What Should Be Done about Our Nation’s Homeless?

How many of us know that within one year about three million Americans live in streets and shelters? There is more than one legal definition for homelessness in the United States. However, different institutions use their own operational definitions of homelessness. For instance, the National Health Care for the Homeless Council defines a homeless individual as “an individual who lacks housing, including an individual whose primary residence during the night is a supervised public or private facility that provides temporary living accommodations, and an individual who is a resident in transitional housing.” There are so many factors that push people out of their house. Based on the factors that cause homelessness some writers categorize the homeless into two: the “economic homeless” and the “chronic homeless”. On the one hand there are the economic homeless who live in the streets or shelters because of economic problems, on the other hand there are the chronic homeless, who are either mentally ill or addicts of drugs and alcohol (Kirszner and Mandell 541). Homelessness is a huge problem in most cities of the United States. So far states and cities including the federal government have been taking measures to tackle the problem, but unfortunately most of the measures taken weren’t fruitful, because most of the measures are either emergency relief services or superficial and hypocritical measures like criminalization of homelessness by some cities to get rid of the homeless from their downtown. However, the solution to the problem of homelessness is formulating and implementing sound policies and strategies which address the systemic or root causes of homelessness.

Despite the fact that cities are spending millions of dollars to ...

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... because of systemic problems, rather than personal problems and personal choices. The argument the “normal must care themselves” doesn’t sound appropriate in situations where there is no level playing field for everybody and there are historical injustices. Asking people to take care of themselves while at the same time systematically denying opportunities is self-contradiction at its best.

Works Cited

America (editorial). “The Meanest Cities” America: the National Catholic Weekly 6 Mar. 2006.

Derbyshire, John. “Throw the Bums out: but Do So with Compassion-Coolidge-Style Compassion” National Review 15 Nov. 20008.

Hernandez, Javier C. “City Program for Homeless is Criticized” New York Times 09 Aug. 2010.

Stoehr, John. “The Answer to Homelessness “American Conservative Vol.13, Iss.2; p.7

Warren, Mathew R. “The Neediest Cases” New York Times 13 Nov. 2010.