Issues: Homelessness
According to the US government, a person is homeless if they fit the following criteria:
- An individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; and
- An individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is:
According to some of the latest statistics 754,000 people were homeless in the U.S. on any given night in January 2005. Among these persons, 415,000 were sheltered in emergency or transitional housing and 339,000 were unsheltered. Unsheltered means those people were living on the street with no other place to go.
Among all these homeless people, 66% were unaccompanied adults and youth. The remaining 34% were adults and children in families. According to reports, as many as 600,000 families with as many as 1.35 million children may experience homelessness over the course of a given year. Veterans make up 40% of the total male homeless population while adult men account for only 34% of the population.
Vulnerability of the Homeless
Homelessness is an issue that affects the entire community. Homeless individuals are much more vulnerable to hate crimes and other crimes of the moment. Women who find themselves homeless are likely to be raped within a few short weeks of hitting the streets. Teens may turn to sex, as their body may be the only remaining asset they have for survival on the streets.
The community suffers from the image of homeless people wandering the streets. People complain about the homeless urinating on the street. The presence of urine on the street is an annoyance. But the issue of real import is the urinating individual is homeless in America, the richest country in the world today.
The homeless among our society are invisible to most people. Ignoring the homeless or wishing them away are not solutions. We must face the issue, and begin to seek solutions. There is much research about the root causes of homelessness, but now how do we find solutions?
Providing Shelters
Providing some measure of shelter removes people from the street. Such shelters need to provide more than just a bed and food for the night. People suffering longer term needs may also require drug and alcohol counseling, along with basic job skill training. Some people need mental health care. Many homeless people are qualified for jobs and need help in that search. Some need child care in order to take a job. Job seekers need an address not identifiable as a shelter in order to rent an apartment once they get on their feet or even to get a job on the way to returning to stability. Each individual must be evaluated and given specific care to meet their needs in the shelter situation.
More and better shelters need to be provided for persons in need. The issue is not one of giving people a free ride, but rather one of rehabilitating disadvantaged human beings to a point where they can become productive members of society once again. Once people are able to return to the work force, their income taxes will more than pay for any monies used for their care during a homeless time.
The Link to Housing
Housing is a basic issue in homelessness. Affordable housing is becoming increasingly scarce. In many places, the real estate business is more profitable when vacant buildings are sold to developers for luxury apartments than when the same empty building is renovated for subsidized housing. Laws must be changed to require lower income or mixed housing in our society if we are to make real progress toward a nation that cares for ALL the people and not just a select few.
We need programs in place to insure people who fall behind in rent or mortgage payments have alternatives. Short term monetary support should be provided in order to keep people in their homes when that shortage of money is an issue. People changing jobs or suddenly out of employment may support themselves in the longer term, but need some help for a brief time.
Increased amounts of safe and secure shelter need to be provided for the abused among our homeless. Abused women account for a significant proportion of homeless people with children. These women may need various forms of support in order to both keep the family intact and return to society as productive citizens.
The Link to Poverty
Despite the common perception that homeless people are more likely to be troubled, the fact is they are most often just poor in comparison to the average member of society. Poverty and the failure of so many to earn a living wage are root causes of homelessness that must be addressed if we are alleviate the problem.
Affirming the Humanity of the Homeless
The overall issue of homelessness is a difficult and complex one. We as a nation must begin to look at the problem. This among so many more tough issues cannot be ignored if we are to be a leader among nations. We cannot leave people on the streets day after day and be the example we wish to be in the world of tomorrow. As with so many social issues facing our country today, we must begin to see other people as the human beings they represent. We must seek the similarities and leave the differences for later discovery. Only when we begin to be unified as humankind can we begin to resolve many of the major problems of the day, such as homelessness.
Holistic Solutions for a Complex Problem
The government alone cannot solve all the issues of homelessness. Local communities must begin to look for solutions to the root problems, such as a lack of housing, and must begin to find ways to solve the problem in their own towns and cities. Each community has different needs and each may find different programs that work on the local level. The Federal responsibility should be to allocate funds in block grants and other forms of support in order for local citizens to put solutions in place. So long as we have homeless people in America, we will continue to fall short of real democracy.
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