The Homeless Population

Homelessness in the United States can be ended, not just maintained. Allot of cities now have plans to eradicate homelessness. Homelessness and housing instability are large issues that afflict a diverse demographic such as: Families, youth, veterans, and chronically homeless single male adults. Ending homelessness may require specialized solutions that are specific to individual needs. Factors like these make defeating homelessness a difficult task. Although solutions exist for some of the demographics, such as housing for chronically homeless adults, scaling up best practices remains a challenge. For other subpopulations, such as transitional aged youth, evidence-based interventions need to be developed. In this paper we argue that ending homelessness is a Grand Challenge that is big, important, and compelling—one that the profession of social work should be adopt. Meeting this challenge will require a focused, organized response from social work researchers, clinicians, and policymakers. Ending homelessness will require innovation and interdisciplinary or cross-sector collaboration. Key words: Housing First, Permanent Supportive Housing, rapid re-housing, prevention, poverty. The notion that homelessness in the United States can be ended, rather than managed (Mangano, 2002; National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2012), represents a fundamental shift in expectations from the 1980s and ’90s. Since the early 2000s, researchers, policymakers, advocates,

The Denver community is working to help alleviate this cycle of poverty from their community. It was great to see that even though this is a huge problem in Denver they are taking steps, however small in light of the current situation, to improve their community. On our trip, we worked with DenUM Urban Ministries which is one such place trying to educate the public and help give aid to those who are homeless. Through this program, our group had the opportunity to learn about homelessness through hands-on activities. Showing the logistics of what poverty looks like on a personal level in a families finances and the tough choices

Over the years Los Angeles has had the highest number of homeless people; this situation has been highly overlooked by media and political attention. Cities in many parts of the world may be known as centers for poverty whether if it 's a developed or developing country. No city, state, or country is prone to homelessness. Los Angeles in particular is an entry point for many immigrants who come to look for jobs. The intentions are not to cause there to be a vulnerability to poverty but to try to make a living some how. “Skid Row homeless population originates in South LA – where services and shelters lack resource adequacy and unemployment rates are high among adult men – and policy discussions rarely focus on this trend” (Howard, 4). Los Angeles Skid Row, is known to have the heaviest homeless population compared to other cities. Los Angeles does provide some homeless services like shelter and low-cost housing options for the poor but one of the issues that many homeless people come across is the lack of healthcare. Everyone can suffer from physical and mental health issues but there is a bigger impact on the homeless people in the Los Angeles county because they are not obtaining the proper help mentally, physically, and socially. Many people lose their lives or spread many disease amongst the community. The city of Los Angeles should provide healthcare for the homeless because this issue affects the homeless and everyone else around. More disease are passed around, more

The controversial issue of the homeless in New York has been an ongoing battle for several years. Many leaders like Andrew Cuomo have come to the conclusion that obligating homeless people into shelters should be enforced, yet others oppose the idea. They believe such harsh actions shouldn 't be taken. Journalist like Hinckley, who wrote "Can New York Force Homeless People into Shelters?" and Marc Santo, who wrote "Keep New York 's homeless off the streets!" have written articles with fact based information with details on the homeless living conditions. In my opinion, such actions shouldn 't occur. The homeless in New York have the right to choose their living conditions, therefore they shouldn 't be obligated to be put in shelters.

Homelessness is a social problem that is everywhere. When driving a car or walking down the street, sooner or later, there will be a homeless person. The exact number of homeless in America is difficult to obtain, but it is estimated that 2.3 to 3.5 million people nationwide will experience homelessness every year (Thompson. p. 2). Why are they homeless? While the causes of homelessness vary, there are a few reasons which are always present. Learning some of these reasons can help give a better understanding of the homeless situation. Homelessness is a social problem in America caused by financial difficulties, domestic violence, and substance abuse.

According to a study done by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, in America alone, more than 3.5 million people, including 1.35 million children, experience homelessness yearly (nationalhomeless.org). Of that 3.5 million, 35% are families with children (studentsagainsthunger.org). Worldwide, 100 million people are homeless yearly (homelessworldcup.org). These people are forced to sleep in parks, under bridges, abandoned buildings, shelters, and sometimes cars if available. There are approximately 1.7 million homeless teens in the US and 1 of 7 of every teen are runaways (dosomething.org). More than half of these teens will use drugs or alcohol to self medicate through their traumatic experience. Unfortunately, 5,000 of these teens and young adults die yearly because of assault or illness on the streets (dosomething.org). In most cases, homelessness is temporary, but is still a problem encountered by many. Homelessness and poverty are increasing epidemics around the world, striking millions of people every age, ethnicity, and religion.

