Summary: The Importance Of Understanding Homelessness

Homelessness is a social problem that is prevalent around the world. Homelessness has existed for much of "civilized" human history. In the last two centuries, homelessness and changed and expanded. Sociologists who study and research homelessness have argued over its formal definition for decades, though for some, the definition of homelessness seems self explanatory and obvious. The paper will examine homelessness, particularly as a sociological issue, or a social issue seen from a sociological perspective. The paper will additionally reference sociological theory as a means of explanation for homelessness, such its causes, the demographics/populations, and other prominent known characteristics of homeless people. There are individuals and groups who choose to be, from a normative societal perspective, homeless, but for a great deal of the homeless population, it can be a treacherous and tragic lifestyle that is a result of a distinct set of social, societal, and individual factors.

Currently, the rates of homelessness in America continue to drastically increase. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (2012) depicted how many people are homeless in a single night in America. The findings revealed that there were approximately 633,782 people who are homeless in America or 20 out of every 10,000. Approximately 394,379 are single individuals and 239,403 are people in families with 77,157 homeless families in a single night, and approximately 162, 246 are children. Veterans are more likely to be homeless than those who are non-veterans, approximately 29 out of every 10,000 veterans are homeless. Unfortunately, 38 percent of those who are homeless are unsheltered, either living on the streets or in places that are not suitable for human inhabitation. Most states account of for less than 1% of homeless population, whereas Texas contains approximately 5.4% of America’s homeless population. In San Antonio, there are approximately 2,981 people who are homeless each day, and 1,243 are unsheltered. Through a sociological perspective, the social problems of homelessness can be analyzed through the concept of sociological imagination, the comparison of the person-blame approach and the system-blame approach, and through the analysis of one’s own community’s effort in helping those who are homeless.

There are over 10,000 people that are homeless in Denver (Schrags, 2017). Losing a job, becoming sick or even a lack of affordable housing can cause someone to become homeless. To better understand the dispute on homelessness, we will look at the issue a few different ways. There are many perspectives but the main three perspectives are functionalism, the conflict theory, and symbolic interaction.

Homelessness has been a problem in Hawaii, and especially Oahu, for more than two decades. The homeless have overrun the islands but it is no surprise as the circum- stances allow for it. Multiple factors contribute to the ongoing dilemma including the high cost of living, Hawaii being an island state, and the expensive housing. The prob- lems that cause homelessness are not going to go away by themselves. Although the problem is not increasing, the numbers show that it isn’t decreasing and shouldn’t be unless the state and community acts.

Homelessness exists as a prominent issue that plagues society in various ways. It brings about hardship and controversy as individuals struggle to survive on a daily basis. Additionally, this complication tears families apart and ostracizes individuals from a society where they once belonged. A specific problem regarding homelessness consists of lack of interest from bystanders; some of these spectators refuse to even acknowledge homeless individuals sitting at their feet. As homeless people live their lives on street-corners, the more fortunate members of society choose to engulf themselves in their personal problems alone. Displayed by their clothing and accessories, most of these individuals possess the ability to help in some way;

For a start, as my social and human capital assignment, I will be focusing on homelessness and the associations it entails. Through exploratory research, via peer reviewed journal articles and one in-person interview, I have collected data to see what social disparities and/or oppression the homeless population face from day-to-day. Furthermore, I had the pleasure of conducting my interview with a 62 year old chronically homeless male originally from Nigeria. The location of the interview took place at a homeless shelter in Dallas, TX. Through the duration of this assignment, my participating interviewee will be identified as Bingo for confidentiality purposes. Equally important, as the interviewer – I was sensitive to the participant’s responses

Homelessness is an arising problem within the United States. Poverty and homelessness are inheritably linked. As children we were raised to believe that through hard work and determination that we could accomplish anything. We all had dreams of having nice cars, a nice home and lots of money, however this is impossible when a person is living pay check to pay check and close to being homeless. Knowing that we live in the “land of opportunity” brings many dreams to anyone’s mind, however, many families are experiencing financial issues that are causing them to become homeless because they cannot afford to live and pay their bills, food, child care, health care and education (National Coalition of the homeless, 2007). Homelessness in

