Essay On Homelessness In America

Homelessness “None of us are home until all of us are home.” -Mary Scullion “Homelessness is a symptom of many systemic failures of policy and practice in housing, behavioral health, workforce development, and the criminal justice system.”(McDevitt 3). Not very many people take homelessness as a serious situation, instead they walk right past these ones in need and sometimes even laugh. “In December of 2022, HUD calculated that 582,462 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States and its territories.”(Homelessness In America 1) Half a billion homeless people are heaps of people who are constantly asking for help from those who are wealthy and stable. “Regionally, the Western United States exhibited the highest per capita rates

“Numerically, white people are the largest racial group within homelessness, accounting for more than a quater-million people.” (State of Homelessness 1) Although they do come from many different ethnicities, the majority of them are white. “In 2022, the HUD found that 33,129 veterans were experiencing homelessness.” “Today approximately seven percent of unhoused Americans are veterans.”(Homelessness In America 5) Considering many veterans are homelessness makes me upset that they fought for our country and now they have nowhere to live or go. “The nation has a system of temporary shelters that reaches 354,000 people on a given night.”(State of Homelessness 3) There are many shelters to help homeless individuals and protect them from the outside world, but there still are not enough to supply everyone with a shelter. “In the US, the number of homeless people is calculated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development by counting people on the street and in Homeless shelters.” (Stone 1)

“In his experience, as he got to know the street people, he learned that almost everyone has been through something horrible, and that's why they’re on the street.” (Stone 4) Many people do not acknowledge that these people have been through more than anyone can imagine and this is why they are currently on the streets. “O’Connell added, ‘What has been difficult for us is trying to understand the complexity of the lives of the people… so much trauma, physical, sexual, emotional, this neglect.’” (Stone 3) It is not a great topic to express the fact that many of these people who are homeless are young and went through these kinds of struggles. “Dr.Jim O’Connell, president of Boston Health Care for Homeless Program, said, ‘Housing should be a right to every person. Without doing that, we’re never going to solve the problem.’” (Stone 2) With people with lower incomes it is not easy to find a house to afford and not only that but also pay the bills that come along with it. “All would agree that with nearly 600,000 individuals unhoused, the nation still faces a challenging problem.” (Homelessness In America 7) “Homeless young people largely remain invisible, except to the strangers who step forward to offer a hand and, in doing so, change their world.” (Ryan 6) By doing one small thing for them it really can change the way they see themselves. “If only someone had stepped in when these kids were