Fastest Growing Group Of Homeless People example essay topic

Homelessness is a serious problem in our society. Every night in our nation thousands of people are on the streets. This type of behavior is considered deviant because it does not reflect the norms and values of our society. In many cases the homeless people in our country are treated as total outcasts. Many of these people have severe mental disorders. Some are victims of an economy that has failed them.

One may ask how such harsh situations exist in such an advanced society. With all the money and programs created to help people it seems ridiculous that this behavior exists. 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. As fellow humans we are obligated to help those in need. The homeless are in need. They are not only in need of money, but they are also in need of our attention and our support. Homelessness is something that we as a society need to address and eliminate completely. In the past few years the number of homeless people has increased tremendously gaining the attention of the public eye.

While there is debate over how many homeless people are in the United States, few disagree that the numbers are overwhelmingly high and they are growing. In the past the homeless population mainly consisted of white men who were alcoholics. Now the homeless consists of many different types of people ranging in ethical background. They have also become a younger group of people and have a variety of different reasons for their homelessness (Farr, 1986).

One of the most common reasons for homelessness is mental illness. The movement which released many of the mentally ill from psychiatric hospitals and did not place them in a place in the city that they would be cared for, have made these people regulars in the urban communities. Many citizens are scared of these people. Other people find it outrageous that our society has failed in taking care of those who do not have the ability to take care of themselves. The widespread media coverage has caused a demand for a solution. A problem with trying to understand the reason people are homeless, is the different prevalence rates found in much of the literature.

Since these people have no home, it is impossible to assess data through telephone directories. Research surveys and questionnaires are not important to homeless people. Many homeless people migrate from city to city which complicates this task of acquiring a sample that represents the population. For the most part, the information found on homeless people has been taken from shelter population records. This excludes those who sleep on the streets or in abandoned houses and are unwilling or unable to sleep in a shelter.

These people could be more psychologically stable in that they are capable of finding their own resources. This can cause the rate of mental disorder to be overestimated. They could also be a less psychologically stable in that they are unable to tolerate rules or being close to others. This could cause the rate of mental disorder to be underestimated.

In either case the sample would not be representative of the population (Jahiel, 1992). For the homeless, at no time is there physical health not at risk. The homeless in rural areas are at even greater risk due to the lack of medical facilities. Life with no shelter puts a person's health in serious danger. Minor health problems that people have are easily treated with medicines from the cabinet. These problems are much more complicated for those that do not have access to such.

Sickness that would normally be cured with a few days bed rest, become serious health issues to those that do not have access to a bed. Showering contributes a lot to ones health, something that most homeless people are denied. Homeless people have no bed to keep warm in if they get a fever or if the weather is cold. They do not have a cabinet with aspirin or cough syrup. They do not have a stovetop to make soup.

They have no ice from the refrigerator and they do not have a bathtub to soak in. These things are taken for granted by the people who have them. These seem as necessities for most adults, but even more so for children. Children that do not have homes grow up at risk for diseases that are not a threat to the general part of the nation. Illnesses such as whooping cough or tuberculosis that seem so rare in society are commonly found in homeless shelters. These children have not been given their vaccines over the years and therefore are not allowed to attend school.

The homeless children that do attend school are sometimes as far behind as two grade levels. Many of the children are very hungry and tired which makes it almost impossible for them to concentrate. Other children are embarrassed to go to school because the othe children know their situation and ridicule them. Sometimes a teacher might even keep away from a child that they believe to be dirty or may be sick. Most of these children are. They do not smell good because they do not take baths.

They grow up being outcasts (Connolly, 2000). The National Health Care for the Homeless project showed that children up to twelve years of age that are homeless, are twice as likely to come down with an ear or upper respiratory infection. They are three times as likely to have a gastrointestinal problem and four times as likely to have a skin problem and ten times more likely to have bad teeth. For children thirteen to nineteen there was a similar pattern. They had higher rates of alcohol and drug abuse. Teen pregnancy was much higher for homeless children also.

Asthma, hypertension, mental disorders, elevated blood lead levels, and chronic health problems were significantly higher for all homeless children. Regular sleep and nutritious food are something that these children lack. They do not get enough to eat and what they do eat is usually a part of an unbalanced diet. Nutrition, which is essential for good health, is not given to these children.

Food that is cheap sometimes robs the children of this nutrition. In some instances money may be so scarce that a parent may have to make a decision on whether not to buy food for the week or pay for gasoline for transportation to a job interview. Lack of good nutrition can cause a child to stay hungry. For mothers of infants, milk must sometimes be kept cold in the tank of a toilet or cooler. It is obvious why the homeless have poor health (Cowan, 1997). When people take part in deviant behavior they do so because they feel separated from mainstream society.

