Homelessness in America Each country in the world is faced with various social issues that attract the interests of society and the government. Homelessness is an enormous issue that America has been dealing with for years. There are millions of people, including children, families, veterans, and the elderly who go day to day without food, water or any form of shelter. Mentally ill people also have a rough time out on the streets due to their state of confusion, which makes it dangerous for them, as well as others to be on the streets.
Many of these people have had no choice but to become homeless.Economic problems such as being laid off work, or the rise in the cost of housing have lead people to live on the streets. While homeless people, especially children are facing many social and emotional issues there are programs and resources available to those in need. From a legal perspective there are also laws, criminal justice regulations and crime concerns derived from homelessness and the effects on the rest of society. I found the aspects of homelessness and the causes, the impacts it has on society, social and emotion problems of children, laws or regulations, and programs or resources to help the homeless most interesting.America needs to work on decriminalizing homelessness, as many of us are only a few pennies away from being there.
First I will begin with the causes of homelessness. People with social disabilities or financial problems usually will be abandoned by the society and become homelessness along the streets. The growing homeless population is a factor that shows people are suffering from unexpected financial problems and struggling in maintaining their life on a daily basis.People usually form opinions or stereotypes of homeless people and think they are dirty drug addicts, lazy, uneducated, and irresponsible. However, there are many people who have jobs and no drug or alcohol addictions, but still remain homeless because they cannot afford the luxury of having a house. Homelessness and poverty are very closely related.
Some people are homeless because of a lack of affordable housing. Others because of incomes that are too low to pay for basic living expenses. Poor people are frequently unable to pay for housing, food, childcare, health care, and education.Most people, especially in today’s economy are living from pay check to pay check, and are only pennies away from becoming homeless.
Another aspect of homelessness is the impact it has on society, and it’s increasing population here in the United States. The Homeless have been turned away, especially in most of the urban cities due to lack of resources. “The number of homeless people increased dramatically in the 1980s, and homelessness was “discovered” as a hot issue at that time. But homeless people have always been part of American culture.In earlier times, they were called “vagrants” and “tramps.
” Homelessness is almost always related to poverty: those who cannot afford housing find themselves homeless” (Homelessness, 2009). Many people will not admit they are homeless due to the fact they are either ashamed or embarrassed. Many homeless people live in motels, shelters, transitional homes, trailer parks, camping grounds, are awaiting foster homes, living in cars, parks, bus and train stations, abandoned buildings, and doubled up with friends and family.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. From a criminal aspect, homeless people do have higher chances of being more criminally active, and pose higher rates of incarceration endangering the rest of society.
“those experiencing homeless are found to be arrested more often, incarcerated longer, and re-arrested at higher rates than people with stable housing” (National Healthcare for the Homeless Council, 2011).There are numerous cases of homelessness in the criminal justice system because local regulations and policies prohibit homeless people from sleeping and loitering in public places and accepting food in public places as well. “Authorities initially responded to the tramp crisis by passing draconian “ tramp acts,” vagrancy laws that made it a crime to wander without work. Instead of seeing the problem as one of wages and rent, middle-class observers interpreted the tramp as a product of “homelessness” in the cultural sense—men cut loose from the civilizing influences of home and family life” (Homelessness, 2009).
Substance use is highly prevalent among homeless people as well. From a distributive point of view, this type of justice is not being served to the homeless people but is to the rest of society. It is the government’s responsibility to protect its citizens from danger. However there is no distributive justice served among homeless people because they are not treated fairly as the rest of society. Justice is also not served from a commutative perspective.
Being that it rests on a social contract through the community, there is no social justice served to those who are homeless.Retributive justice is enforced when criminal justice officials throughout the community enforce the proper punishment. An example of retributive justice is the local laws in many cities that do not allow homeless people to sleep in public places such as the park or on street corners. Because of many of these regulations, many homeless people have begun living where they cannot be seen and have secret hide outs such as underground railroads stations and abandoned alleys.
