Homelessness is an issue that plagues every state, city, and town in the United States. As of 2022, there were more than 500,000 people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. This means that for every ten thousand people there are 18 homeless. There are many different reasons that a person might become homeless, lack of housing, mental health issues, income instabilty, and physical health are all factors that contribute to homelessness. homelessness affects people of any age, gender, or ethnicity and it can happen to basically anybody at any time.
There are many different groups that are dedicated to getting information out to people and are advocating for government policies geared towards solving homelessness. For example, there is the National Alliance to End Homelessness which is a non-profit organization that has a website where one can read about homelessness and see what the government is doing in order to help push policies that favor the homeless. Not only are there large organizations that help out the homeless; schools and churches hold events such as food drives where anyone can volunteer or donate at a local level.
There are many myths when it comes to homeless people, one of these is that the issue of homelessness is not preventable at a large scale. This is not true because during COVID the government enacted several policy changes in order to keep homelessness at bay when normally it would have gone up. For example, according to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, “Governments instituted eviction moratoriums, deployed emergency rental assistance, expanded unemployment assistance and the Child Tax Credit.” All this along with distributing cash to many lower-income Americans helped to soften COVID’s impact on homelessness.
Homelessness is important to me for many reasons, firstly I do not believe that anyone should experience homelessness and that the government has failed those that are currently experiencing homelessness. The issue of homelessness is something that can be fixed with help from the government and from those like us who can afford to give time and resources in order to benefit those in need. Personally, I have volunteered many times at various different food drives, also my high school’s choir had a partnership with a local choir where they would go and sing with and feed the homeless. I wasn’t part of the choir, however my sister was and I helped her prepare the food for the homeless many times.
Sources:
https://www.usich.gov/
Homelessness is a really big issue in the United States that has a lot of different causes, not all that the Federal government can explicitly control, like housing markets or state minimum wage, etc. I think it is super important to give those who are suffering help and it is also extremely important to be looking into different avenues that may help to end the current crisis, both preventative measures and ones for those currently suffering especially in big cities such as Chicago or Los Angeles.
I agree with you that homelessness is a serious problem in the United States. My hometown unfortunately has many people suffering from homelessness, but there are some great programs to aid them. That being said, there definitely needs to be more government action at the state and national level to address issues relating to poverty.
It’s really sad when I hear information about homelessness in the United States because we could very easily prevent, all we would have to do is budget money towards helping those in need. It’s truly disgusting how this country not only ignores the homeless crises, but in ways supports it, and allows it to continue.