Imagine
yourself driving on a dark, rainy day and seeing a familiar face standing alone
on the road. You think maybe he went on a walk and got caught up in the rain,
so you pull up to offer them a ride home. As you get closer, you start to
become worried. It looks as if he hasn’t showered in days, or had a change of
clothes. You soon realize that this person has become homeless. How could this
have happened? Homelessness is becoming more and more normal each day. According
to a recent report, “Over half a million people were living on the streets, in
cars, in homeless shelters, or in subsidized transitional housing during a
one-night national survey last January” (“Shocking Homelessness Statistics”).
Whether someone got laid off of work, or lost their job--it is bound to happen
to anyone. It is only society’s coordinated approach to delivering services
that can help end this epidemic.
History
Homelessness
is the outcome of someone losing their permanent home due to many possible
social effects. Sadly, almost everyone is at risk of becoming homeless or being
effected by homelessness. While most people are aware that this epidemic become
recognized in the 1980’s, it was actually primarily documented in America in
the late 1960’s. When this societal issue first became prevalent, it was viewed
as a moral deficiency. People believed that a good Christian would have their
needs met by god and the homeless would have to prove their worth to society in
order to receive any help. (“The History of Homelessness in American 1640s to
present”1).
However,
when the 1980’s hit, a huge turn on the American economy (known as the U-turn)
came about and put over 15 percent of Americans below the poverty line. The
Cold War declined a large surplus of manufacturing, motion picture industries,
and defense dependent industry jobs. This created a shift to service industries
whose wages were significantly lower, causing a large gap between the incomes
of the rich and the poor. “The number of poor renter households grew by 43,000
but the number of units they could technically afford fell by 60,000.” Americans started to come to the realization
that religion didn’t have an effect on social status when many became effected.
(“The Rise of Homelessness in the 1980’s” 1).
In
today’s present society, everyone is at risk of becoming homeless. Factors such
as mental illness, unemployment, drug dependence, housing prices, and domestic
violence have an influence on someone losing it all. As people are becoming more
competitive and economy is getting tougher, the number of homeless people has
been increasing. Unfortunately, even though all of these factors have risen,
some still continue to keep the mindset that every homeless person does this to
themselves.
Effects
on Society
When
someone becomes homeless, it becomes costly for the economy and environment.
Most programs that operate homeless support systems and homeless shelters are
nonprofit programs that are given money through taxpayers. (“Impact of
Homelessness”1). The costs to society include shelter costs ($13,000 per
bed/year), emergency room costs (36% longer hospital stay and an extra $2,414),
and police enforcement costs ($100,000 per year). (“The Economics of
Homelessness”1). Homelessness can also have an effect on the environment. When
there aren’t enough resources available, the homeless will try to sleep and
stay anywhere accessible such as local parks, alleyways, and doorways.
However more importantly, homelessness is a
community issue. It has an effect on the moral dimension, social cohesion,
social inclusion, and social harmony of society. (“Understanding How
Homelessness Affects Us All” 1) Homelessness tends to create divisions within
communities and people start to prioritize healthy people over the homeless.
Many people have set a mindset for themselves that homeless people brought down
this epidemic on themselves and use this as a way to justify their actions of
not caring that their fellow citizens are being mentally and physically
effected in a negative way. This is the most important effect that homelessness
has brought onto society because it shows that a community sometimes forgets
the human side of someone and only sees the negatives. Not everyone is in
control of how they became homeless, and it is society’s duties to show more
empathy and understanding because it could someday be them in that same
situation.