Another aspect of homeless is the social and emotional impacts it has on the people, especially children. Homeless children face serious disadvantages, Including health problems, malnutrition, developmental delays, anxiety, depression, behavioral problems and educational underdevelopment” (Rafferty, Y. , & Shinn, M. , 991). Around the world millions of children are found homeless, sleeping in the streets, under bridges, or on deserted properties.
Their days are spent hustling by prostitution or petty crimes. They prey on each other as well as people passing by that they manage to steal from. Yet still this is home to these children, where they are deprived of the most basic human needs, housing, food, and clothing.Since they have no family or relatives and no hope for the future, they have been tagged "Nobody's Children" or "Throw away Kids", living each day as if it were the last, causing them to become outlaws, which as a result is a threat to the security of the community we live in.
There are various reasons that children are found homeless, ranging from their own desire to leave home to become independent of their parents rules, to broken marriage where the father is absent from the family which is the most likely cause.However some parents are irresponsible in caring for their children. Some parents beat them, sexually abuse them, or throw them out of the family into the streets to fend for themselves, resulting in the child feeling that he or she is better off by his or her self, even living on the street. In an effort to belong and be loved many of these homeless children find themselves becoming family members to gangs promoting further negativity in their lives and often only survive by begging, stealing, prostitution.There are many programs and resources set out to help homeless children. “In a life filled with uncertainty, loss, and deprivation, school can be a place of safety, structure, and opportunity.
Yet homeless children and youth face unique barriers to education” (National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth). Homeless children are not always given the chance of an education because they may not have a legal guardian, legal residency, transportation, health records, etc. A positive aspect of homelessness is the programs and resources available.Shelters are often provided for homeless families. “Shelters are low-barrier, easy access congregate living for families for a short period of time (two to three months).
They are frequently administered by community organizations, and their major form of treatment is case management, which seeks to re-house the family. Family shelters are usually dry—no drug or alcohol use” (2013 United States Interagency Council on Homelessness). Shelters also may require that the adults be involved in substance-abuse treatment, mental health counseling, education.Other programs may include the development of squatter settlements which allow families to live in a house with the essential elements needed to survive ( water, sanitation, and electricity), and eviction prevention. Another program aimed mostly at young children or adults is the Transitional Living Program. “The Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) serves runaway and homeless youth by funding the following grant programs: the Basic Center Program, the Transitional Living Program, the Maternal Group Home Program, the Street Outreach Program, and the National Runaway Switchboard.
Ninety percent of RHYA funding goes to programs providing housing, emergency shelter, and homelessness prevention projects and the remaining 10 percent funds supportive service providers” (2013 United States Interagency Council on Homelessness). These programs offer assistance to children between the ages of 16 and 21 providing residential services in hopes of providing a successful transition to living self-sufficiently. This provides the youth safe housing conditions to help them develop skills for living in the real world. In conclusion, communities should take more steps in decriminalizing homelessness. Communities should reverse policies that incarcerate those in need of greater supports and instead work for more effective solutions, such as intensive case management, permanent supportive housing, adequate incomes, and access to disability benefits and comprehensive health services (including treatment for addiction and mental health disorders)” (National Healthcare for the Homeless Council, 2011). In a society where people have so much how is it possible that there are still people that have so little.
The homeless are humans, no different than anyone else.They have rights and privileges just as any other citizen and should be treated as such. References: HOMELESS FAMILIES. (2003).
In International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family. Retrieved from http://www. credoreference. com. proxy-library. ashford.
edu/entry/galemarriage/homeless_families HOMELESSNESS. (2009). In Poverty and the Government in America: A Historical Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.
credoreference. com. proxy-library. ashford. edu/entry/abcpga/homelessness National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (http://www.
aehcy. org/) National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. (2011). Criminal justice, homelessness & health. Retrieved from http://www.
nhchc. org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/CriminalJustice2011_final. pdf Rafferty, Y. , & Shinn, M. (1991). The impact of homelessness on children.
The American Psychologist, 46(11), 1170-1170. Retrieved from http://search. proquest. com/docview/212074901? accountid=32521 2013 United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. Retrieved from website: http://www.
usich. gov/funding_programs/programs/transitional_living_program_t
