preview

Homelessness In America Essay

Decent Essays

Every year hundreds of families, war veterans, and people with physical and mental handicaps are left homeless and on the streets. Many of these peoples are unable to work as a result of these disabilities and in today's economy unable to find jobs if they do have the ability to work. The government's response to this issue is through programs that help people find jobs or that establish affordable living situations for people in those situations. In order to fix homelessness, the american people must understand what is going on and how they can help, the government must issue welfare reform, and there needs to be more improvement in the northern part of the nation.
Homelessness in America can be dated back to the 1640s. In the 1640s homelessness …show more content…

According to Shadee Ashtari, a reporter at the Huffington Post, one situation that many people are unaware of is that there are more than 58,000 homeless college students. These people are almost indistinguishable from other college students, they sleep in cars, school libraries, or couch surf with friends. According to Ashtari, these people are not only motivated more than others to succeed but they also challenge the traditional idea of a homeless person. For most people, homeless people are just lazy people that are waiting for a hand out when they could be working. However, for these college students this is not the case they work just as hard if not harder than their peers because they have a higher desire to succeed and get out of the difficult situation they are going through. Another concept that the American people need to understand is what exactly is a homeless person. The U.S. department of Health and Services defines a homelessness as, “A homeless person is an individual without permanent housing who may live on the streets; stay in a shelter, mission, single room occupancy facilities, abandoned building or vehicle; or in any other unstable or non-permanent situation.”(Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C., 254b) It goes into more detail in saying,” An individual who has a primary nighttime residence

Get Access