Examples
It
is hard to imagine the feelings of pain, fear, and loneliness that one may
encounter on their first night homeless. The fear of not knowing what is going
to happen next and if it is possible to ever make it out. There are times when
someone who you may think has it all, becomes homeless. It happened to Mark
Horvath in Los Angeles, when he found himself winded up homeless in a Koreatown
near Los Angeles. Walking alone more than 11 miles a night, Mark was in search
for a place to sleep on his first night homeless. When he finally found a park,
he came to realize that it was a dangerous zone filled with gang members so he
had to go look for another place. He goes on to describe how he felt that night
as, “I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I knew that the worst crimes
in the city — muggings, beatings, shootings — happened at night to people
living outdoors. I knew that when you sleep outside, you are vulnerable to just
about everything. I was scared. Probably more scared then I have been or ever
will be.” (Horvath, Mark 1) Being homeless isn’t safe. People on the streets
are more likely to experience getting violated, abused, and even raped in some
cases because of the vulnerable state that they are at.
In
some situation, your own mental health can take you out on the streets. Having
depression and trapping yourself in your own mind is a leading cause of
homelessness. When Paul was photographed and interviewed by Antonio Olmos, he
described the hurtful misconception that people assume that he is a drug
addict. He states that,” My initial plan is to get work. I’ve got the chance to
get some construction work, but first I need a CSCS (Construction Skills
Certification Scheme) card, which is essentially a health and safety
qualification. To get the card you have to pay for the training, then take a
test, and then pay for the card itself. It’s not easy, but work leads to everything
else. One of the hardest things to take is people’s attitudes; people instantly
assuming you’re a junkie. Not everybody has the same issues.” (Olmos, Antonio
1)
Other
times, a person’s past can have an effect on their present. When 22-year-old
Ziggy found himself winded up on the streets, he realized that he had let his
childhood catch up to him. After his father had passed away when he was eleven,
his mother decided to leave him too, three days after his father’s passing. He
had spent the next few years continuing to go to school, and learning how to
cook and clean from his neighbors. He had to grow up fast and take on the adult
life, but after he broke up with his girlfriend and lost his job, things
started to go downhill. It was hard for him to keep a relationship because he
was never surrounded with proper love growing up. He started to believe that he
was a failure and ended up homeless in Oxford, where the council and police
worked hard on kicking out the homeless because of the tourist attractions.
(Olmos, Antonio 1) This comes to show that even though society doesn’t
necessarily want anyone to become homeless, they simply just don’t care.
Solutions
Moving
people out of homelessness is not enough; we must do our best to help people
from falling into homelessness. The best way to stop homelessness is by
preventing it from happening in the first place. There are many steps that can
be taken to prevent homelessness from happening, such as an increased access to
affordable housing stability and providing assistance to housing loss. (“Why
Prevent Homelessness” 13). No matter what situation someone is in, there needs
to be a backup plan available to all people so that they don’t end up in the
streets. No one deserves to be living in agony, pain, and fear, especially when
the situation is out of their own control.
As
individuals, there are many steps that we can take to prevent homelessness.
Understanding homelessness is the first step to take when trying to end this
epidemic. It is important to realize that each individual who is homeless has
their own background and own story on how they ended up there. There are
different forms of homelessness and being aware of each is a factor that will
help approach and communicate with someone that is homeless. Some people wind
up homeless because of job loss, others because of substance abuse, and some
because of their own mental health. Each
individual has suffered and experienced different scenarios, some that
hopefully no one else will ever have to, so their response will vary to
different things. It may be hard fo
r some of the homeless to communicate
effectively with someone because of their past and they shouldn’t be judged or
have things assumed of them because of where they currently stand. Cultivating
compassion, caring, and lending a hand to someone in need can go a long way.
As
a society, we can focus on programs and housing systems to help get the
homeless back on their feet. A proven solution to homelessness is the “housing
first” concept. This originated in New York City, and it is used to move long
term homeless people, many who are mentally ill and abuse substances, into
housing and linking them to support services. This approach doesn’t cost as
much as hospitalization or institutional care so it won’t be taking as much
money from tax payers as we currently are. Researchers have also found that
this approach has proven to give long-term homeless people stability and
improvements on health problems. (“Coalition for Homelessness” 1)
Another
approach that we can take to help people stay off the streets, is to give drugs
addict’s time to heal. It is seen that the “majority of homeless addicts have
used drugs on a daily basis for
One
aspect to homelessness that isn’t discussed as much is children. In most cases,
when a family ends up homeless, the children are taken away and put into
different foster cares. It is traumatizing for a child to be taken away from
their own parents. Of course in some cases, the parents aren’t mentally stable
and shouldn’t be around their children so it’s understandable, but a lot of
times a good family is split apart from this epidemic. I believe that there
should be a program like foster care for a whole family. If the parents test to
be healthy and stable enough to protect their child at all costs, then they
shouldn’t be taken away from them. However, if the parents in mentally unstable
or does substance abuse, then both the child and parent should be taken to
different locations to receive their own treatments and then decide later if
they should still be together.
