The issue
The issue I am concerned about is of homelessness. There are many people who are living in the streets, hungry, cold and lonely. According to estimates, 100 million people worldwide are literally homeless. They have no shelter: they sleep in doorways, in parks or under bridges. Or they sleep in public buildings like railway or bus stations, or in night shelters set up to provide homeless people with a bed. (Leach, Monte. "A Roof Is Not Enough - a Look at Homelessness Worldwide, by Monte Leach, Share International Archives." N.p., 12 Jan. 2016).
New York is the second place where there are more homeless people. In New York there is a street where a lot of homeless people stay during the day and night. The government declared homelessness
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The number of homeless New Yorkers sleeping each night in municipal shelters is now 91 percent higher than it was ten years ago. ("Poverty." About. Web. 24 Feb. 2016). African-American and Latino New Yorkers are disproportionately affected by homelessness. Approximately 58 percent of New York City homeless shelter residents are African-American, 31 percent are Latino, 8 percent are white, less than 1 percent are Asian-American, and 3 percent are of unknown race/ethnicity (“Basic Facts About Homelessness: New York City - Coalition For The Homeless.” Coalition For The Homeless. Web. 01 Mar. …show more content…
Media can be bias, so that is why you have to do more than one search and know what is the bias. This website “End Homelessness” has a bias by selection of source. In the article it says “ While circumstances and vary,” the website does not talk about the other problems that can cause homelessness. The article says, “It is the scarcity of affordable housing in the United States, particularly in more urban areas where homelessness is more prevalent, that is behind their inability to acquire or maintain housing.” It only focuses on not having an affordable home. The website also mentions the types of groups that can become homeless and why. The groups are families, youth, veterans, and chronic homelessness. According to the website the reason why all these groups can become homeless are because of financial crisis, family conflicts, physical problems or mental illness. Basically, we all can become homeless, but not just because we cannot afford a home. Most problems that can lead to homelessness can happen to anyone even the richest person. Homelessness is not just about not having money, but it is also not having any support from family or friends. Even homelessness is expensive. While searching on major news sources like Fox News and MSNBC, only one or no information was found about homelessness. Instead the cites brought up other topics that had nothing to do with my searched. It seems like
The United States will continue to be a developed country if the numbers of people holding cardboard on the street do not decrease. 1 out of 7 people in U.S suffer from hunger and are forced to sleep in parks, under bridges, in shelters or cars (Hunger and Homelessness 1).Every year, the homeless population grows in United States. People become homeless because of many reasons. Because they are homeless, they have been struggling in every way that human possible can have. In order to get back on their feet, they need help in every way. The homeless population is increasing drastically in society. People who are more fortunate than others should put social status aside and take an action to help homeless people to get back on their feet.
Homelessness in the United States has been an important subject that the government needs to turn its attention to. There has been announced in the news that the number of the homeless people in many major cities in the United States has been increasing enormously. According to United States Interagency Council on Homelessness reported that there was an estimation of 83,170 individuals have experienced chronic homelessness on the streets of the United States’ streets and shelters on only a single night of January 2015, which is a small decrease of only 1% from the previous year (People Experiencing Chronic Homelessness, n.d.). The United States must consider this subject that most of the people underestimate it and not pay attention
Homelessness is a real serious health issue all over the world that must be addressed. A lot of people in a public frequently misunderstand the cause of homelessness. Remarks regarding homeless people such as “they need to just get a job” or “go to school” are normally used liberally by members of society because they neglect to look at the complete issue. Homelessness does not discriminate. Individuals that have previously experience or may experience being homeless can be from different regions, have different cultural backgrounds, ages, and could be of any gender. Minorities seem to be mostly affected by homelessness. A study done in 2012 found that the homeless population is consisted of 39% non-Hispanic Whites, 42% African-Americans, 13% Hispanic, 4% Native-American, and 2% Asian (Now on PBS, 2012). The End Homelessness website provides the following statistics:
In the word homeless there are two root words, home and less. Home is what most people would define as the place where they live, or grew up. Less, simply means not as much as. When you combine the two together homeless equals someone who grew up in a home that was held to less standards than what they would normally be held up to. For example, someone who is homeless could live in a box, it sounds terrible but unfortunately it is a part of our reality. Not everyone can afford to live in a house, pay mortgage, and all the other expenses that come with the responsibility of owning a house, or home. Today homelessness still has an affect on many people.
