Homelessness is becoming a serious global problem. Cities around the world are trying anything they can think of to fix this epidemic, but the first step is to understand the extent of the problem here at home. The United States population is about three million and approximately 650,000 people are homeless on any given night (“General Homelessness Facts”). Many of these Americans suffer from mental illness and try to provide for their families as well. When people become informed about the problem of homelessness they try to seek out solutions. However, some plans are not helping homeless citizens get back on their feet. Americans have a strong can do attitude and we believe anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but that is not …show more content…
realistic in this situation. People ask all the time: “Why don’t they get a job?” because many people think the homeless are lazy bums looking for handouts because they don’t want to work (Schanes). This is just one of the many myths that surround the bigger social injustice of homelessness. The other solution people offer is to treat homeless people like criminals who can be used and manipulated. None of these solutions or stereotypes are helping to shelter the homeless. Citizens need to debunk these common myths and come up with active plans to help people who are experiencing hard times. The myths about homelessness have got to stop if society wants to move forward. A common myth is that people living on the streets are lazy and need to get a job. There may be kernels of truth within this myth, but most of these people have a job or are looking for a job because they don’t want to be homeless. The argument of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is primarily made from higher income families (Wiltz). They figure if they did it when they migrated over here so can anyone else. Well, in this modern day and age people can’t go door to door job searching looking filthy. Society has standards of living now and more importantly most job searches are done online (Schanes). Indoor plumbing and internet connection are commonly associated with, you guessed it, homes. Since society has such a negative view on homeless people they are not welcomed in to community centers where they could shower or public libraries to hunt for jobs. Instead they are belittled and kicked out because of loitering. Also, homeless people are being criminalized for being on the streets. This results in a mark on their resume keeping them from obtaining a job. The upper class view of homeless people is extremely skewed based on the financial position of their own life. People who are more well off might also not understand the struggle of living with a mental illness. Homelessness is the terrible result of extreme poverty and medical bills are forcing people out of their homes to afford treatment. The government is not providing enough assistance for mental illness patients. The lack of help forces people to make a choice between medical help or shelter, and no one should be forced to make this choice (“Health and Homelessness”). Regardless, out they go, onto the streets to start panhandling for loose change to afford life’s expenses. Recently there is a push in legislation for a ban on panhandling. What they are trying to do is to protect hard working traditional Americans who have to walk those streets where homelessness runs rampant (Wiltz). Homeless people are not animals in a zoo, they need to be fed and helped by people who are in a better financial situation. Instead of helping, people are taking away people’s basic human rights. In some cities around the world there are more extreme measures taken to keep homeless people off the streets. Leah Borromeo from The Guardian discusses defensive architecture in her article “These anti-homeless spikes are brutal. We need to get rid of them.” She claims “Putting spikes up like this doesn’t address the issues of inequality and poverty – it just pushes them away from your immediate vision so that you don’t have to look at them.” Legislators need to understand Borromeo’s point of view because she is not unique in her opinion. Another more subtle action people, especially police officers, need to stop taking is bribery. Jonah Owen Lamb of The San Francisco Examiner wrote a recent story about a violent police attack that was covered up with the help of two homeless witnesses. The victim, Stanislav Petrov, claimed “When they noticed some homeless people had witnessed the beating, they gave them to the homeless people to try and bribe them into silence,” but the claim is just hearsay at this point and has yet to be proven. Events like these aren’t uncommon and police know that they can bribe people who are down on their luck, because they need the money. People who act like this are disgusting because they only want homeless people around if they can benefit their own self interests. Every life matters no matter what, even if you don’t know them personally. Another common myth people need to debunk is thinking that the homeless are dangerous criminals.
