The Effects Of Homelessness On The City

Every New Yorker has the right to a safe and affordable place to live in. New York’s shortage of affordable housing has reached a crisis point. Poor and elderly people throughout New York City are at a greater risk of homelessness and forced low-income residents do not have food or medical care to stay in their homes. A sinful structure of homelessness in New York City is New York’s shortage of affordable housing. Millions of New Yorkers are desperate to find affordable housing and tens of thousands are forced to live either in dirty shelters or on the streets. Recent data indicates that nearly 60,000 people, including more than 23,000 children, stay in the city’s main homeless shelter system (Guelpa). A small amount of poor renter households received a housing subsidy from the local government. Little assistance is being provided which means that most poor families and individuals that seek assistance

Homelessness affects upwards of 3.5 million Americans annually and has been a historical problem since the 1700’s (Cronley, 2010). People who are homeless do not always choose the situation they find themselves in, but to be more precise, are the victims of a social system that neglects to help them with they first become at-risk of becoming homeless (Edison-Brown). According to the Joint Studies for Housing Studies (2017), almost thirty-nine million American households are living in homes that they have difficulty meeting the required funds to pay for monthly. To illustrate, a person who has a rental home, on average, needs to earn $21.21 per hour to afford a two-bedroom home in the United States (Family Promise, 2016). The poverty line for a family of four is at $24,300, and for someone to achieve that line, they need to be earning at least $11.70 per hour

One of the simplest pieces of knowledge we acquire in elementary school (for future growth and development) are the three basic needs a living organism requires for living: food, water, and shelter. However, not everyone has access to all of these essentials. Homeless people are faced with awful conditions and suffer more due to poor weather conditions, diseases, and lack of safety. There hasn’t been much progress on this issue, and if this continues, the number of homeless people will only increase. In a few states the topic is being named as a “statewide emergency”, but unfortunately this problem is national. Instead of focusing on state programs, local programs and non-profit organizations to fix the housing issue, we must all contribute to ending this epidemic. The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) released an article stating, “In January 2015, 564,708 people were homeless on a given night in the United States” (Snapshot of Homelessness). We must develop a solution to end long term homelessness immediately. The best way of solving this issue is to provide stable long-term housing, which is a term used to describe the home’s environment and financial status.

Everywhere you turn in the United States people are sitting on the corners of streets asking for assistance or digging in trash cans for meals. The epidemic of homelessness in the United States has reached an all-time high since the 1990’s. Unfortunately, the adage of people chose to be homeless was not accounting for families that live paycheck to paycheck and lose their job and therefore their housing because it is unavoidable. Alternatively, many individuals that are homeless have some type of mental illness or substance abuse problem thus creating a barrier to maintaining housing. Many of these individuals are incapable to preserve stable employment and have limited support to get off the streets. However, there are several programs that the federal government fund to assist with combating the problem of homelessness in America.

Today, Homelessness in the US is becoming one of the top challenging issues to fix. Recent available data shows an increase the number of the homeless between 2014 and 2015. On a single night in January 2014, 578,424 people were experiencing Homelessness — meaning they were sleeping outside or in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program. From 2014 to 2015, a period of ongoing recovery from the Great Recession, overall homelessness decreased by 2.3 percent and Homelessness decreased among every major subpopulation: unsheltered persons (10 percent), families (2.7 percent), chronically Homeless individuals (2.5 percent), and veterans (10.5 percent). Yet a recent report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, says homelessness decreased by nearly 4% over the past year.. The reports shows:

All over America, there are people wandering the streets without a home. These individuals are seen as a crowd, a separate collective existence. They are called the homeless, as if that defines who they are, but we too often neglect to add the unspoken word in that title; people. It seems today that the more fortunate citizens of America who have a roof over their heads have forgotten their innate responsibility to watch over those in this world whom are incapable of caring for them-selves. The fact is, that there are millions of homeless in America today. Many of these people had no choice but to become homeless. Economic problems such as being laid off work, or the rise in the cost of housing had lead people to

Taken from The New York Times, this article titled “As Temperatures Plunge, Call to Keep New York’s Homeless Off Streets Has Little Impact” discusses the overwhelming issue of homelessness in New York City, and how proper solutions to this issue aren’t being made. Throughout the article, it is evident that lawmakers and politicians who are involved in this issue can “talk the talk”, however they have trouble “walking the walk.” With an issue as broad and pressing as homelessness, there must be organized efforts to ensure that those without homes have a place to stay while preserving their dignity.