Presently, one of the main causes of homelessness in American is the lack of affordable housing. New York researchers claim that affordable housing is the answer to homelessness. Researcher, Mary Beth Shinn, states, ?homelessness is first and foremost a housing problem not a psychological one? (qtd. in Franklin 15.) Nearly all the families in their study became stably housed regardless of substance abuse, mental illness, physical illness or incarceration. This study indicates that homelessness is not a permanent condition. People do get themselves out of the problem when an intervention occurs to provide them with access to the housing market (NYU 2.) Without permanent housing, people are unable to keep jobs and are more likely to become ill. Permanent housing provides stability that enables them to find and retain employment with health benefits.
Encouragement from one 's community plays a significant role in the ability to overcome homelessness; without such motivation from peers, a lack of trust and confidence can occur, lowering their self-esteem and want to get out of homelessness. Through the article, Homelessness: Perception of Causes and Solutions, written by Lindsay Phillips, the study shows the way in which those within a community perceive the homeless, and their inability, or the inability they believe they possess, to benefit the community as a whole, this Phillips calling a stigma. Addressing the idea of social biases. Where those not conformed to society, seem to pose a threat to the rest, believing that without a roof over your head you 're inadequately qualified to hold a job.
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). Therefore, even though America is one of the most powerful countries in the world, homelessness, which has many common causes, has always been a big problem in society.
The root cause of homelessness is largely be explained by economics: people who become homeless have insufficient financial resources to obtain or maintain housing. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) shows that 75% of households at or below the poverty line are severely housing cost burdened. Unexpected financial crises would jeopardize housing stability and lead to an increased risk of homelessness.
Many of the homeless population are not homeless by choice, many have lost the only job in the household, many are military veterans that have not assimilated back to civilian life, and some are homeless due to natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. It can happen to anyone of us. A hurricane, earthquake or wildfire that is out of control can destroy your home within minutes. We must never say never when it comes to the possibility of being homeless, especially when we consider the impact that natural disasters have. Worldwide natural disasters render middle class people near poverty and the poor, homeless.
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.
The economic component of the homelessness situation can be broken down into two interrelated parts: housing affordability and a low income rate. The economic recession that followed the financial crisis of 2007 left many individuals unemployed during a time that saw a spike in the price of housing. So not only did the cost of living increase, the rate of income also decreased accordingly. Unsurprisingly, during these same years homelessness rose from 24.2 percent in 2007 to 29.4 percent in 2009 (citation).
The United States has a lengthy history of homelessness that could be dated back to as early as the arrival of European settlers arriving to the New World with very little or nothing at all. Early attempts at identifying the causes of homelessness simply dismissed its reasons as nothing more than a moral failing on the part of the person experiencing it. Many cities and neighborhoods had zones which largely contained transients and the homeless, much like “skid row” (Schneider, 1986). The Great Depression, beginning in 1929 and lasting a decade, caused a devastating epidemic of poverty, hunger, and homelessness. There were two million homeless people migrating across the United States during this period, giving rise to the term
Over the last few years, California has been experiencing a rise in the homeless population despite the efforts to reduce homelessness throughout the nation. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, California has the highest number of homeless people in the United States at 21 percent of the homeless population (or 115,738 people in 2015), and 64 percent of them had no shelter in 2015. However, it doesn’t stop there. Due to gentrification and and rising housing costs, the problem of homelessness in California has been exacerbated in large cities like Los Angeles. In more recent years, California has been experiencing large jumps in the homeless population, such as a 20 percent increase between 2014 and 2015 and a 5.7 percent increase between 2015 and 2016 in Los Angeles County according to the LA Times.
“It has been suggested that newly homeless people are more likely to bypass the shelters and use their homeless assistance money to stay in a motel. Because the government assistance is not sufficient to help the most needy” (Seltser & Miller, pg 48). Again you ask yourself what is the meaning of being homeless? Just think about people who sleep on a park bench thinking warm thoughts, while you’re sleeping in a bed as comfortable as a cloud. Talley, Eitzen, & Timmer stated that, public welfare fails to supply adequate levels of wages and housing support that would avoid them from becoming homeless. People might lose their homes due to loss of employment, overwhelming medical expenses and debt, or domestic violence. Homelessness can affect people of any age or gender, but the majority of homeless people are elderly men, single women with young children, and teens who have run away from home. You can categorize homelessness as a social class. Race also plays an important role, since people of color are among the extremely poor. There are people with many different problems that force then to become homeless. They do however all have one thing in common they have nowhere to live. Some factors that contribute to homelessness in America that make it unpreventable are the lack of education, economic factors and mental illness. Lack of education is something that is looked down upon in today’s society.
Homelessness is a problem virtually every society suffers from. There are many things that cause people to become homeless, such as unemployment, relationship problems, and being evicted from ones domicile either by a landlord, friend or even a family member. However, with every cause there must be an effect. Some of the effects of one becoming homeless, besides the obvious change of lifestyle, are various health problems which often times may lead to death.