Through my past experience with this problem, I was interested to learn more information about the issues surrounding homelessness. Recently, I volunteered at the Vinnies Fitzroy Soup Van and was completely shocked seeing how people can live in situations where food may not be an option that week. Being able to voluntarily help a person suffering was such an amazing and heart-warming feeling. After many visits, I was fortunate enough to hear a story from a young woman named Louise. She had discussed that she ran away from her home after her father had repeatedly assaulted her, which concluded to her being homeless. To hear this personal story it made me realise the many upsetting factors that contribute to people being forced to become homeless.

There are many different ethical concerns that involve homelessness as a problem in daily society. In public life, people often forget that homelessness is not a choice that many make, but instead a consequence of a culmination of events that are out of the control of the victim. The lifetime prevalence of homelessness is surprisingly high, according to an essay written by John Song called “Homelessness and Clinical Ethics,” 7.4% of all adult Americans being homeless at one point in their lives (Song 210). Homelessness is much more common than many people realize. It is nearly of epidemic sizes within the United States, with streets and shelters full of people who have no other choices.

In this assignment is trying to tell me how to synthesize the content of these two sources and also give a brief argument. The Myth of Helplessness and What I Learned about School Reform this two essays tells me about the different what is going on in the reality? So I took one topic of the two essays and I will write about and argue the social forms that are society goes through in the reality.

Everybody knows what it means for someone to be homeless, but most people do not really know what it means to actually be homeless. This is the basis of my project, conducting research over five weeks to learn as much as possible about the homeless and evaluating the change in my levels of empathy. In order to evaluate any change, I first had to outline my feelings about the homeless. In general, although I didn’t have "extreme feelings towards the homeless", I felt this assignment could "change my perspective". Most of my opinions were generalizations about the homeless "having done something wrong rather than" assuming misfortune, "accept[ing] their position and not attempt[ing] to

Seven billion people, that is the number of individuals that fill this vast world and 25 percent are homeless. Homelessness does not just transpire overnight, in poor countries, and to adults. This dire circumstance can develop anywhere: from poverty stricken countries to the wealthiest in the world and to people of any generation. Tragically, 30 percent of the homeless population is comprised of children ("HomeAid."). Government and communities need to work together to develop more solutions to elevate homelessness. Simply stated an individual should not be required to beg in order to survive.

The current social welfare issue that I chose to explore is homelessness within Canada. First, this essay will give a brief description of homelessness. Secondly, it will describe how homelessness relates to some concepts and theories that we learned in this course Introduction to Social Welfare, it will also look at what may have happened to people facing homelessness one hundred years ago, next we will explore a possible solution to this social issue and where this fits within the political ideologies. Finally, I will give a brief explanation on whether social media is an effective tool for bringing about awareness regarding social issues.

There are many factors why we have this issue toward homelessness, like poverty issues, mental and physical problem where they feel not part of society that reflected their problems by not be with the community in one way. But now the there are many approaches that communities and police agencies are taking to address homeliness. There are communities and police agencies that helps homeless that needs medical care, housing, food and social service like in South Florida. Referring to the website "Sun Sentinel City's innovative leadership key to addressing homelessness"

Understanding how both individual and structural factors contribute to and sustain homelessness is a critical factor in successfully addressing homelessness. All to often service providers blame homeless individuals for the circumstances they are in, making assumptions that substance abuse or other irresponsible behaviors have caused the problems leading to the individual to become homeless. Hoffman and Coffey (2008) suggest, “the perpetuation of homelessness is not internal to the homeless individual as many claim, but rather may be embedded in the service industry itself, which subjects both clients and providers to bureaucratic forms of authority and experiences of disrespect.” While not all homeless people suffer from mental illness or substance abuse, all of