While little is being done to solve this issue, one in every thirty children are homeless in America, and all these children experience the lifelong damaging effects of homelessness that could last a lifetime. How are so many children homeless? In our Wentzville area, the population in 2010 was 29,347 and 33.7% of that population were children below the age of eighteen. This means that about 391 children in the community are suffering homelessness at any day. Fortunately, there are some things we can do as a nation and community to solve this growing issue.
Homeless children lack a regular and adequate nighttime residence. Along with that, a child can be considered homeless if they share a house that is owned by someone else, if their parent’s
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Many things cause child homelessness such as the nation’s high poverty rate, lack of affordable housing, continuing impacts of the Great Recession, racial discrimination, the challenges of single parenting, and domestic violence or other previous traumatic experiences.
Children who experience homelessness are impacted mentally, physically, and emotionally. These children suffer from chronic stress and trauma from frequent moves, inconsistent relationships, lack of social interaction, and witnessing domestic violence and substance abuse. For example, domestic violence and substance abuse witnessed by children will impact them for the rest of their lives. For example, those circumstances can cause families to lose their homes from a lack of money that is going towards drugs. These children that see their own family tear apart will certainly be damaged emotionally. They will become more prone to engage in domestic violence and substance abuse in effect. In another example, homeless children that are relocated from place to place often have to be pulled out of school and away from friends. As a result, homeless children often
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The rise in prices for food, housing, and other basic needs add into the increasing numbers of homeless people, such as young children, because they are not able to afford these basic needs. At the same time, homeless single mothers struggle with their histories of violent victimization, post-traumatic stress disorder, and major depression while homeless with their children. Forty-one percent of these mothers then develop a dependency on alcohol and drugs, and they become poor in physical health. Maternal depression and parental substance abuse have negative outcomes for their children, because these mothers put their money into drugs to satisfy their cravings for the drug due to addiction. This loss of money contributes to the cause of homelessness and not being able to afford food or a permanent
Abuse and neglect are one of the top three leading causes of youth homelessness. “Studies show 70 percent of homeless youth have suffered some form of physical, sexual or emotional abuse”
1. A whooping 43% of the homeless population is children. The children are by far the largest and fastest growing segment.
Every year, homeless population is increasing. 3.5 million People experience homelessness in a year (“Hunger and Homelessness” 1). Most of the homeless are family and children (“Top Causes of Homelessness in America” 1).In the homeless population, 35% of populations are children and children homelessness is increasing the most. One fourth of the children are under 18.
Family homelessness is a fairly new social problem in America. Beginning in the early 1980’s, families with children have become the fastest growing segment of the homeless population.
42 % of these children were under the age of five. (End homelessness organization. 2012).
As a result of anti-poverty legislation being placed into effect all over the country to force workers back into the capitalist labour market, which has taken hold in neoliberalism, the number of families finding themselves on the brink of homeless is skyrocketing. Furthermore, with the reduction of social assistance programs these families are barely able to provide for themselves, therefore, numerous children are being physically impacted by homelessness. According to Jenny Hsu (2015) hunger and physical illness are effects children and youth may experience due to homelessness that greatly affect their development which is unacceptable for our government to allow this many young people to be negatively impacted. Thus, the links between these
Many believe that a common thread among the homeless is a lack of permanent and stable housing. But beyond that, the factors leading to homelessness and the services that are needed are unique according to the individual. To put them into one general category ? the homeless- suggests that people are homeless for similar reasons and therefore a single solution is the answer. Every homeless person shares the basic needs of affordable housing, adequate incomes and attainable healthcare. But a wide range of other unmet needs cause some people to become or remain homeless which include drug treatment, employment training, transportation, childcare and mental health services (Center 8.)
Homelessness can happen to anyone unexpectedly. Many poor people are at the risk of homelessness. The cost of living and trying to find affordable housing can be very difficult. Many who are homeless are in poverty, have a mental illness, or addictions. Homelessness happens from personal, as well as structural factors. Many aren’t able to make enough for rent, as well as, utilities, food, and other expenses each month. More than 6 million Americans pay more than half of their income towards rent (Reamer, 1989). The trend is once someone becomes homeless, it is likely they will be homeless repeatedly. To end homelessness, affordable housing will have to be created because it is peoples largest single expenditure (Anderson, 2013).
Homelessness can result from children running away, being abandoned by parents, extreme poverty within the family and/or unsafe/unstable living conditions. Being in situations where a child has worry about where they are going to sleep or where there next meal may come from gives them little time, if any, to focus or even think about attending school. In addition, attending school means a need for the upkeep of personal hygiene, having clean clothes and most importantly transportation to and from school, which can add more stress to a child outside of the fact they are homeless. Not having these things causes high levels of depression, anxiety and low self-esteem. Th...
It is estimated that, “each year, more than 3 million people experience homelessness, including 1.3 million children” (NLCHP). Clearly poverty and Homelessness come hand in hand, and the economy downfall has only contributed to this growing crisis. “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” (NLCHP). Most people in poverty have a housing affordability crisis, which means that they pay more than half of their income for rent, so therefore they have to buffer to deal with unforeseen expenses. This indicates a constantly struggle financially therefore anything such as an accident, sick child, or loss of employment could tip you over the edge. Some including factors that contrib...
With the worsening state of the economy there has been a steady rise in the rates of homelessness for all ages. The causes amongst youth homelessness include financial instability, abusive guardians, conflict between the youth and their guardians in dealings with sexual activity or pregnancy. This leads to a greater need for government assistance, welfare, charity. It includes those same youths growing up to experience higher rates of divorce and mental illness. They will have a greater chance of ending up in prison, in poverty, or even plagued by addiction.
According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors (2008) there are several key factors that cause homelessness and they differ between families and single adults. For families, the causes are lack of affordable housing, poverty, unemployment, low-paying jobs, domestic violence, mental illness and substance abuse. For single adults the causes are substance abuse, lack of affordable housing, mental illness, poverty, unemployment, and low-paying jobs. The top things needed to combat homelessness is more housing for people with disabilities, better paying employment opportunities, and more substance abuse services.
Homelessness has different meanings to different people; someone who has never been homeless might think homelessness is a person who lives on the street, in a tent or in a box. Many people don’t realize that there are a number of homeless people, who couch surf with friends, family or the ones who live in motels which are unaccountable in the numbers of homeless people. People including families with children, seniors, single parents, youths and those that are single are living in accommodations that are below standards and consider themselves as homeless.
...s mothers say that they weren’t employed when they became homeless. They were stay at home moms taking care of household chores and taking care of their children and satisfying their husband’s needs. They didn’t ever think that they would become homeless or ever get a divorce. These mothers try to survive with working two jobs, but the income isn’t enough to take of all the bills and provide food on the table for the family. The overall situation is that there’s lots of reason teens become homeless weather its run away or eviction. This all causes teens stress and sometimes even there life’s. Mother’s even give there children away because of these type of situations, so they want suffer or have a bad life. Lots of adoption agency’s have received lots of babies and teens over the years because of the poverty and finical situations that there parents are in.
Furthermore, Homelessness is also a strong outcome of poverty, in comparison to people that are in poverty, but live in a home. Homeless children do not have access to adequate nutrition and medical care therefore causing even more health problems. Homeless women “experience higher rates of low‐birth‐weight babies, miscarriages, and infant mortality”(Cliffnotes,2015). Homelessness makes it extremely difficult to obtain a job due to the many under developments; mental and social that are obtained due to this life making poverty a never ending cycle, extremely difficult to