Social Effects Of Homelessness

In the United States, more than 3.5 million people experience homelessness each year for an average time of eight months (Students Against Hunger, 2015). Economic, political, and social factors play role in homelessness. Among economic factors are: lack of affordable housing, low incomes, and lack of affordable medical care. An example of political factor can be the fact that cuts in federal assistance for housing programs and social services coincided with the rise in homelessness in the U.S. Among social aspects are medical factors, such as mental illness, drug addiction, and alcoholism and lack of access to affordable health care services (Students Against Hunger, 2015).

The definition of homeless also includes the living situation

The authors pointed out at individual coaching as one of the strategies in social work practice assisting people who have experienced homelessness with returning to work (Hoven, Ford, Willmot, Hagan, & Siegrist (2014).

Hudson and Vissing (2010) noted that individuals who are male, young, unemployed, never married, and living in extreme poverty are most vulnerable to prolonged experience of homelessness. These findings suggest the need for economic support, such as affordable housing and job training and placement services, assisted education, as well as for mental health services for people who may be at risk of becoming homeless. Social workers need to be especially aware of the combination of homelessness and co-occurring untreated substance use or mental health disorders because those factors make returning to the mainstream society extremely difficult. Moreover, “there is a strong correlation between discharge from a mental health facility and an increase in crime, arrest rates, and homelessness” (Stigmatized Hearts, 2014, p. xiii). Unfortunately, after the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill became a fact, “the promise of care in community-based settings for individuals experiencing mental health problems has never materialized” (Stigmatized Hearts, 2014, p.