It is easy to group these people together and label them all the same, but every homeless person has a story, a reason, or a problem, that has lead them to where they are today. Homelessness exists due to a lack of affordable housing, a loss of income, mental illness, substance abuse, and a combination of various other reasons. In our society, it seems that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer making the gap between these two Classes seem larger each year. The Middle class has carried this country, and helped fund assistance programs, but they can also find themselves caught without work or housing. Foreclosures have hit an all time high, and unfortunately some people were allowed to finance beyond their means and now have become homeless too.
Homelessness in America and the causes Homelessness in America makes up 1% of the United States population. It can unfortunately happen to many people in the lower class due to several reasons. I believe the majority of the time people can control whether or not they are with a home, but not always. Although it might be easy for me to say, but I always believed that most homeless people are homeless because of their own choices in life such as drug/alcohol abuse, criminal records, low self determination etc. However, after doing a little research about what causes homelessness in America, my opinion has somewhat changed.
I was lucky enough to live in motels and sleep on other peoples couches but most of my friends either slept on the streets or camped out with tents out in the surrounding woods. Poverty of course could mean many things. Maybe you live in an ally and maybe you live in a bad part of town. You could be uneducated and unable to excel with your education, or unemployable and living off government aid. The economy obviously influences all of these things in the past decade but perhaps more focus should be put on the people themselves and the cost of living for
Some parents avoid shelter life, by splitting up the family and sending their children to stay with relatives, while they fend for themselves. It happens all too often. As you can see families that are experiencing homelessness are under considerable stress. But Is this a real problem in America? According to the National Center on Family Homelessness in March 2010 about 250,000, that’s a quarter of a million people in families are homeless.
They face foreclosures and job losses due to the deepening recession. The impact of homelessness begins well before a child is born. The overwhelming majority of homeless parents are single women, many of whom were homeless themselves as children. Homeless women face many obstacles to healthy pregnancies, such as chemical abuse, chronic and acute health problems, and lack of prenatal care. Children born into homelessness are more likely to have low birth weights and are at greater risk of death.
Because of the recession many Americans are forced to leave their houses and move in with family. The rising cost of utilities, food, and housing is making it hard for them to make ends meet. Some reporters have done stories of multiple families living in one house because of losing jobs and other things. They spend their days in the unemployment lines and walking the towns to
My hypothesis that I’m reviewing is a casual one, which is “poor health is the main reason why people become homeless”. Poor health is closely associated with homelessness. For families struggling to pay the rent, a serious illness or disability can start a downward spiral into homelessness, beginning with a lost job, depletion of savings to pay for care, and eventual eviction (National Health Care for the Homeless Council, 2008). In the year 2007 the U.S. census Bureau calculated that 45.7 million people, who makes up about 15.3 percent of the population do not have health insurance. These uninsured people where Americans who either worked full or part time jobs.
It seems that a many of us think that only minorities are affected by poverty. It does not matter who is impoverished no matter what color or what race they are, a portion of individuals need help and many people aren’t willing to give help. Since doing my research on poverty, it has opened my mind up more to what a countless number of people in paucity have to go through to even live, and how hard it is to get everything they need to live. A percentage of people, me being one, do not really know how living in poverty feels, and that might be the problem. You have to ask the question, what does it really mean to be poor in America?
A man without a place to call home is lost. I could not imagine roaming the streets or finding a place to keep warm at night. The homeless population is made up of various people from all walks of life. For instance people who’ve been laid off because of the economy or men and women whose monthly income make it impossible to afford a place to live or people who live below the poverty line. The most shocking of all to me was to find out that veterans of the armed forces (like myself), make up some of 23 percent of the homeless population.
HOMELESSNESS IN AMERICA Would there be more homeless people in the America if the human basic needs were no more than eating, sleeping and drinking? For some those three things are what make life worth fighting for. Then for other eating, drinking and sleeping is not that important will take it where ever they can get it. The cause of homelessness began in the mindset of man and society. I read a quote by an unknown author that said “When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for.” That is the beginning of the end of any nation.