Homelessness is having no home or haven or people without homes considered as a group webster 1. There are many causes to homelessness, some extremely sad, others just being selfish then ending up in awful situations which are serious problems. Such things as a missed paycheck, a health crisis, or an unpaid bill push the poor over the edge into homelessness. Here is a breakdown of homelessness 25% 40% is work, 37% are families with children, 25% are children, 25% 30% are mentally disabled, 30% are veterans and 40% are drug or alcohol dependent. These homeless people live in abandoned buildings, areas under bridges, bus stations, cheap hotels, emergency shelters, subways, and the streets. Sometimes people that go out on the street do get homes but end up back on the street.

High Quality Writing Services

These reasons include stagnant or falling incomes and less secure jobs which offer fewer benefits. The reasons for the rise are a growing shortage of affordable rental housing and a simultaneous increase in poverty. Many people have to make difficult choices when they have limited resources and have to cover some necessities. The first thing they choose is housing which absorbs a high proportion of income, which must be dropped. Being poor is the next step of an illness, an accident, or a paycheck away from our writers can help get your essay back on track, take a look at our services to learn more about how we can help. Besides that, other factors include mental illnesses, substance abuse, and low paying jobs. Some minor causes include prisoner release, unemployment, domestic violence, and poverty.

Family units are the largest and fastest growing segment of the homeless population. Though homelessness is impossible to measure to complete accuracy due to the lack of communication between all homeless and the surveyors along with the problem of finding the homeless, the estimates still prove to be rather shocking. Department of housing and urban development report an estimated 671,8 people experienced homelessness in one night in january 2007, pbs, 2009. Within new york city by itself, officials reported that 6,252 families are lodging nightly in city shelters nypirg. Child poverty rate is much higher than that of most other industrialized nations. Conference of mayors found that the homeless population was 49% african american, 32% caucasian, 12% hispanic, 4% native american, and 3% asian, nypirg. This means that homelessness affects people of all sorts, without regard to race or other factors.

Approximately 20 25% of homeless, single adults suffers from some form of a severe mental illness, specifically one that is persistent. According to the federal task force on homelessness and severe mental illness, only 5 7% of homeless persons with mental illness require institutionalization most can live in the community with appropriate supportive housing options, nypirg. This is a rather hypocritical comment mainly due to the fact that the reason those people are on the street is because of their illness, if they don t receive the help they need, they will remain homeless. There are those communities who chose to take care of the problem rather than watch it get worse.

Washington county in portland, oregon had a huge population growth within the past 20 years. What used to be limited to a few homeless individuals known to local residents on a first name basis, and who were taken care of for the most part by the faith based community and law enforcement, now became a population of more than 1,200 homeless adults, spanbock, 2008. No services were offered to these homeless people, so the community felt that something had to be done.

Cheerleading Is a Sport Essay

Almost half of the county's homeless adults suffered from mental health challenges, so in 2004 a program was established for single homeless adults with severe and persistent mental illnesses. Though it took time, the garret lee smith safe haven was opened in december of 2006. As the success of the facility became more visible, a new center was opened within a year that now serves 25 formerly homeless people. As a result of this, they have seen many improvements and accomplishments: the newly renovated homes that house the facilities improve the look of the town, the facility gets a few homeless people off the streets, and a creation of new social service employment opportunities spanbock, 2008.

This county is proof that not all solutions to homelessness have to come from public policy, but can stem from small groups wanting to make a big difference. Apart from the mentally ill, children are another large group within the homeless population. Children 1.5 million are homeless or precariously housed in temporary quarters such as motels and shelters, cohen, 2009. In a report about child homelessness specifically, cohen shows that the ten cities most affected by child homelessness are nevada, north mexico, texas, arkansas, louisiana, mississippi, kentucky, georgia, florida, and north carolina. The national center on family homelessness recently launched the campaign to end child homelessness which proposes initiatives that would help children get into more stable situations and in the end brighten their outlook on life in the future. Government to end child homelessness by imposing policies that can be enacted at all levels of the government.

It is possible to end child homelessness in the united states within a decade, cohen, 2009 which would mean that if all the right programs and policies were implemented, the trend of growing child homelessness could be reversed even in this recession. Some of the more prevalent recommendations at the federal level include creating new low income housing units, providing more housing vouchers, temporarily increasing food stamp benefits, raising of the minimum wage, and making it easier for homeless children to attend public schools. An issue that seems to be easily looked over is the idea that if a family is homeless, it makes it hard for the parents to find child care so that they may work. There is an extremely small number of child care facilities that would provide childcare to parents that don't have a fixed income. Yet without the childcare, most of those parents aren't able to go to work to actually have that fixed income. As of right now, only massachusetts gives priority to children who are homeless when distributing child care vouchers, cohen, 2009.

If more states did things that way, the homeless population would decline in a major way. Who wrote this essay request removal example essays once one is homeless, it's hard for them to become financially stable again. According to the social adaptation hypothesis, the longer young people are homeless the more they adapt to homelessness as a way of life, johnson amp chamberlain, 2008.