Homelessness & Poverty
Vanessa G. Longoria
PSY 2012 Gladys Green
Homelessness and Poverty- Two Terrible Social Injustices
For a brief moment the bustling streets are deserted. The stores and shops have closed. The last bus filled with the city’s nine-to-five office workers has left. The commuter trains filled with business executives are speeding toward suburbia. Store lights have been dimmed and street lights have come on. The evening’s wind picks up as the temperature plunges on another winter night. Heated apartments are a welcome haven for the city dwellers, while blazing logs in the fireplace spell “home, sweet home” for the suburban commuters. The hot dinners and soft beds that follow are taken for granted.
How different the story on the city’s empty streets! Shadowy human figures begin to appear on hundreds of them. Walking slowly on numb feet, hunched forms bracing against the cold wind, they take their place in store entrances, under bridges, over hot-air grates, and on the sidewalks. In cardboard boxes, scavenged from garbage bins, they bed down for the night. Whatever their age, their background, their physical and mental condition, they have one common denominator that inseparably links them all—they are homeless. These are the urban nomads, the street people, the bag ladies, the winos. They are the blight of almost every major city in the world. They have become a major urban crisis, a problem without a solution.
Since homelessness is widespread, someone you know may be affected by it. The plight of the homeless raises a number of questions. How did these people come to be without adequate housing? How do they get by? Who helps them? And what does the future hold for the homeless?
According to the United Nations, there are over 100 million homeless people worldwide. If that figure is accurate, then 1 human in every 60 or so is without adequate shelter! Still, the real scope of the problem is hard to assess. Why?
Definitions of homelessness vary from one part of the
PSY 2012 Gladys Green
Homelessness and Poverty- Two Terrible Social Injustices
For a brief moment the bustling streets are deserted. The stores and shops have closed. The last bus filled with the city’s nine-to-five office workers has left. The commuter trains filled with business executives are speeding toward suburbia. Store lights have been dimmed and street lights have come on. The evening’s wind picks up as the temperature plunges on another winter night. Heated apartments are a welcome haven for the city dwellers, while blazing logs in the fireplace spell “home, sweet home” for the suburban commuters. The hot dinners and soft beds that follow are taken for granted.
How different the story on the city’s empty streets! Shadowy human figures begin to appear on hundreds of them. Walking slowly on numb feet, hunched forms bracing against the cold wind, they take their place in store entrances, under bridges, over hot-air grates, and on the sidewalks. In cardboard boxes, scavenged from garbage bins, they bed down for the night. Whatever their age, their background, their physical and mental condition, they have one common denominator that inseparably links them all—they are homeless. These are the urban nomads, the street people, the bag ladies, the winos. They are the blight of almost every major city in the world. They have become a major urban crisis, a problem without a solution.
Since homelessness is widespread, someone you know may be affected by it. The plight of the homeless raises a number of questions. How did these people come to be without adequate housing? How do they get by? Who helps them? And what does the future hold for the homeless?
According to the United Nations, there are over 100 million homeless people worldwide. If that figure is accurate, then 1 human in every 60 or so is without adequate shelter! Still, the real scope of the problem is hard to assess. Why?
Definitions of homelessness vary from one part of the