Councilman Charlie Brown shares his opinion about the homeless population taking over a main street with The Denver Post. Brown addressed the issue by saying “I want to get them off of our Main Street, and the 16th Street Mall is our Main Street.” Why can’t homeless people be included in 16th Main Street? Government officials don’t want to deal with the ugly parts of their district, so they don’t include homeless people in statements like “our” or “we.” On the other hand, Jean Kim, author of People in Purple, has written a whole book dedicated to sharing the truths about homelessness. One of her focus point was to help people understand that homeless people are not the criminals, they are the victims. Kim wrote: “In fact they, including homeless women and children, are more often the victims of crime; assault, sexual assault, robberies, rape and even murder.” This shows people that they should not be worried about the presence of homelessness, but rather consider how their presence affects these people. However, there are a select few people in the homeless population that participates in violent crime, but most arrests of homeless people are because of non-violent acts. These acts are along the lines of unpaid fees, trespassing, loitering, and public intoxication (Kim). This idea goes back to the age old saying, “They are more afraid of you than you are of …show more content…
them.” Most people who are uninformed and financially stable support the common myths about homelessness. People who are well off don’t like to think about the nitty-gritty of social injustice issues, because they are in a position where they can ignore it. Upper middle class citizens have the privilege of turning a blind eye to situations that don’t concern them. In order to make a difference in the homeless communities around the globe privileged people need to understand the extent of the problem. Creating nonprofit organizations that benefit the homeless are not enough to convince people to lend a helping hand. Organizations need to reach out and explain how wrong our initial beliefs are if they want to eradicate homelessness. No one should be expected to have this base knowledge of homelessness and so people should admit their confidence in these harsh stereotypes. It will be hard to change everyone’s opinion about homelessness, but education is always the first step in fixing social issues such as this. Society has made large bounds on the fight to end homelessness, but there is still work that needs to be done.
The myths that were debunked are only a few of many others not mentioned in this paper. People have to remember anyone can become homeless at any point in their life, so we should not isolate them from the regular population. Also, residents need to remember the majority of the homeless community is not dangerous. Homeless people are not lazy; they just need a helping hand to get back on their feet. Caring and compassionate citizens can make a difference if they are educated on current social issues. Perhaps schools need to push a local current events class as early as junior high to help spread facts and not myths. If people continue to learn about homelessness it will become a thing of the
past.
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 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.
In “Brother, Don’t Spare a Dime,” L. Christopher Awalt says that homeless people are homeless on their own accord. He believes “many of them seem to have chosen the lifestyles they lead” (Awalt))).. This article states that most homeless people would prefer to escape responsibility rather than fix their social and economic problems. Awalt uses an example of a man who had been on the streets for about 10 years. He provided this man with resources to improve his life and within four months he was making progress. By the sixth month the man had checked himself out of the hospital and was back on the streets drunk again. Awalt does show a few people are the victims of tragic circumstances and will bounce back in a short period of time. Awalt believes homeless people have become dangerous to the public, and they do not deserve our money to help them out of their predicament. We do not agree with Awalt’s assumption that the majority of the homeless people in the United States are there because of their lack of responsibility. There are many causes of homelessness that cannot be avoided, and the majority of the people that become homeless will not be on the streets for long.
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
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.
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.
?Over the past year, over two million men, women, and children were homeless? in America. (NLCHP) Homeless people face an intense struggle just to stay alive despite the fact that society turns its head from the problem. The government makes laws that discriminate against homeless people, which make it, illegal for them to survive. The mistreatment of homeless people is an issue that is often ignored in our community. When you see a homeless person on the streets how do you react? Do you turn your head and ignore them? Do you become angry that they are living on the streets? Do you feel frightened and avoid the situation all together? Or do you see these people as human beings and treat them in that way? Homeless people are ?subjected to alienation and discrimination by mainstream society?. (NLCHP) Most alienation and discrimination comes from the lack of education about homeless people. There are numerous untrue myths about homeless people. Many people believe that homeless people ?commit more violent crimes than housed people.? (NLCHP) The reality is that homeless people actually commit less violent crimes than people with homes do. Dr. Pamela Fischer, of John Hopkins University, studied arrest records in Baltimore and discovered that even though homeless people were more likely to commit non-violent and non-destructive crimes, they were less likely to commit violent crimes against people. (NLCHP) The crimes that these people are committing are necessary to keep them alive. These crimes include sleeping, eating, and panhandling. Making it illegal to perform necessary daily activities in public when homeless people have no where else to go makes it impossible for homeless people to avoid violating the law. (NLCHP) Another myth about homeless people is that they do not work and that they get their money from public assistance programs. A study done in Chicago discovered that ?39% of homeless people interviewed had worked for some time during the previous month?. (NLCHP) Many of the people who do not work are actively trying to find jobs, but are discriminated against by the work force. In an interview done at the River Street Homeless Shelter I found many people who have experienced this discrimination. ?People can?t get a job without an address. When they use the shelter?s address they get turned down.? (Mike) Speaking...