Homelessness is a problem that happens in many different countries around the world. Definitions of homelessness are defined in different meanings by different people. However, the Stewart B. McKinney Act defines a homeless person as “ one who lacks a fixed permanent nighttime residence or whose nighttime residence is a temporary shelter, welfare hotel, or any public or private place not designed as sleeping accommodations for human beings” (McNamara 1025). It is impossible to find out exactly the number of homeless; however, the researchers can do a study to estimate that number. Based on different statistics from different researchers, the homeless population in America has been increasing as “an alarming rate” (Markos and Lima).

During the Great Depression, millions of Americans were unemployed which was a huge issue. Unemployment led to homelessness and being poor. Millions of people were unemployed and struggling to find any jobs (Hayes). As the Great Depression got worse and worse, the number of hiring jobs decreased and less jobs were available. Companies were “Firing and not hiring” so many Americans were homeless and unable to make money to support their struggling families (Hayes). The loss of jobs did an incredible amount of damage to the Americans living during this horrific time.

The history of homelessness in America has been documented since 1640. During that time, homelessness was perceived to be a personal, ethical imperfection. Much like the members of today’s society, the first impression of a homeless person is considered to be that they are lazy, drunken, or a bum. On the contrary, homelessness is not always a matter of choice, and vagrants are not deserving of their predicament. The Industrial Revolution, American Civil War, and Great Depression exemplify some

Whose responsibility is it to help the homeless in the United States? I believe that it is everyone’s responsibility. As of January 2015 the homeless count in America was 564,708 people (Fluit, 2015). Even though this is a decline in homeless in America this is still unacceptable. As Americans we need to do all that we can to decrease these numbers. There is so much we could do that would go a long way to help our homeless, like donating time or money to the proper organizations.

While health care in America is slowly improving, are we leaving people behind? Imagine waking up day and night with an infection that has no possibility of healing. Homeless individuals face this reality on a daily basis. For decades, America has been fighting to decrease and eventually eliminate homelessness. However, with the decline in employment opportunities and an increase in living cost, living the “American Dream” is now becoming a nightmare. Due to the rough culture of homelessness, individuals affected by homelessness cannot access medication as easily compared to the average middle-class citizen. Even with the advancement of the world’s richest country, there are still a large percentage of homeless individuals without essential necessities.

I live about 30 minutes away from Seattle the third place state when it comes to the homeless population. Seattle is home to over 10,000 people living without a shelter. They are mainly concentrated in a place called “the jungle”. The jungle is a violent place located underneath one of seattle's many (highway things). 3 miles of tents housing what has been declared a state emergency.

I think homeless population are underserve . Even though many of this individuals suffered mental illness, criminal records on their file,trauma and no family support, I think homeless populations are underserve because of the high cost of housing in San Diego, Ca. This population interests me due to not only because I have children of my own and would never want them to go through life without roof over their head. Also, I work in Downtown San Diego and drive every day seeing many homeless individuals including families sleeping outside their tents and it bothers me to see this. Shelters in Downtown San Diego are so full, that people sleep outside the building waiting for a open bed, this is disturbing to see every day. Lack of Federal funding

Homeless in Baltimore City is a serious issue that must be resolve. There are different types of homeless people: Chronic, transitional and episodic homeless people. However, there are several or multiples reasons for which people become homeless. It could be due to lack of financial incentives or economic reason, immigrants people (students or foreign), a choice of an individual or poverty, housing needs of the lack of low-income housing and other issues such as unemployment, underemployment, domestic violence and divorce. As Policymakers, we will focus on the homeless people in Baltimore and advocates some solutions to end this issue. Although we will suggest some policies and solutions that can be helpful for the homeless people. Baltimore’s homeless population has been increased in recent years. Public, state and local government should be involved and their participation would be required to fulfill those programs. First, the government must assist community and most importantly to ensure that those solutions that they will create are long-term goals. Having a house, a permanent supportive housing is the first solution to resolve for the homeless people. So, the government must take vacant homes in Baltimore city and turn it into affordable permanent housing which will benefit the people because some homeless people usually prefer to be in abandoned building of housing and they are somehow charge with loitering it means a crime with a stiff fines. Homeless people can

Imagine something that you have been wanting so dearly for many years, or perhaps even since yesterday when you were window shopping with a friend at the mall. Suddenly, a random pedestrian walks towards you and simply hands you that thing that you are wanting, strikes a small conversation, and then leaves. Now, envision yourself in a different situation: you are the only source of income for your family, working two jobs a day, on top of being a single parent, and Christmas is coming up, yet you don’t have the money to spend on Christmas presents for your children because you have been using that money to pay rent to keep a roof over you and your family’s heads. You are slowly running out of food, and your paycheck doesn’t come in the mail