How are the homeless?

We've looked at another sheet on homelessness. In this we discussed the causes, different types of people, and what the government is doing about homelessness. The greatest causes of homelessness is lack of affordable housing, poverty, unemployment, substance abuse, and mental illness. 1.5 million American children are homeless each year. Forty percent of homeless men are veterans. You would think that since the veterans served the country that the government would at least provide a roof over their heads. Thirty-eight percent report alcohol use, twenty-six are drug use, and thirty-nine have some form of mental health problem. Homelessness seems to be bigger in central cities rather than in rural areas.
Our group agreed that this is the case because the cost of living in a city is much more expensive than the cost of living in the rural area. That made us think: why don't they just move somewhere else where the cost of living is less expensive? Of course move there before they go completely homeless, but the truth is, you never know. Often times homelessness creeps up on you and when it hits you, it hits you all at once and it hits you hard.
We all learned something new today: The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act was the first major federal legislative response to homelessness. This has created several programs that helped Americans regain stability through shelters, housing, job training, health care, and education. Although this Act may have helped the symptoms of homelessness, people argued that they needed to focus more on the causes.

Another thing we did today was discuss the previous video: Faces of Homelessness 2 with our teacher. He had asked us each which part was the most shocking and we each had a different answer. Mine was the homeless shelter. I told about how surprised I was that homeless shelters didn't actually provide safety and security. One of my partners answered how one of the women there was raped.
We then discussed how we felt about the homeless. If we had ever thought about people who were homeless before we were exposed to this project and both of my partners answered that they knew there were people out there who were homeless but never thought much of it until they saw them out on the streets. My response was yes. I did think about it before this project. With my parents having me at the very young age of 16, my mom attending college, and my dad being the only one working we struggled a lot yet my parents always reminded me to count my blessings. I remember when my dad had lost his job and we ended up moving in with my grandparents my parents kept telling me that we were blessed to have somebody to fall back on because most people didn't. Ever since then I've tried to never take things for granted and I'm thankful that there's a roof over my head, food on the table, and a bed to sleep in at night.

Different ages of homeless children:


Homeless person(s):