The Growth of Homelessness

Part I: In many major cities these days, it’s very common to see homeless people living on the streets. It has grown to become a popular site within major cities and seems to be only getting worse.  The government tries to display to the public that they are helping the homeless, but they tend to be caught up with more important things because of our economic crisis . The government hasn’t accomplished much since the 1990’s and homelessness is only getting worse (1). Currently there are over 600 thousand homeless people living in the United States and those numbers are only getting higher. It is said that 4 out of 10 people live in shelters and the rest are living in places not intended for human habitation (2). I believe as a country it’s our duty to help those who have not had the opportunities as others to live a normal lifestyle. Of course there are people who have chosen to go down the path of homelessness but there are a lot of families who have tried to live a normal lifestyle but cant because of the limitation of jobs. Thousands of people struggle to find well paying jobs, the majority can only find small part time jobs or struggle to work two jobs. A man named Clement is a US veteran who since leaving the military tried to juggle two jobs just to make ends meat. He sometimes worked 70 hours a week but the strain of those jobs eventually led him to be fired for “low productivity”. Since loosing his jobs he has been in and out of shelters and struggles to find part time jobs that only allow him to meet his needs of food (3). This story of Clement shows how his dream of living as a middle class man is crushed because of our Economy. I believe its important for us as a country to provide better paying jobs that will allow the opportunity to homeless people to live a normal life. Not only will we be able to get people from living in cardboard boxes to actual homes, but could possibly point us in the direction to get ourselves out of this economic disaster. Since the 1990’s local governments have been acting more aggressive towards the homeless in order to shield citizens from obscure behavior. Such behavior can include urinating in public, shouting and obstructing traffic. But these measures have caused some cities to overcrowd their shelters, which leads to unhealthy living environments. Instead of feeling sympathetic towards the homeless people started getting frustrated and that’s when the help to aid homelessness dulled. In 1996, Clinton signed the federal welfare reform, which set rules for working requirements. Instead of helping the homeless it just put more people on the streets (1). The Government created the HUD, the US development of Housing and Urban Development in 1965. It is designed to increase the amounts of homeownership as well as decrease discrimination. The program also took responsibility to broaden homelessness around the nation in the 1980s. With the assistance of the Clinton Administration, HUD developed the Continuum of Care, which provided many services to the homeless. Such services included emergency housing, transitional housing and permanent housing. It is very encouraging to hear of such programs that the government has created. With more of these establishments, I feel that we can greatly cut down the number of the people on the streets (4).

Part II: With the thousands of homeless people living on the streets, there have been many programs that have been created for those in need. Along with Government responses, local and state responses have come up as well. Upon the increasing technology, growing social networks such as facebook and twitter offer some homeless people to reunite with their family members.  On February 26, Daniel Morales a homeless man living in New York City was given the opportunity to carry a cell phone around with him. The program that gave Morales this opportunity was called “Underheard in New York,” this project was established by a group of interns at an advertising agency called Bartle Bogle Hegarty. It was created to give a voice to those in need. By accepting the agreement to give daily updates to the public about living on the streets, gave Morales the liberty of owning a cell phone. And with the help of twitter Morales was able to reunite with his family. Although he is going to continue to live in the homeless shelter, Morales said "I'm going to do whatever it takes to keep them near me (5)." It’s astounding to hear of a story about social networks giving people in need the opportunity to reunite with family members. With an increase of projects such as “Underheard in New York” we can help more people in need.

            Even with the help of small projects we still require the aid of the government to be the ones in charge of helping the homeless. But in New York City the government has decided to eliminate the rental voucher program. This program allows 15,000 families to live in normal living conditions. But with the elimination of this program it will only increase the cost of financing shelters by $455 million. The city claims that they must repeal this program because of the state budget cuts. But even by eliminating the rental voucher program their only increasing the costs of keeping homeless shelters open (6). Not only is the Government taking these families homes away but also do not have a plan for these people to fall back on. It doesn’t make sense to remove a program that is helping so many thousands of people stay off the streets and which will only increase the cost of financing shelters.

            Part III: There are many causes as of why people are living on the streets. But the main cause of it is the low paying jobs mixed with the high rents of homes. Thousands of people lie under the burden of making next months rent. With today’s crumbling economy people everywhere are jobless. They struggle to find any kind of job and for the fortunate who find a job they are usually paying them minimum wage. It’s nearly impossible for a couple to live off minimum wage let alone a family. For those families who are lucky to have a roof over their heads usually struggle with rent. More than 80% of families in California who are living beneath the poverty line spend over 50% of their monthly income on rent (2). Not only do these families have other bills to pay but they can hardly afford necessities. Since the population is increasing and wages increasing unequally, the rents for apartments and homes increase. Knowing that rent is increasing it will hardly be a surprise seeing these numbers grow. Rent isn’t the only problem that so many families face but it’s also the wages people are being paid. In 2009, low paying incomes decreased by 2% and in some states it even dropped 10% (2). What frightens me is what do the families do who don’t have health insurance. One trip to the emergency room could land any family straight to streets. Robyn frost said, "If anything, we're going into a time of greater uncertainty (7).” It’s astounding to me how even with these statistics the Government believes people can get by with just minimum wage. If we continue on like this we will just keep seeing an increase of homelessness. Although our country is going through an economic crisis and has many issues to deal with on there plate, but they cannot forget about the people. If the Government wants to see a decrease of homeless people and less people living beneath the poverty line they must make a few changes. Congress must establish free health care, offer more homes with cheaper rent, and offer more jobs with an increase in minimum wage. These three steps could greatly decrease the amount of people living on the streets.

As my community service I was able to help homeless people in Berkley. Along with my soccer team we were able to give back to the community by going to St. Marks Church in Berkley. We were fortunate enough to help feed some of the homeless people living in Berkley. My job was to serve the homeless people thanksgiving dinner, with a partner we served about 20 people. There were people of all ages and ethnicity there. What really shocked me was when I saw a couple people who weren’t much older than me. It really showed me how many people suffer from homelessness. But even though all those people that I was serving were homeless the majorities of them were very friendly and seemed happy. This experience showed me how fortunate I’m to be living the life I am. And by writing this paper it allowed me to have a better prospective of our world and how many people are affected by homelessness.