As many as 3.5 million Americans are homeless each year. Of these, more than 1 million are children and on any given night, more than 300,000 children are homeless.
Groupon
While the normal impression is that the homeless are primarily the persisting and episodic, those unfortunate individuals often seen living on the streets in the uptown areas of our cities, the fact is that more than half the homeless are families with children. The vast majority of these have been thrust into homelessness by a life altering event or series of events that were unexpected and unplanned for. Contrary to the confidence that homelessness is primarily the result of major traumatic events or corporal and reasoning disabilities, there are many top causes of homelessness in America.
Homelessness is, in fact, caused by tragic life occurrences like the loss of loved ones, job loss, domestic violence, divorce and family disputes. Other impairments such as depression, untreated reasoning illness, post traumatic stress disorder, and corporal disabilities are also responsible for a large measure of the homeless. Many factors push people into living on the street. Acknowledging these can help facilitate the end of homelessness in America.
For those living in poverty or close to the poverty line, an "everyday" life issue that may be manageable for individuals with a higher earnings can be the final factor in placing them on the street. A broken down vehicle, a lack of vehicle insurance, or even unpaid tickets might be just sufficient to render person homeless.
Divorce costs and the related lowering of a family's total earnings can cause one or more family members to become homeless. For families that can hardly pay their bills, a serious illness or disabling crisis may deplete their funds and push them out onto the street. Today, the rapid, unexpected loss of jobs and resultant foreclosures has caused great dislocation among families and has dramatically added to the whole of people without a roof over their heads.
Natural disasters often cause current housing situations to become untenable and costly repairs are often simply not possible. The results of Hurricane Katrina stand in bleak testimony to the power of nature to displace people.
The great challenge for the newly homeless is to figure out how to return to their normal lives. Organizations that build crisis shelters and transitional housing typically work with a larger whole of service providers nearby the country whose mission is to supply the services, such as job training, collective skills training, and financial training, that enable these people to acquire employment and return to mainstream lives. The progression for these recently homeless is to first be housed in transitional residences where they can learn these skills, to graduate to assisted living in affordable housing while they build up economic reserves and rebuild their employment resume, and then to graduate to full, store rate housing.
Many of these service victualer partners are household names, such as Volunteers of America, salvage Missions, and the Salvation Army. Many others are local organizations formed to address specific homelessness issues in the community. By thought about vetting the qualifications and financial stability of these service providers, organizations that build crisis shelters and transitional housing are able to assure that their facilities are effectively utilized in the fight to end homelessness.
Top Causes of Homelessness in America
No comments:
Post a Comment