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Homeless in Dc

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Submitted By lumayara
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Introduction Washington D.C. is a beautiful district with great architeture and beautiful buildings. Its population was estimated to be about 672,000 residents in 2015. From the 672,000 residents, DC region has 11,623 literally homeless people, about 1.72% of all residents. In percentage, it can be considered as a low number but this little percentage is not really appreciated by the thousands of families who don’t have where to live or even don’t know if they will have what to eat. A federal estimate released this year, 2016, points that homeless children and their parents passed the number of homeless single adults. It means that most homeless people are families. Women, men and children without a place to call home. D.C. laws guarantee a right to a shelter to the homeless but still it’s possible to see many homeless in the streets. The Washington Council published a research about homeless people in 2015 where it found 3,417 homeless children (29% of all homeless). This indicates that a big amount of children are growing up in a different atmosphere. They don’t have a place to call home, they don’t have relatives, friends or neighborhood schools. Maybe some of them don’t even go to school. Those children face problems like lack of food, they probably don’t have a good nutrition, they have big chances to have more health problems, are easily exposed to violence, estress and no safety environment. These children have high chances to become criminals, as a research of the National HCH Council (2013) says researchers estimate that 25-50% of the homeless population has a history of going to prison and also these children are experience growing up in the streets. These children are exposed to all types of danger. They can be rapped, die of bad nutrition, die of diseases or because of the weather, they can start using drugs, sell their bodies and they might never receive a good quality education or even go to school. Also, many U.S. veterans are homeless, some of them are single and some of them have family. The research made by the Washington Council lists 584 veterans as homeless in 2015, 68 of them were women. There are programs created to support homeless veterans and between 2010-2015 the number of veterans has decreased in 19%. Still it’s possible to see in the streets a considerable number of homeless people saying they are veterans. Homeless veterans, as all other homeless in general, have a big indication of use of drugs, mental illness, physical disability, HIV, Chronic Health problems, Limited English, etc. In 2011, the total of homeless was 11,879 and now we have 11,623. Comparing the numbers of homeless people from 2011 to 2015 we can see that there was a small decrease, 256 less homeless which is a very small difference. Then, it would be hard to expect that in 10 years this number changes in a big scale as every year D.C population increases and we also could not see already a big difference in these 5 years. Homelessness is a very visible problem and every day we face homeless people in the streets. Anyone can become a homeless. One day you can have a job and be able to afford expensive housing in DC area but we never know the day of tomorrow and if this happens to anyone, we all deserve security and support. It’s hard to see people that one day were living a normal life with a home, like us, today are living in the streets and have no idea of where they will sleep or how they are gonna eat. It’s sad to know that there are so many kids being homeless and they might never have a decent life. When I walk downtown in D.C., I see so many homeless people maybe in one walk I can face 10 of them and I feel bad for them, also feel afraid because they might hurt me or steal my things. Some of them even try to talk and ask for some money. It’s very sad to see people in this situation. How can we sleep very comfortabilly in our houses during the cold weather knowing that there are many people close to us and they are in the streets freezing to death? How can exist so much waste of food and there are people outside our doors crying for a piece of bread? Homelessness is a very delicated topic and we are all witnessess. It’s important that we also take attitudes to improve our scenario and reduce this huge and disturbing number of homeless people. We can help these people improve their lives and make D.C. even more beautiful with less people in the streets if we all work together.

References:

National HCH Council. Incarceration & Homelessness: A Revolving Door of Risk. Nov. 2013. Access in: http://www.nhchc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/infocus_incarceration_nov2013.pdf

Washington Council of Governments. Homelessness in Metropolitan Washington. May 2015. Access in: https://www.mwcog.org/uploads/pub-documents/v15bWlk20150514094353.pdf The Washington Post. There are now more homeless kids and parents in D.C. than homeless single adults. May 2016. Access in: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/there-are-now-more-homeless-kids-and-parents-in-dc-than-single-adults-for-the-first-time/2016/05/11/d4d256c2-16f5-11e6-9e16-2e5a123aac62_story.html

The Washington Post. Washington is expected to just keep on growing — to nearly 1 million residents. Mar. 2016. Access in:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/washington-is-expected-to-just-keep-on-growing--to-nearly-1-million-residents/2016/03/09/42a88aac-e633-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html

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