Sample Literature Review On Homelessness

Introduction

The purpose of this literature review is to explore how homelessness affects the overall well-being of mothers who are suffering from a mental illness. My reason for choosing homelessness as the topic was a reflection of my interaction in the homeless community while currently serving as an intern at the Brigid’s of Hope at the Beacon. The goal of the Beacon is to serve the homeless in downtown Houston area. According to the Compass organization within the Beacon, mental health peace is on front with more than fifty percent of the homeless clients requesting services being diagnosed with some type of mental illness.

Homeless mothers would fall in the social work’s purview based on many core values that would force a social worker

to take action. Social work core values that would serve the clients are: service (people in need), social justice (vulnerable & oppressed individuals), dignity and worth of a person (treat each person in a caring and respectful fashion while enhancing clients’ capacity and opportunity to change), and importance of human relationships (strengthen relationships in order to enhance the well-being of individuals). Majority of the clients who come in for the resources daily appear to be men while, women are offered more resources overall due to having children. However, little has been mentioned about mothers who are suffering from a mental illness and how homelessness affects the quality of their life.
The population most impacted at this agency is the homeless community being that the Beacon and organization primary focus is to serve the homeless community. This issue of how homelessness affects women suffering from a mental illness caught my attention as I was assisting in the laundry department at the Beacon. As I issued out hygiene products requested by the clients I realized that there wasn’t many hygiene products specified for the many of the women who appeared to have mental illnesses and may require extra care. If the women are
indeed suffering from a mental issue and the minimum care isn’t being met, then the overall care that they may require definitely is in jeopardy.
Search with Coordinated housing works directly with the homeless community to assist with housing. Clients are categorized to qualify for either Permanent Supported Housing which is directed towards the chronically homeless or the Re-Rapid Housing which focuses on family and assist for the max of three months. For the permanent supported housing clients are assessed in the computer under the Vulnerability Index (V.I.) in order to determine which clients are more than likely to die on the streets on a scale from zero to five with five being the highest. If the system determines that the client scores a five then their name will automatically go to the top of the list in order to receive housing in less than thirty days. Clients who are lower functioning suffer from mental illnesses and are more than likely to stay once they are placed in permanent housing. The issue is to actually get the clients in who qualify for emergency housing according to the V.I. Search however, does have an outreach team that goes out to the homeless community and homeless surges are conducted.
Body
The article that I chose is relevant to the subpopulation as it goes more into depth about how mothers with mental illnesses experiencing homeless are impact their health.

According to (Benbow, S., Forchuk, C., & Ray, S.L., 2011), “Individuals with mental illness are over-represented in the homeless population. However, within this group, the increasingly growing sub-population of mothers who are homeless with mental illness faces a unique set of challenges.” Mothers are looked upon as more than likely to immediately receive the services needed when faced with homelessness, but because many are suffering from a mental illness they will experience discrimination and

oppression.
Mental health issues can either be preexisting leading to a decline in the individual’s social and economic environment or a consequence of homelessness. “Research suggests that the lives of homeless women with mental illness are often impacted by violence, victimization and trauma. Similarly, in a qualitative retrospective narrative inquiry study in New York City, 24 former homeless mothers revealed high exposure and experiences of trauma and abuse with histories of childhood physical abuse” (Benbow et al., 2011).
In the homeless communities, there is a high demand for services to improve the quality of life; likewise the ecological perspective theory focuses on the distribution of people and services as well as how the environment affects the human development, interaction and quality of life.

”The evolutionary, adaptive view of people proposed in this model sees the adaptive achievement of individuals as the outcome of interaction between inherited genetic traits and environmental circumstances” (Robbins, Chartterjee, & Canda, 2012). If a homeless mother with a mental illness is able to receive the correct assistance without the expectations such as institutionalizations of the social environment she may have an actual opportunity to live a better and healthier life. “Mothers experienced discrimination based on their homelessness status, mental illness, income source and/or motherhood status…Nurses are in unique positions to advocate for this group, but must first recognize and become aware of the extensive structural barriers faced by these women.” (Benbow et al., 2011). This theory helps explain how much homelessness can be detrimental to mothers with mental illnesses who do not receive all services required due to the inequities and problems that many face because of their lack of

resources.
Karl Marx’s theory on class struggle in other words describes as the rich remaining rich while the poor remains poor. Homelessness follows the guidelines of how poverty basically is a lack of equilibrium in the economy for the poor but value added for the rich. Many women become homeless and end up with a mental illness due to the conditions from the capitalist society. “Marx believed that ‘consciousness is influenced by social conditions’. He saw the conditions of capitalistic exploitation and alienation as being intricately interwoven with those of ideological domination” (Robbins et al., 2012).
Conclusion
Women dealing with mental illness more than likely dealt with violence, victimization and trauma prior to homelessness and once homeless they experience even more at a higher rate than any other sub-population of homelessness. The strength for the ecological theory is that if quality of life for every individual is applied accordingly then, more sources will come together and recognize how the environment affects homeless mothers mentally and begin to help the society all together. The weakness of the ecological theory would be that the people receiving the assistance would not use it accordingly to be a contribution to society. The weakness along with the Marx’s theory is basically a reoccurring issue in today’s society; an example would be a mother working from paycheck to paycheck to barely make ends meet. In her circumstances she can’t make a dollar over in order to qualify for assistance. The capitalist society forces her into homelessness and suffering from manic depression and not properly treated.