Imagine your life with no food and no home at all; looking for something to eat in the trash cans and living under the 91-Freeway, scary isn’t? Well, if the government doesn’t do anything this will become reality. Poverty and homelessness has been a major issue in the USA. According to Emily Alpert Reyes, a writer in the Los Angeles Times newspaper, about 8.9 million people in California live under the federal poverty limit ($23,021 annually for a family of four); in Los Angeles, about 25.9% of the residents live with income below the poverty level. The poverty rate in Los Angeles has been increasing in the past years because city revenues are in long-term stagnation and expenses are climbing (Kantor, Brian, and Contreras-Sweet). Poverty and homelessness in Los Angeles can be prevented by providing services to the homeless, increasing taxes and creating more jobs. The government should provide more services to combat poverty. During the Great Depression during the 1930s, Franklin D. Roosevelt created the New Deal to provide relief. These services helped a lot of people in poverty. The programs of the New Deal were successful because by 1940, “the economy was roaring back to life with a surge in defense-industry production” (FDR creates the WPA).One of the services that the government offers to prevent poverty and homelessness is the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. This program generates housing affordable to very low and low- income residents of Los Angeles. This program doesn’t really help because “Los Angeles has become a City where rental and for-sale housing is well beyond the reach of the working poor as well as moderate-income residents, which results in increased overcrowding and little disposable income for the other neces... ... middle of paper ... ...dules/emp-pov.htm Phil Bartle is a sociology professor and was Chief Adviser for the Uganda Community Management Programme (CMP). United Way of Greater Los Angeles “Year 3, Quarter 3 Report” http://www.unitedwayla.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Y3Q3-Final.pdf United Way of Greater Los Angeles is an organization that helps people to get out of poverty by providing housing, education, and money. The president of the organization is Elise Buik. "U.S History Pre-Columbian to the New Millenium." An Evaluation of the New Deal http://www.ushistory.org/us/49g.asp The Independence Hall Association (IHA) was founded in 1942 to spearhead the creation of Independence National Historical Park. The IHA owns ushistory.org, which supports the mission to educate the public about the Revolutionary and Colonial eras of American history. Their main goal is to teach history to others.
Homelessness has been a long standing problem in the United States dating back to the American Civil War and significantly increased during the Great Depression. After the Great Depression, even when the economy regained strength, homelessness continued to be a widespread problem (NLCHP, 2007). Due to the deindustrialization movement in 1950’s, many people lost their jobs. Factory jobs offered well-paid wages and needed little to no skill base. Therefore, during the deindustrialization movement, people were left with no source of income and no skills to find another job. As a result for the United States Government not establishing anything to a...
The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) has created a federal policy design to aid the homeless and spread awareness of the situation. Their main concern was to enhance the ability of certain programs to prevent and end homelessness for low-income families. Providing cheap and affordable housing is obviously a major factor in helping to curb homelessness, yet it is still inadequate in dealing with the root issues (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2012). However, these policies are not making any progress because homelessness is still on the rise. All through the San Fernando Valley there is a considerable lack of space in hostels and housing accommodations where a homeless person can find shelter. There are waiting lists that may go on for months or even years, with little hope of getting shorter. The Los Angeles County needs to invest more money on permanent supportive housing, such as houses and apartments, for the homeless so that they can live better
According to Streetwise of Street News Services (2010), the first reported instances of homelessness dates as far back as 1640, in some of the larger cities in the original 13 colonies. At this time, there were wars being fought between settlers and Native Americans, and people were left with no shelter in both sides (Street News Service, 2010). Later, the industrial revolution caused more homelessness, industrial accidents left many former hard-working families with a dead provider, or with severe disabilities, and then the economy entered a recession in the same time period (Street News Service, 2010). Wars always left a large number of veterans homeless. Later, in 1927, there was an astronomical flood along the Mississippi River, across multiple state, leaving about 1.3 million people without a home (Street News Service, 2010). Natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, the Asian tsunami in 2004, and the earthquake early this year in Japan are still a major cause of homelessness.
Homelessness in America has always been an issue. There have been plans to help solve this issue in San Antonio, Texas, but it does cost local taxpayers millions. It is a tricky situation to solve because some people are innocent and have no other solution to help solve their necessitous situation. Although many people who are impoverished may not be bad, we should eradicate the chronically homeless because many of them are without a roof for their decisions or blameful addictions they can not control and is costing San Antonio’s taxpayers millions.
In order to be radical about poverty, we need to understand the difference between wealth and income. Income is a transfer of money by working or by gifts. On the other hand, wealth is more of a total of accumulated assets that has been stored for a period of time (Conley, pg. 253). Wealth is not distributed equally among the public. (NCH, 2016, http://nationalhomeless.org/about-homelessness/). Declining wages has also caused a lot of stress and increase people’s inability to pay for their housing or other needs. If there are affordable housing, it’s usually in an unsafe and polluted environment or it’s extremely overcrowded that people have a higher chance of being homeless or inadequate housing arrangements than getting their applications accepted (Why Are People Homeless Research, 2016, NCH). Also, privatizing housing will increase the accumulation of wealth of the power elite or those that own property and lands by their pricing in rents. Most people go through depression because of loss of home, jobs, or a sense of self. Often times, the lack education about health and they don’t receive adequate support for medical care if they are homelessness. Poverty is also treated as a criminal offence and if people were to ask for public assistance, they have to prove their eligibility. If they have a criminal record, they are
In fiscal year 2006, the HUD, Department of Housing and Urban Development, was presented a budget by the Bush Administration consisting of $528.5 billion for homeless programs (Romeo 1). The problem of homelessness and extreme poverty is not a new occurrence; but in past years more extreme measures have been taken to combat the issue as more people become homeless. Expensive social programs and housing developments for the homeless have been created to help battle the increasing issue. Homelessness is an expensive problem that will never end; furthermore, the condition of homeless people in America is affected by the type of education they receive, the state of the economy, and the amount of funds that are available to house and feed them.
