...She put her hand on the side of her face, preventing the other passengers on the city bus from hearing or seeing her as she discretely mouthed the words, “Salvation Army” to me. “They don’t know how to treat the homeless” said Mary, 65, criticizing the City of Columbia for the inadequate resources they provide for the homeless population. Mary moved to Columbia a few years ago after being relocated from her home in Melville, Missouri, which she implied was part of an effort to seek out a more suitable place to be homeless. A former member of the group, “Naider’s Raiders”, a 1960s-1970s activist group committed to causes such as consumer advocacy, Mary now spends her time campaigning for better treatment of the homeless population. “The people...
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...Homelessness is something that everyone experiences at some point in their life, often daily, but not everyone truly understands what it means to be homeless. You may experience homelessness by seeing someone on the street and observing their lifestyle or habits, but you don’t see their past that got them there, or their thoughts and feelings about their own situation. The impacts on the personal lives, community, and society as a whole are as broad and diverse as the homeless community itself. There are countless ways to become homeless, and not many ways to escape it without help from an outside source. So who composes the homeless community, what are the causes of homelessness, and what are the ramifications of it on all levels, ranging...
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...The homeless community in Santa Ana is located south of Civic Center Drive, North of Santa Ana Boulevard, West of Broadway and East of Flower St. The Civic Center has the largest concentration of homeless population, estimated at 400-500 people (Do, A. 2016). On one sunny Saturday, two nursing student, Rayhena and Myra went to the Santa Ana Civic Center for the windshield survey. As they drove towards Ross St, several homeless individuals seen laying on the grass under a shaded tree. Several walls of government building had graffiti writings and traces of brown smears. The two nursing students parked their car at the parking garage next to the Santa Ana Library and they noticed a “no bathroom” sign was posted outside the library building....
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...Civic and Community Engagement Project Brief 12.12.2013 Task: Complete a research paper on Homelessness in Ireland. Write a reflective paper, with maximum 2000 words including references, discussing and reflecting on – The causes of homelessness – The issues that Homeless people face – Solutions to Homelessness – The Simon Society in Ireland Homelessness in Ireland Homelessness is one of our biggest problems in the word and also in Ireland. According to the statistics there are 3808 homeless people living in Ireland. Those include the people who are sleeping on the street, the ones who are staying in refugees or alternative hostels, people who live temporarily in bed and breakfast, or with their family or friends or illegally in squats. Figure 1 1 Figure 2 In the Figure 1 you can see how many homeless people each city or region has and the Figure 2 shows us the statistic categorized in homeless male and female living in a accommodation and the ones who don´t have a stay. But what causes the homelessness? Unfortunately most people think that homelessness is mostly caused by they own fault. A lot of people think after some personal failures the people loose control about their life caused by alcohol or drug abuse and become homeless. Although the personal failures named before also affect homelessness there are more personal reasons that caused homelessness and also most people forget to think about the structural reasons that also affects the homelessness...
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...UOPX NUR471 | Homeless Veterans | A Vulnerable Population | | Tina Sampers | 4/29/12 | Description of the selected population The assumption that all veterans receive free health care and supported by the United States government is a sad misconception and unrealistic dream. Homeless veterans by definition are a group of individuals who have served in the United States military and do not have shelter, or home at night. The Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act offers a detailed definition of homeless to include no shelter as defined as nights spent in a car, abandoned building or on the streets, in a homeless shelter, transitional housing, or with family members or friends without paying rent (O'Toole, 2010). Vulnerable population risk factors Homeless veterans are a vulnerable population group by definition, because they are a subgroup of the population more likely to develop health problems or have worse problems from health problems due to exposures to risks not experienced by the rest of the population (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2008, p. 712). According to the Veterans Affairs (VA), an estimated 194,000 veterans nationwide were homeless on any given night during the fiscal year 2005 (GAO, 2006, p.2). The VA admits it is difficult to obtain accurate numbers and fear the actual numbers are much higher (GAO, 2006, p.2). Researchers completed numerous studies to differentiate the health problems associated with homeless veterans compared...
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...unbalanced by low wages. The lack of competitive pay poses strain on citizens who face an increase in the cost of living. Cost of living increases make it harder for citizens to afford the cost of rent, mortgage, utilities and other basic needs. Without a means to afford all the essentials in life, many Asheville citizens find it too difficult to get by and may end up homeless. In another interview in the Mountain Xpress published this past August, Heather Dilashaw, the program director for the Homeless Initiative Coalition in Asheville stated, “It does seem to be tied to continued depressed economic opportunity, with rents in the Asheville area [continuing] to be above fair-market value [and] difficult to attain. “Ten years ago, a younger adult who didn't have other family support or resources could get a job, even if it was a fairly low-wage job, and still figure out how to make housing work. That's becoming more and more difficult to do,” (Forbes, 2013). There are many reasons one could fall victim to homelessness; job loss, addiction, and/or mental illness, among others. According to the Asheville-Buncombe Homeless Initiative (ABHI), the population of homelessness has seen a steady increase, with the 18- to...
