Best Posts in Thread: Homelessness

This is what really gets to me. The same men and women who fought so we could have severity in America and in our HOMES are now not certain about tomorrow, where they will eat, or where they can find shelter. They fought for us, the very least we could do is give them homes and some food. This is what I find truly disappointing in America today.

 

I'm pretty sure most people are familiar with the knowledge that there is a growing number of homeless people. However I'm not quite sure they understand the severity of how large that population is starting to become.

Ironically enough, I began to question this in my psychology class. My teacher told us that most homeless people suffer from mental illnesses. I couldn't remember the exact percent she told us, but after poking around on the internet, it turned out to be about 25% of the homeless who are mentally ill. Often, it's a result of these disorders that lands them into being homeless. The movie "The Soloist" shows this, with a talented but schizophrenic musician who used to be in a prestigious music school ending up becoming homeless and playing on the streets.

I looked around some more and found other interesting stuff. About 8% of the homeless are veterans. Many are physically disabled. Some are people fleeing domestic abuse. Often there are homeless children, and other times children are born into homelessness. There's around 60,000 homeless in New York City and Los Angeles's homeless population has grown 12% over the last two years.

But stopping homelessness is far from easy. With most of the homeless having chronic disorders, do we make more mental hospitals to help? How will we fund those hospitals, in which the people need constant care and need to be provided for? And what do we do about those physically disabled? And what of those with substance abuse? What about kids? How will the uneducated be able to provide for themselves? How do we open job opportunities to them?

 

We could uhh...Give them homes.

Most localities with this type of homeless initiative have shown it leads to reduced costs when homeless are housed, instead of in the streets getting sick, being in jails, or hospitals. They even show that it leads to a decent % getting their act together, and finding work.

 

wp teacher gg

 

Kill'em.