Causes Of Homelessness In America

Among the many day to day problems we face in America from drug abuse, high crime rates, and unhealthy eating, Poverty is ranked as one of the top problems. In America today there’s more than 46.7 million people living in poverty. One major effect of poverty is homelessness. “According to Homeaid America, as many as 3.5 Americans are homeless. Of these, more than 1 million children and on any given night, more 300,000 children are homeless”(“Homeaid 4). There are many causes of homelessness: lost of family member, domestic violence, splits between spouses. “Other impairments, such as depression, untreated mental illness, post traumatic stress disorder, and physical disabilities are responsible for a large portion of the homeless” (HomeAid).
Homelessness can affect your health and your personal wellbeing. Being homeless hurts a person's health because they do not seek attention from doctors or his or her spouse. According to depts.washington.edu, homeless people begin to have low self esteem, increase in drug abuse, and becoming very aggressive. Shelters and halfway houses could lower the homeless rates.
“According to the Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness, In 2009 Louisiana had 764 homeless families on every single night, with providers serving three times their bed capacity over the course of the year”(“Abandoned Commercial and Residental”1). I personally believe that it is to many homeless people in our state alone and other things have overshadowed this problem. In Alexandria, Louisiana the Salvation Army shelters only men and last year they sheltered 54,000 men (16,000 nights of shelter). It hurts my heart that one city shelters 54,000 people in a year and that doesn't even include women.There's many things that can happen to a person or family that could leave them homeless for days, months, years, or even for the rest of their lives.
Homelessness doesn't respect a specific race or person, it can happen to anybody. Homeless population is diverse. “According to the website Greendoors , there are 25-40% is work, 37% are families with children, 25% are children, 25%-30% are mentally disabled, 30% are veterans, and 40% are drug are alcohol dependent”(General Homeless Facts”2). These people live under bridges, streets, abandoned houses, and well known shelters . Most homeless people stay on the street and stay there for a short period of time, Some are stuck out there for the rest of their lives. Although some homeless people do find homes, some often find themselves becoming homeless again.
Poor people are often unable to pay for housing, food, and childcare. Many people that are in these situations have to make difficult choices with few resources.They have to choose housing which takes up most of someone’s income.There's a shortage in affordable rent house and not enough housing assistance programs. When you're homeless getting housing/shelter could be hard because there's a huge waiting lines. This long waiting can people waiting for years and months at a time. There are other things that push people into homelessness such as; mental illness, domestic violence, and addiction disorders. Domestic Violence comes in when women are made to decide between abusive relationships and homelessness. “In a study of 777 homeless parents (the majority whom were mothers) in ten U.S cities, 22% said they had left their place of residence because of domestic violence”(“ Hooper 308).
Mental Illness can also have a huge role in the homelessness rate in America today.
There's a lot of single adult homeless people that suffer from mental illness. In an article written by Richard R. Lyons, “because income and housing was on the rise in th the 1950s and 1960s a lot of people with mental illness were released from mental hospitals, ” (“Lyons 1). Most of those patients began to lose everything. Some mentally ill people do get housing simply because they're mentally ill.
We have all seen at some time or another what obsessive drug and alcohol abuse can do. From ruining somebody's personal appearance to ruining someone's personality as a whole. People that become addicted do not become homeless; it's the people that's poor that have a high risk of becoming homeless. They become high risk because they start spending their money on drugs and alcohol . People with addictions start to neglect their needs and responsibilities, to support bad habits. If you have already been living on the streets and addicted to drugs, it becomes harder to get
housing. In 2010 the government started a program called “Opening Doors”.
They planned to create housing vouchers for more than 2 million low-income families. “The 2011 budget expands services for mental health and substance abuse prevention and treatment. In addition to finding better employment opportunities for the homeless, services are offered specifically for homeless women who are veterans”(“Hope Alliance). Some more solutions would be, ensure affordable housing, more help from social services, and prohibit discriminations. These solutions must prevent people from becoming homeless.
Homelessness results from different things that can make people have to make the decision between food, clothing, shelter and other needs. Some people are homeless and it's nothing they could possibly do about it. The government must form more affordable housings, to support the people that are just unable to work, and get better wages. These things could put an end to homelessness in our country.The American people are willing to help, we must come together as one to end homelessness for our
country.