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...Should Homelessness be Considered a Crime in The Community? Homelessness affects every community. It can happen to anyone no matter what your status, race, gender, or age. It happens for various reasons. For instance, loss of a job, poor physical or mental health, breakdown in family life, domestic violence, drug abuse, etc. When we talk about the homeless, it is important to remember that often times the homeless are being criminalized for being homeless, but is it justifiable to arrest a person for being homeless? Is arresting homeless people really going to benefit the community as well as the homeless? In an article written by Michael Maskin, a senior at Tufts University, titled “No Safe Place: How cities are making it illegal to be homeless,” Maskin explains the case of Jerome Murdough, a 56 year old veteran who was homeless and arrested for seeking a safe place to sleep. Instead of a safe place to sleep, he died in Riker’s Island prison for not having $2,500 to post bail. “Instead of receiving needed assistance, Murdough was treated like a criminal, and ultimately lost his life by trying to protect it” (Maskin 2). This is a saddening story, but it is often very common. Tickets that will not get paid and time in jail will not change the fact that someone is homeless, so it just becomes one more issues added to the many that they deal with. Another testimony Maskin offers in his article is the story of Sandy a homeless woman seeking a safe place to sleep fined a $400...
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...church affect the local community? The Christian Church has helped so many people in the community, with a personal day care, a place for adults to get food for their children and with a fundraiser to help students with homework who don’t have a place to learn. The community is striving with positivity to understand God’s word; the Church is the backbone of the community for youths who can go to Church for comfort for guidance. The church has baseball, basketball and all kinds of sports for adults for the community to join. The Christian Church Can Provide food and shelter to the homeless, provide transportation for the community, provide a care center for elders in the community for adults that need care. If the homeless wants to help their going to have to put an honest effort of dedication to help the community to come together. Motivation is essential at the church it helps the community by staying together, the homeless will recognize the motivation of others and help more people for the community. The goal of the program was to provide shelter for adults as a response to the death of a homeless man in the community, by using different host sites at churches. (Oliver, 2015) The church has been giving transportation for the community for years helping people that need to get home or people that need help getting some place in town. The church is dedicated to serve the community by offering transportation services to homeless adults who need help with...
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...Not Enough Shelters for the Homeless Jacob Hogue Sean Smith English 111-61f April 13, 2016(2206) Abstract Department of Housing and Urban Development should allocate enough money to The Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority to build enough shelters for homeless people in Indiana to get off the streets. There are all kinds of costs that come along with arresting a homeless person like court costs, booking costs and even paperwork. If enough shelters were built for the homeless people, they would be less likely to be committing crimes and therefor would be costing the state less money to book them. Working and keeping up homeless support administrations projects, for example, homeless safe houses, day focuses, homeless therapeutic administrations etcetera are exorbitant endeavors. The public does because these stores then have to raise the prices of the clothing and food to pay for the food and clothes that were stolen by the homeless people. Department of Housing and Urban Development the death rate of homeless people with be dramatically reduced. If the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority gets the funding from the U. If not things like homeless starvation, drug overdose, public urination, and stealing from stores will never stop happening. S. Guess who pays for that. There are many shelter homes for homeless people in Indianapolis. Although there are many shelters there are still many people that are homeless. One of the many reasons why...
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...Previous attempts Do You Ignore Homeless People? We should not ignore homeless people on the street but to help them. Homeless people go unseen every day, as passersby ignore their existence on sidewalks, in parks, in subway stations. Based on the U.S. Conference of Mayors report from 2008, 19 of the 25 cities reported an increase in homelessness from 2007. More specifically, 16 cities reported an increase in the number of homeless families. Also, due to the recent foreclosures crisis, homelessness has been on the rise. In the U.S. Conference of Mayor’s 2008 Report, 12 of the 25 cities surveyed reported an increase in homelessness. There were some campaigns have been done after the increasing of the population of homelessness in America. Firstly, The National Center on Family Homelessness launched the Campaign to End Child Homelessness in 2009 to ensure that not one child in America goes to sleep for one night without a home. They believe it unacceptable for any child in the United States to be homeless. The Campaign's legacy will be that all children who are homeless will have stable housing, vital support services, and the same opportunities available to more fortunate children. The campaign plans to better address the needs of homeless children, improve programs and services to meet the unique needs of homeless children. Unfortunately, according to the America’s Youngest Outcasts 2010 State Report Card on Child Homelessness the numbers of homeless children increase by more than...
