Homelessness In The United States Essay

449 Words2 Pages

Miguel Ascencio
Rachael Lehman
Sociology 101 Homelessness in the United States
Many people see the United States as a land of wealth and opportunity, but then why do we see homeless people wandering the streets, parks subways in most major cities? Well it has to do a lot with how the U.S government handles homelessness. What defines a homeless person is a person who is a situation where they have no housing to sleep in at night, sleeps out in the streets or resides in shelters that are intended for them. In many major city, homeless will be seen everywhere on the sidewalks with sleeping bags even some with tents. The National Alliance to end homelessness states that “In January 2015, 564,708 people were homeless on a given night in the …show more content…

The percentage of African American who are homeless is 57%; Caucasian 30%; Hispanic 10%; Native American 2%; Asian 1% according to the Land a hand across America website. The lowest age of people who are homeless start with teens, the reason being that there are many teens who run away from home and end up in the streets. Front Steps is a Program that helps with the homeless and have stated that 6.38% out 564,708 homeless are children. Another percentage of the people that are seen on the streets are veterans who make up about 47,725 or 8.33% of the percentage. And the people who make up most of the percentage are the disabled with 269,991 or 47.6% being homeless. This is all stated from the FrontSteps.org. In the United states homelessness is more of a problem in urban cities. With Los Angeles and New York being the top two states with the most amount of people homeless. In many cities the problem with homeless is not just about how many there are but in the way people treat them. People see them as drug addicts, lazy, dirty, and just people who don’t want to work. But most of them are none of that and just down on their luck for many