This article on the effects of unemployment on the families living arrangement doesn’t mention that unemployment in families can lead to homelessness. When financial hardships hit families, sometimes they will move in with other family members, friends or non-relatives to find shelter. Quiet often, if they are homeless they are too afraid to reach out to local resources that might be available for fear of having their children taken away. Sadly, sometimes they are not even aware of the services that might be available to them. In chapter 15, homelessness can affect a child growing up and wellbeing greatly (Taylor, 2015, Week 5 slide 12). Therefore, the children suffer some extreme hardships that could be avoided if parents were more knowledgeable
For us to understand the cost of poverty and homeless in Canada we first have to understand what is poverty and homeless. Poverty is when a person or a family income is under a specific income level. Poverty line is different for different country. For Canada when a person makes under $18,421 he or she is considered living under poverty. Which is about $1500 a month. There are places in Canada where a 1 bedroom apartment rent is more than that. People have to choose between putting food on the table and put roof over their head. Eventually when people are unable to pay their rent or pay their mortgage they become homeless. Homeless is the extreme level of poverty. Those who living on the street, government shelter, or temporary emergency shelter run by not for profit organizations are considered homeless. As they do not have their own place to go to. The rise of living cost and lack of employment is the main cause of poverty and homelessness. People are simply failing to choose between food and roof.
Did you know, In January 2014, there were 578,424 people experiencing homelessness? ( (National Alliance to End Homelessness) Homelessness is a big attribute to society, to eliminate the issue, of homeless people, there are many different problem solving techniques in which government and society can do to make a change to homelessness, despite the negative attributes. According to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “There are four federally defined categories under which individuals and families may qualify as homeless: 1) literally homeless; 2) imminent risk of homelessness; 3) homeless under other Federal statues; and 4) fleeing/attempting to flee domestic violence” (Castro).
Poverty has been a serious national epidemic since the United States’ founding. No matter how the country is faring economically and politically, there will always be the element of poverty that is ever-present in our society. Homelessness is a key element and a major result of poverty, it is a cog of poverty that has high awareness and is easily identifiable due to the visible stigma associated with those that are homeless. Although homelessness is a widely-known aspect of poverty, especially in more populated cities, a majority of the public turn a blind eye to it and ultimately neglect this major problem with the thought that it cannot be solved. The government has tried to get a grasp on the issue but has fallen short with its impractical
After watching the video “Sociological Perspective Project: Homelessness,” and read the article “Community Level Characteristics Associated with Variation in Rates of Homelessness among Families and Single Adults I started to think about this more and started to read more on the topic and have I concluded , America could support its citizens better than it currently does by eliminating the progressive tax system, in which as wealth increases so does their income tax and implement tax incentives to encourage job creation. Loop holes should be eliminated in such systems as taxes, as well as welfare in order to prevent people from playing the system. The system should not be set up in such a way that filing for unemployment can be and often times is more profitable that holding a minimum wage job, which defeats the entire purpose of the welfare system. By adding these tax incentives to big business, it would encourage them to create new jobs, decreasing the number of people on welfare. While welfare should not be entirely disbanded, it should be made more restrictive and it, along...
Mother Teresa once said, “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.” Poverty and homelessness are two controversies that remain a nuisance in American society today. Both are the reasons for hundreds of thousands of people being out of the workforce. Today, the economy is at a standstill. Money is being spent inefficiently by the government on issues other than current unemployment and poverty, causing what seems to be a decline in jobs. As a result, the number of full time jobs created is at an all time low. In their place are part-time jobs being instituted. There are many different social, political, and economic factors
The most common thing that comes to mind when someone mentions living in the United States is the “American Dream”. This dream including a family living in a house with a white picket fence around it. The grass is nice and green and everything seems simple and dandy; however, this is rarely seen. In cities there are often people on the street corners holding up signs that say “will work for food”, or something along those lines. The people holding these signs are apart of the growing population of homeless. Shelters that help the homeless are full and running out of resources. This may seem like a simple matter, at first glance, but it is actually quite complex. Communities are continuously struggling with dealing with the many homeless citizens and trying to understand the cause so that solutions can be implemented. Solutions for homelessness are being brought about, publically and privately, by addressing the issues of housing, low-income, and education.
Growing up in the inner city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania I’ve experienced my fair share of homeless people on the streets. It is of no surprise to me that this is a common trend in most major cities across the country. Moving to San Diego I didn’t expect that the streets would be completely free from homelessness but the magnitude of this glaringly evident issue was more than I could ever imagine. I was faced with an overwhelming reality of a city filled with shopping carts full of few belongings, pillows and blankets on the sidewalks, and more signs, held by the hands of utterly helpless people asking for just a little help, than I had ever seen before. Walking by fifteen people all in a row, sleeping like it was no big deal that their comfy bed to go home to every night was a concrete slab on 5th Avenue, made me wonder how these people got to this point and why there was no one there to help. Finding the source of glue keeping the homeless population stuck in their situation not only comes from a desensitized community, over-exposed to people living on the street, but also a lack of resources and willingness to help decrease homelessness and work toward preventing it all together.
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.