If the dominant social order has no place for a person, then they must find a subgroup to which they feel needed. Homelessness, for some, is a consequence in a failure to belong. Just because homeless people do not belong to a community, they give up the right to vote. The homeless have trouble belonging to a community.

Many people do not want the homeless to belong to there community. They do not want the homeless to be apart of the same social circle. People are embarrassed of the homeless because of the many stereotypes that they have been given. Many people that have some kind of housing distress will deny it. This is because they are aware of the stereotype that comes along with homelessness and they do not want to be labeled in such a way. Some people refuse to admit they are homeless even if they are living in a homeless shelter because they do not want to be labeled as homeless.

Some wish to hold on to there social dignity by keeping their homelessness a secret. Social bonds are essential for a psychological well-being. Social isolation can cause alcoholism, psychopathology, and stress related illness. Without the affiliation of social bonds a person's mental and social health suffers. Homelessness occurs as disaffiliation with support systems and social bonds. As with the homeless, weakened ties with the community make them feel less obligated to behave in conventional ways which paves the way to crime (Farr, 1986).

Today families and children are fastest growing group of homeless people. Ten years ago families and children were about ten percent of the homeless population. Today families and children make up half of the homeless population. Homeless families are more common in rural area then urban ones. Children under the age of six are the fastest growing group of the homeless. Teens that do not live with there parents are also growing extremely fast.

The rural poor are at the most disadvantaged of all Americans. In 1987 the U.S. Conference of Mayors Study found that in America homelessness increase by twenty percent every year and by the year 2003 eighteen point seven million Americans will not be able to find an affordable housing unit. Homelessness could be increasing faster than this. A study done at a Columbia University done in 1993 indicate that thirteen point five million Americans have been forced to live on the streets or in a shelter at some point in there lives. Also six million of them had reported being homeless in the past five years.

If you count those people who were forced temporarily to live with someone the number rises to twenty six million (Vissing, 1996). There is evidence to show that the homeless are victims of violence much more often than that of the rest of the population. The homeless are particularly victims of street crime. This is due to their lack of social resources. With no house, it is extremely hard to find a place where they are safe behind locked doors. The homeless are weak and the street criminal knows this and sees them as easy targets.

Homeless people are reluctant to call the police because they may feel as if they are not as worthy of protection as the tax-payers. Society in some ways has labeled the homeless as disposable, making them even more of a target. In The past fifty years the United States of America has invested more money in helping the needy than any other country in the world. The result is that we have more poor people now and more people dependent on the government than we did fifty years ago. The welfare program in our society has failed. The illegitimacy rate of welfare when it first was introduced was one fourth of what it is today.

It has driven fathers out of families and has caused mothers to become dependent. It has taken away people's dignity and has fueled child abuse and neglect. Dependence is a product of welfare. Independence is centered on employment and self-reliance which welfare does not support. Better programs must be created if we are to successfully help the poverty stricken communities of our nation (Connolly, 2000).

It is time we stop ignoring the homeless and treating them as if they do not exist. It is time to put an end to something that has been a problem for a long time. Government must play a better role in helping these individuals that do not have a home. Social workers must find different means for helping the homeless. Permanent residence facilities should be considered instead of temporary shelters.

Job programs for the homeless must concentrate on getting these people out of the streets and into the workplace so they can make something of themselves and not rely on the government just to give them what they need. Society must stop fearing these people and realize that they are humans just like all of us. No one in this great country deserves to be homeless, our nation is too great for that (Jahiel, 1992). The lack of knowledge of homeless children and families does not mean that they do not exist.

They do exist as an outstanding social problem of our society. It is important we try to understand the homeless so we can successfully help them. It is impossible not to feel compassion for people especially children who take to the streets every night when the rest of us crawl into warm beds. Everyone that is homeless does not have a drug and alcohol problem. They have a problem with living finding a place to live, something that society takes for granted. Many people only see the horrible consequences of homelessness.

They see the dirty smelly beggars on the street. They don't stop to think that homelessness is much more complex than that. Homelessness is a process that people are caught up in. Society needs to realize that everyone has the potential to become homeless at some point in time. Society needs to look through the eyes of the homeless so we can understand what happens to the people while living on the streets. America's homeless population is growing everyday.

They need our help because some of them cannot help themselves. There is no excuse for people to be homeless in such and advanced society as our own. It is time for people to start to help each other and put stereotypes and labels aside so that a social problem can be resolved, the social problem of homelessness (Vissing, 1996).