evidence and revealing testimony illustrating the major impact of inadequate housing on individuals, local, and national level. Desmond’s analysis and observation of his case study enables him to portray the reality of poverty, and to persuade the readers that evictions are a major consequence, and primary contributors in the relentless cycle of poverty. Desmond build his argument using two Aristotelian rhetorical appeals, ethos, logos and inductive reasoning to illustrates the importance of ending the cycle of poverty.

Poverty and homelessness are serious issues in the U.S. today, especially because of the current recession, with levels of poverty and unemployment higher than at any time since the 1930s. Blacks and Hispanics are being affected disproportionately by homelessness, as well as poverty and unemployment in American society. This is just another example of the racial caste system and institutional racism that goes far beyond that of social class, and has always been the case in recessions and indeed with every other social and economic problem in American history. Even though the country elected a black president in 2008, wealth and incomes for minority groups, which were already far lower than whites, have been in severe decline for the past few years (Baumann 2001). Compared to the trillions of dollars in federal assistance that has been extended to the large financial institutions from TARP and the Federal Reserve, programs to aid the poor and homeless have been very inadequate, and are even being cut back on the local, state and federal levels.

Being a first generation immigrant to the United States I have seen poverty and homelessness more than the average american. I was born in the country of Macedonia, but i'm ethnically Albanian. The average wage for a worker without some type of post secondary education in Macedonia is about 200 euros a month. For those who have some type of secondary education the wages are slightly higher, ranging from 300 to 800 euros a month. The majority of the population makes around $1.33 per hour. This isn't a surprising fact considering the county's GDP of only 13 billion dollars. The majority of the land is impoverished, and jobs are strongly segregated based on ethnicity. The ethnic Macedonians control most of the high paying jobs due to government

He finds a grate to rest on for the night with the hopes that the heat emitted from it will save him from the unforgiving winter air. Just a few years prior, this boy lived with assurance and yet now, his future seems unclear. Nobody ever pictures themselves homeless, but one is merely a tragedy away from being thrown into the streets. On any given night in America, there are up to five and a half hundred thousand people without shelter. In a given year in America upwards of three and half million people experience homelessness, a million of them being children (citation needed). The majority of homeless people are families with children thrust into this situation due to a series of unfortunate and unforeseen events including loss of loved ones, job loss, domestic violence, divorce and family disputes and other issues such as depression, untreated mental illness, post traumatic stress disorder, and physical disabilities (citation needed). The practice of denying individuals of a home, a basic requirement of life, is inherently cruel as shelter must be recognized as a fundamental human

¨Homeless¨ is about Anna Quindlen doing a story on homeless people but meets a woman named Ann; who claims she is not homeless. Ann ends up showing Quindlen a photograph of a yellow house. Quindlen soon understands that a home can not just be replaced by a shelter but a home is where the heart is. We are reminded that the homeless are not just people without homes but they are just rootless.

Shelter is a fundamental human need. Imagine not knowing a place called ‘home.’ You spend each night, uncertain of the weather, on a bench, which serves as your bed. As you wake up to chattering noises each morning, you worry about which public place will allow you to clean yourself up. When you get hungry, you go to a soup kitchen, beg people for change to eat a cheap meal, or search the nearest garbage can. For the rest of the day, you sit in busy areas hoping people will notice you and want to help out. You realize that you are not judged by who you are but what you are. The situation described above is the typical description for homelessness for about 600,000 homeless people in the United States on a given night (“State of Homelessness Report”). Some of them sleep in shelters, others on the streets; roughly one-quarter are children (Crane et al.). In order to understand and prevent the complex issue of homelessness, one must first learn about the various ways through which a person could end up without a roof over his or her head.

The experience of living in poverty and being homeless can have serious and lasting impact on young people and families. Children’s Society report in 2010 states that young people and families who are destitute are surviving in appalling conditions and are made vulnerable to exploitation because they do not have adequate support, access to basic essentials and a safe place to live. They rely on friends for food and a place to stay and they experience significant health problems. Some young people and families who are destitute expose themselves to enormous physical and psychological risk by engaging in transactional and commercial sex work as survival strategies.

While a portion of today’s society turns a blind eye to the subject of the criminalization of homelessness, an even larger quantity of people are not aware of the situation that is happening in every major city of America. For those living an affluent lifestyle, it can be difficult to discuss the amount of poverty and homelessness that is constantly occurring. The definition and meaning behind the absence of home is also arduous to discuss. While homelessness is commonly associated with sleeping outside or in provisional areas, this word also identifies with an absence of belonging. This absence of belonging can relate not only to a community, but also to the people that dwell there (Baumohl 3). Within the portion of those who are aware of the homelessness situation, there is a section that detests the poverty stricken persons of our society. These biased members of the American population express their antipathy in several ways. It is necessary to reveal the privileges that homeless persons have been violently stripped of, and expose and broadcast the freedom they are entitled to. Through

Some people might think that the people living on the streets don’t have a home because they didn’t make use of opportunities while they could. Even though that may be true for some, others didn’t have the best childhood and didn’t have the money to go to school and be successful. I am here to give them a second chance and renew themselves. I am creating an organization to build tiny homes for the homeless.

One major obstacle in overcoming homelessness is obtaining a home itself. The decline in the availability and affordability of housing makes living in a secure home a dream for many. Although there are homeless shelters, public housing, and subsidized housing available, they are rather limited in space, not to mention typically ranging from substandard to outright terrible conditions. Many who have tried living in shelters avoid it because there are more problems living in one than on the street; there are often many problems living in a shelter they report of, such as overcrowding,

One major obstacle in overcoming homelessness is obtaining a home [public/low-income] itself. The decline in the availability of affordable, habitable housing makes living in a secure home an unrealistic dream for derelicts. Although there are homeless shelters, public housing, and subsidized housing available, albeit in substandard to terrible conditions, they can only hold a fraction of the ever-increasing homeless population. Taking refuge in a homeless shelter often is more problematic than sleeping on the street; problems of one can include overcrowding, drugs, theft, and body lice. To avoid