To begin, I support the author’s argument that people think they know what’s best for the homeless when they
Homelessness is a social issue that has been overlooked for too long. It can be observed in many states worldwide. The rising population of homeless people affects those characterized as homeless, their families subjected to the lifestyle, and the communities where homelessness exists. There are many solutions but only a few will be discussed. Improving existing shelters and building new shelters are general solutions. More in depth solutions within the shelters include programs that assist the homeless with opportunities for re-entry into the community. I would first like to discuss reasons why this issue should be looked into and conclude with recommendations.
...is to understand the factors that lead people into homelessness, that keep them homeless, and how they can recover from homelessness. Advocates for the homeless have proposed policies range from taking preventative measures, such as making housing and health care affordable, to policies that deal with individuals that are already homeless, such as rapid rehousing and redefining what it means to be homeless. Although many of the experts disagree on how the homeless epidemic should be handled, many acknowledge that the federal government plays an inexpendable role in helping the homeless. Homelessness is, obviously, a complex issue, but like all difficult issues it must be undertaken. It has become clear that homelessness is not something that will eradicate itself given time, homelessness will continue to grow and evolve unless an outside force stops it in its tracks.
Countless throughout the streets of Jackson, MS there are homeless people asking for food, money, etc. and some people aid them and others walk away. However, does anyone ever see the other side of the equation? Driving down Gallatin St. one night I saw firsthand the “other side”. Because of this, the issue that my research will cover is homelessness. Homelessness is defined as a state in which individuals lack a fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence. Poverty, lack of affordable housing, declining wages, lost jobs, the economy, foreclosure, decreased assistance programs, domestic violence, substance abuse, mental illness, single parenthood, etc. are some of the causes of homelessness in America. Some of the proposed solutions are: affordable housing and homeless prevention programs. However, there needs to be less energy focused on providing temporary housing for those who are homeless, and more focus on providing permanent, affordable housing. Homelessness is an issue that should concern all of us. With a decrease in this situation it would clear up the amount of people walking around on the streets and everyone would feel more comfortable traveling at night. If someone is homeless, it is a common belief that they are more inclined to criminal activity; therefore less homelessness could equal less crime. Homelessness is not discriminatory and can happen to anyone at any time.
Homelessness has become a serious problem in today’s society. Despite the organizations that help multitudes of homeless people, homelessness is continually increasing. In recent years, America’s culture has been changing due to economic, political, and social issues. These issues have caused a lot of stress on America resulting in abject poverty in several cities. Poverty is not nationwide, but if dealt with lightly, the affects can be catastrophic. Homelessness is increasing more than ever, and research proves that changing culture contributes to rising amount of homelessness.
Homelessness is not something that was created over night; it has existed for a long time; often we choose not to see the homeless, or bother with them, so we look the other way. Homelessness is not prejudice toward race, creed, or religion--it has no boundaries; all homeless people should not be stereotyped as being drug abusers or the mentally ill that have been released from mental hospitals. Homelessness is not a disease that a person can catch from bodily contact, but it certainly has afflicted many Americans. We need to find the cause of homelessness before we can find a solution. More money for more programs is the typical response, but we should look at what has already been instituted and reevaluate them.
The homeless population has been a problem in California and it looks like it’s not stopping. According to Staggering new homeless numbers in downtown San Diego says “The homeless problem in downtown is getting worse”. It proves that not been shared solutions to this overpopulation of homeless. In addition, state that “homeless in downtown San Diego went up 26 percent in a year”. This quote affirms that the homeless population is now a plague, it’s a reality. It looks that people accept homeless in society by letting them live on the street, as long as they do not disturb.
This great nation of awesome power and abundant resources is losing the battle against homelessness. The casualties can be seen on the street corners of every city in American holding an ?I will work for food? sign. Homeless shelters and rescue missions are at full capacity. There is no room at the inn for the nation?s indigent. Anyone who has studied this issue understands that homelessness is a complex problem. Communities continue to struggle with this socio-economic problem while attempting to understand its causes and implement solutions. The public and private sectors of this country are making a difference in the lives of the homeless by addressing the issues of housing, poverty and education.