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Homelessness a Social Problem Facing the Contemporary United States

In: Social Issues

Submitted By pjsumlin
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Throughout the United States statistics show that there is evidence of an increase of persons that are in the state of being homeless. Conditions such as unemployment, low income, substance abuse, and mental disabilities are just to name a few. Some of these victims of being homeless are those that are least expected which include members of the military, the veterans, mainly those that have served during the time of the Vietnam War. As a direct result of Post Traumatic Syndrome and other mental/medical disabilities many in this group may not have a permanent home to call their own.
To define homelessness according to the site for National Health Care for the Homeless Council (retrieved 2014), one of the official definitions for the state of being homeless or homelessness is presented as follows:
A homeless individual is defined in section 330(h) (4)(A) as “an individual who lacks housing (without regard to whether the individual is a member of a family), including an individual whose primary residence during the night is a supervised public or private facility (e.g., shelters) that provides temporary living accommodations, and an individual who is a resident in transitional housing.” 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)](National 2014)

This is one of the definitions that tries to explain this large sociological perspective based on trends or patterns and the fact that this social situation requires such a broad explanation to attempt to cover all aspects of homelessness. This explanation does show how widespread and complicated the state of being homeless is and how socially there is not one simple answer to a solution for this problem.
Initially the social problem of being homeless was not considered a major concern and according to Robert Rosenheck in his article on Homelessness in America (1994), when homelessness was first seen as a growing public problem, it was originally linked to the recession of the early 1980’s. Because the trends used for the evaluation process to determine future problems were based on a system present that dealt with poverty, this problem was not of an increasing widespread concern as homelessness was considered to be simple situation due to a “tragic but temporary aberration affecting particularly vulnerable segments of the population.”(Rosenheck 1994). The trends that governed this thought process dealt with,
a) Unemployment,
b) Medical and mental disability
c) Being single and
d) Race with the predominant ethnicity of the African American race. At the time, gender played a role but the role differed based on the previous noted trends. According to Rosenheck, reports that were based on these trends placed homelessness as a “temporary problem that is confined to the fringes of society and does not affect the societal core.” (Rosenheck 1994) Over the years that nonconcrete concern had become a more concrete and widespread situation. That thought process of homelessness being a temporary condition has altogether changed over the past thirty years. Although there has been great improvement within the economy over a ten year period from the time of that report, the situation of being homeless unexpectedly worsened with increased numbers by individual persons and families that were involved. Additional unexpected trends became involved which factored into these increasing numbers which included the military veterans with the Vietnam War era. According to the Executive Summary of The State of Homelessness in America 2013 report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, “The rate for Veterans was 29 homeless Veterans per 10,000 Veterans in the general population.” The presence of substance abuse presented another factor that created a trend for the increase of homelessness among the younger population and could be directly related to an increase occurrence of teenage pregnancies and teenagers that dropped out of high school. The overall role that race for trends was a small when compared to the overall age of persons involved, but at this time the role of gender became an increasing factor. Finally the increase of chronic participants of homelessness, those who returned to the state of being homeless more by choice than by situation, provided another trend for the increased numbers of homelessness.
Using the sociological theory of interactionist perspective, there is a complex social attitude that seems to have developed amongst some groups in the state of being homeless. One concern is the shift in the thought process that sees this social change or state as a “way of life”, or a permanent state. Another aspect of this theory is best explained within the social organization of some of the occupants of shelters that have made this “temporary” situation to a more permanent one. This form of this social organization seems to have developed where the temporary occupants are referred to as “residents” and those that provide a service are the temporary service providers on a time frame in the facility i.e. nine to five. It was also expressed in a personal interview with a homeless “resident” that many consider these temporary “homes” as a haven, providing a mental security verses a more permanent form of housing that was associated with increased insecurities of working, bills, and taxes. These provision of shelters are a form of “residence” which is being compared more to a place of ownership and less of just a form of temporary placement.
Society on the whole is affected by this social state of being homeless. This affect can be on an emotional level that results in a temporary “fix” by giving donations to those that are “begging” on the street or to the giving of donations to the shelters. Or this affect can be negative for those not empathetic to the situation of the homelessness and view these victims as “irritants” and are hesitant to share the same public space with this group.
Unfortunately the environment of these “shelters” also present a negative public view due to evidence of more violence and harm to those individuals that live near or to the persons that are a part of the social group of being homeless. These homeless persons are more victimized by abuse and violence by those present who are supposed to provide a service or those of the same group of receiving of the same “shelter” service.
Another result of this nationwide social concern is seen by the action of some cities that have put laws in place that make the situation of being homeless a “crime”. In those municipalities, persons are prohibited from sleeping or storing belongings within public places, or are faced with an anti-loitering law. According to the United States Interagency Council of Homelessness in their 2013 report, these laws and regulations are still it being investigated for the overall benefit versus cost analysis.
Over the past decade there has been a large increase in federal funding to find ways to properly deal with this social concern of homelessness. As a direct result of this growing social problem there has been an increase of services and programs that are federally funded to determine what the core problems are and to find ways to effectively decrease if not stop the situation of homelessness. As expressed by Rosenheck in his article, although the problem is not being addressed at the root it should be to stop the trends of homelessness, “One cannot fix a leaky boat by bailing out the water. One must find the holes and patch them.”(Rosenheck 1994). Bibliography

• The State of Homelessness in America 2013, (April 8, 2013) National Alliance to End Homelessness 2013, http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/the-state-of-homelessness-2013 • National Health Care for the Homeless, n.d retrieved on (04/11/2014) http://www.nhchc.org/faq/official-definition-homelessness/ • Rosenheck, R. (1994) Editorial: Homelessness in America. American Journal of Public Health, 1885-86, vol 84, No.12
• United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (2012), National Research Agenda,
http://www.usich.gov

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