Homelessness In America

Homelessness in the United States is as a revolving-door crisis. Person a can have a place to stay one night, and the next have nowhere at all. Homelessness is when one cannot afford for a place to live, or their current home is unsafe or unstable. One is homeless if he or she spends a night in a shelter or possibly on the streets. Many other definitions of homelessness exists, however, the main idea is that homelessness is a condition not a status. Women and children make up a big chunk of the homeless community. Education for homeless children is a struggle, and many agree that the Federal government should invest more towards reducing homelessness. Poverty and homelessness has always existed in the United States but by the turn of the twentieth century, approximately 40 percent of Americans were homeless in the year 1900.(Patterson,13) In the United States there are many factors to becoming homeless, but in America you are forced to become homeless.

Since the mid-1970s, affordable housing has become increasingly difficult to find. This is because Americans are being asked to contribute more and more or their paychecks to their rent and when they become homeless it is difficult to get themselves back into affordable housing. It has been reported that “A full-time worker earning minimum wage cannot afford a one-bedroom unit priced at the Fair Market Rent anywhere in the United States. Nationally a full-time worker must earn $18.32 per hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent.”(National low-income Housing Coalation 2010) Today, our federal minimum wages contributes to our increasing homeless population, while even if you work fulltime making $7.25 isnt even enough to get you off the street. In 1970 there was a...

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...from school, which causes poor preformances in class, and can result in being held back grades. Another study shows that "1.4% homeless high schoolers are proficient in math, while 14.6% are proficient in reading" (National Center on Family Homelessness, 2009.) This is particularly disturbing because as many of us may know, our younger generations are having a more difficult time finding jobs, and jobs are requiring to them to further their education after high school. This is a problem for the homeless children because most jobs will require English and math. Also, just to get into college you must take SAT or ACT, requiring both subjects. As these scores don't determine whether or not you get into college, it does increase your chances of getting in, and if these children are having problems in these areas, then they have a lower chance of getting into a college