Overall, there are different precautions and steps at
different levels that can be taken to end and prevent homelessness from
occurring. Helping one other is the key to taking away this devastating
epidemic.
Camus
and Absurdity
Albert
Camus used his philosophy to have society question the meaning of life and
death. Homelessness approaches this same concept and leaves us wondering why
some people live a luxury life and others die with no peace. It has us wonder
why we compete against each other and place each other into different
categories when we are all the same people living life. “The evil in the world almost
always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much as malevolence if
they lack understanding.” (Camus 110). This quote helps us understand the
cruelty of the world without knowing or realizing it. It relates to the
sensitive subject of homelessness, showing that people can bring evil just by
believing that the homeless are all drug addicts and ended up there because
they didn’t try hard enough. Even though this isn’t intentional, we have let
our own society create this horrible picture within our heads and brainwashed
many generations about the same concept. At the same time, helping someone who
is homeless isn’t with good intentions if you don’t try to understand that
situation that the individual is currently in. Many times people will help one
another to make themselves feel good. Should we consider that sincere if they
don’t really care for the wellbeing of the other person? The absurdity in the
topic of homelessness is that if mankind’s purpose is found within the belief
that we must care each other, then why have we let innocent people lose their
homes and live on the streets? What makes it okay for someone to have to wonder
each day if they are going to make it alive? This would prove Albert Camus’s
theory that there really is no true meaning to life, but one can make it
meaningful by living to their full potential. It is time that we care for each
other so that we can all experience our own definition of life.
Conclusion
Homelessness
is an epidemic that may sometimes be overlooked or ignored. It is easy to look
away when you see someone suffering on the streets, but what if you are next?
It is strange to think that society hasn’t taken more action on ending this
epidemic, when everyone is at risk. Starting in the 1960’s, homelessness has
taken a turn and is ready to approach anyone. It is time that we as a society
take action and precaution, and use our delivering services to prevent and end
this terrible epidemic.
Word
Cited
• Buchan, Kit, and Antonio Olmos.
“Gimme Shelter: Stories from London's Homeless.” The Observer, Guardian News
and Media, 6 Mar. 2016,
www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/06/homelessness-rough-sleepers-interviews-westminster-london.
• Morris, K. Lee. “Causes of
Homelessness.” Prezi.com, 16 Oct. 2017, prezi.com/gpsnoh1ijyxk/causes-of-homelessness/.
• Horvath, Mark. “My First Night
Homeless: A True Story.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 7 Dec.
2017,
www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-horvath/my-first-night-homeless_b_850145.html.
• “The History of Homelessness in
America 1640s to Present.” Downtown Congregations to End Homelessness, 18 Mar.
2014, www.dceh.org/the-history-of-homelessness-in-america-1640s-to-present/.
• “Albert Camus And Theory Of The
Absurd English Literature Essay.” UKEssays,
www.ukessays.com/essays/english-literature/albert-camus-and-theory-of-the-absurd-english-literature-essay.php.
• “Should High Schools Require Money
Management Classes?” Consumerism Commentary, 15 Apr. 2017,
www.consumerismcommentary.com/should-high-schools-require-money-management-classes/.
• “Proven Solutions.” Coalition For The
Homeless,
www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/ending-homelessness/proven-solutions/.
• “Albert Camus Quotes.” BrainyQuote,
Xplore, www.brainyquote.com/authors/albert_camus.
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