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...McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987, if a person lacks a fixed, regular, or adequate nighttime residence the person is then considered homeless. The National Alliance to End Homelessness reported that on a single night in January 2015 564,708 people in the United States were considered homeless, meaning they had no place to sleep. In the 1870s the issue of homelessness in America emerged causing many homeless people to live in urban cities. In the 1930s this issue worsened due to the Great Depression, causing poverty and more than two million people were homeless and in search of work. The homeless...
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...us, however, many of these people are now homeless. In America, we have many veterans without a house or shelter, and that number is increasing everyday. Why are there so many Veterans on the street, when they have sacrificed so much for our country and livelihoods? We need to support homeless Veterans in our community, so that they can live in a home, not on the street. People have argued that veterans are homeless only because of the choices that they have made, and that is just not true. Not all veterans are homeless because of the choices that they made, and many of these veterans suffer from PTSD. Some people may argue that we should spend money on paying off America’s national debt, but in reality the national debt is too large for any of us to put a...
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...Homeless Veterans in America Name Institution Part 1 Statistics show that there are between 130,000 and 200,000 homeless veterans in America. Homeless veterans amount to about one-fourth and one-fifth of the entire homeless population in America. Homeless veterans are a population of Americans who have at one time or the other served their country in war. An estimated 131,000 veterans spend a night homeless, and this population doubles if one considers the population of homeless veterans over the course of the year. An approximate of 40% homeless men are veterans that are a significant considering 34% of the general adult male population is composed of veterans. Besides being homeless, this population faces other problems which include; social, economic, and psychological problems (Alker, 2009). Homeless veterans are more likely to suffer addiction as compared to the general population. According to Alker (2009), 76% of homeless veterans are alcohol or drug addicts. Because of the painful memories and the new reality of homelessness that dawn on them they turn to alcohol and drugs. Coupled with all the problems these homeless veterans experience social problems such as isolation. For this reason, they have no one to share their pains with and, therefore, they rarely receive help for treatable conditions such as addiction (Center for American Progress, 2008). Economic stressors are a root cause of homelessness for American veterans. The skills acquired from their military...
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...decades, there has been an increase in the homeless population in America (“Opening Doors Plan,” 2015). Even when America’s economy is progressing, there is still a high number of citizens who are facing homelessness (“Opening Doors Plan,” 2015). A lack of federal financial assistance, fragmented services and the difficulties in accessing these services have played a major role in hampering the solution to this social problem (“Opening Doors Plan,” 2015). As a result, these factors have necessitated a shift in federal, state and local policies to end homelessness. America has learned that homelessness can no longer be viewed as a short-term crisis where an abundance of emergency shelters can solve the problem. The demand for emergency shelters has always exceeded the supply for them. In order for justice to occur, there is an urgent need for more preventive measures and long-term solutions to end this problem. Homeless individuals and families are a vulnerable population whose rights have to be protected. A just response to America’s homeless problem has to include prohibition of criminalization laws, permanent housing with supportive services and polices to ensure homeless children achieve success in school. One response to homelessness has been the practice of enacting laws, statutes and ordinances that criminalize behaviors that are common among homeless people (O’Connor, 2006). The purpose of these laws is to remove the homeless from the public’s view in order to minimize...
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...Advocating for the Homeless Advocating for the homeless population in Sacramento, California can be a trying and daunting task for any individual person or organization. The number of homeless people is the community is staggering. Getting services to the people is another task. This paper will address the meaning of advocating for the homeless and some of the barriers to providing service to that community. This paper will also discuss this writer’s personal perspective and what tactics she would use to advocate for the homeless in her community. This paper will also include a brief accounting of how homelessness affects her field of work. Merriam-Webster describes the definition of advocate as “one that pleads the cause of another” (Advocate). For the homeless community this would mean somebody who speaks up for them since they usually cannot speak up for themselves. Nor do they usually have the contacts they would need in order to present their case or cause. This is why the homeless in Sacramento have a great need for advocates. There are, however, organizations that provide advocates for them. Barriers There are many barriers to providing services to the homeless. One of these would be funding. Funding plays a major role in getting the homeless the services they need. Housing is just one of the staples that a person needs in order to survive. The saying is food, clothing, and shelter. Many of the homeless in Sacramento lack all of the basic needs. They also need medical...
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