The United States is currently experiencing a homelessness crisis, matched by the Great Depression. An estimated number of sixty-two thousand American citizens are restricted to living in shelters in New York City alone, which also does not include those who are not living in the shelters. Giselle Routhier, policy director for the Coalition for the Homeless, addresses this issue in her in-depth website article titled Rejecting Low Expectations: Housing is the Answer. Published in 2017 by the Coalition for the Homeless website (http://nationalhomeless.org), her primary focus in writing this extensive article was to bring awareness to the homeless problem (as of 2017) in New York City and provide the public with possible solutions. In her website

Homelessness is the most important public policy issue to me because it is a serious problem in New York City. In recent years, homelessness in New York City has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression. The number of homeless peoples in the city is constantly growing. In fact, the number of homeless New Yorkers sleeping each night in municipal shelters is now 85 percent higher than it was ten years ago. The mayor worked hard to solve the issue and had success to a certain extent. For instance, according to the Wall Street Journal, city shelters have about 15,000 violations currently on the books, compared with 25,000 at the beginning of the year. Despite the efforts of the mayor, the issue of homelessness is nowhere near a permanent solution.

Individuals and families are being kicked from their homes due to the rising costs of living. Some people can not afford these costs with their annual income and now have forced to the streets or into homeless shelters. Many people might say that homelessness can never be avoided nor stopped but there is hope. By creating a monumental moment in effort to end homelessness, New York city was capable of providing productive results of reducing homelessness in

Since Mayor Bill de Blasio entered office in January of 2014, homelessness has been on a consistent rise even though the number of homeless people nationwide has declined in recent years. In his first year in office, Mayor de Blasio was able to create 16 new shelters across New York City, housing “more than a thousand families and hundreds of single adults.” However, the eight months following, the city stopped opening shelters all together even as homelessness is on the rise. Mayor de Blasio dubs the poverty and homelessness crisis his “No. 1 frustration: of his first three years in office. While it seems like a lot of thought went into the strategies and programs to prevent and rehabilitate these problems, the number of people in homeless

Various individuals visualize New York City as a place that any person would love to live in, but what many do not to realize is the fact that the city has a continuously growing homeless population because of the rising cost to live within the city. Individuals in New York City are living in a time where not even a job may entirely support his/her daily finances.

Homelessness has always been a problem in major cities across the United States and even the world. This problem also affects out local community and even all of us individually. (Daily) A majority of the American people lives paycheck to paycheck, and according to statistics, we are only one or two paychecks away from becoming homeless. While there are many reasons a person or family can become homeless, a majority of those problems come from a lack of income. The job market of today is quickly dwindling and shows no signs of improvement. This market mixed with new government policies is becoming an issue for struggling American’s on the poverty line. Homelessness is becoming a vast problem

Homelessness, what is homelessness? Well, there is no official definition of the word homelessness. According to Health centers funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) use the following:” A homeless person is an individual without permanent housing who may live on the streets; stay in a shelter, mission, single room occupancy facilities, abandoned building or vehicle; or in any other unstable or non-permanent situation.” - Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act.

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty” (Brainy Quote, 1997). In the past homelessness was known as a result of any war. Nowadays, the percentage of homeless people is around 60% worldwide. Also, the concept of homelessness is an expression that covers a huge number of countries which means it shifts from nation to nation. Individuals who are needy are regularly unfit to earn and keep up a standard, protected secure and sufficient stay. Being caused mainly by the individual’s conditions, homelessness can affect people’s health and personal life.