Homelessness
...s because of moral failure or personal choice. More than half of the homeless suffer from mental illness, alcoholism, and/or drug addiction. Some theorists say if they were to give up their bad habits, find help and employment homelessness would not be a problem. The question is still being raised, who is responsible the homeless or the conditions in which they live.? Homelessness is deeply rooted in poverty. The homeless are poverty stricken people who have mostly come from poor families. As the costs for living increase, families at the bottom are being pulled into the black hole of homelessness. The importance of housing is an issue that should be at the top of anyone’s list. In 1988, James Knickman interviewed 700 New York families who requested shelter and 524 New York City families randomly drawn from the public assistance caseload as a comparison group. In these two samples with comparable incomes, housing conditions were the major predictors of homelessness. Over two-fifths (44%) of shelter requesters, compared to one-eighth(12%) of housed families, had never been able to break into the housing market in New York City. That is they had never had a place of their own for as long as a year. Four fifths of the shelter requesters (81%), compared to (38%) of household families, had doubled up with others: only 37% (vs.86% of housed families) had been the primary tenant at the place they stayed the longest in the year before requesting shelter. Families becoming homeless lived in poor and crowded conditions: 47% reported having lived in a place with two or more serious building problems, such as rats or lack of heat in the winter or lack of running water for a week or more; 45% reported there were three or more people per bedroom in the place they lived the longest in the past year. Of families whom were primary tenants, only 20% of homeless families, compared to 38% of housed families, lived in public subsidized housing. The immediate precipitants of families’ requests for shelters varied according to their housing situation. Families who had been primary tenants in the past year most often cited eviction and rent problems, followed by buildings problems, as reasons for entering a shelter. Families who were doubled up with others were asked to leave by the primary tenant, felt that they could impose no longer, or cited other problems with the doubled-up situation. (Over half of these households had three or more people per bedroom.) (Bender, Bruno, p63) There are many features of living in a shelter that contribute to mental and physical illness. In previous research it indicates that children in homeless families have a high risk of physical and mental illness… A sample of parents in 113 homeless families were interviewed within two weeks of admission to seven homeless centers in the city of Birmingham, and compared with a sample of 29 low-income families who were not homeless. Both sets of interviews used the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), the Communication Domain of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), the Interview Schedule for Social Interaction (ISSI), and height and weight percentiles. A sub-sample of children was also interviewed. The results indicate that 85% of families became homeless because of domestic or neighborhood violence, that in 54% of families in homeless coincided with the separation of the partners, and that 49% of mothers had current psychiatric morbidity. Children in homeless families had delayed communication and higher mean scores for mental health problems than the comparison sample. Homeless families had high rates of contract with primary healthcare and social services, but few had been in contract with specialist child and adolescent mental health services. These results indicate a need for a coordinated action by housing, social services, education, health services, and the police to prevent families from becoming homeless by protecting victim of domestic and neighborhood violence from further violence and intimidation”.(Cumella, Grattan, Vostanis, Vol. 6) In order for the mental ill, which resides in shelters, to receive help, the shelter staff must first be willing and able to adhere to their needs. During the late 1980’s Americans began to become frustrated by the fact that the well-known issue of homelessness was not making any progress. Americans were tired of contributing their money to a cause that seems to be lost. One question that is asked is, “Why help the homeless”? The number one answer is self-interest, because if we do not care for our own, who will? It is part of our social ethics to help the homeless. There are many other reasons people are motivated to give to the homeless. One may be driven to give because of deep emotions (It makes me feel good ),others may give because of the potential harm to citizens, another may give to stop the homeless from taking over the park and recreation. There are many reasons people give to the homeless, but the number one reason is to gain a select position in society. This is done every day by many people we, “so-call”, admire in high political and professional positions. Instead of using our money to rise in society we should be a neighbor to those who are less fortunate. Jesus tells the parable of the man who was robbed and left by the side of the road. Pious clergy ignored him and prominent lay people who passed by on the other side of the street. He was finally saved by a Samaritan, a member of a despised minority. The Samaritan picked up the wounded man, bandaged his wounds, took him to an inn and paid his bill until he recovered. If this parable teaches us how to be a neighbor to those in need, aren’t we flatly contradicting Christ’s teaching when we walk by a street person? Aren’t we being hypocrites if we claim to be Christians and yet fail to follow the example of the Good Samaritan? Either we are Good Samaritans or we aren’t. Of course, we might argue, we can’t possibly help all the street people we pass. During an average half-hour walk in the midtown Manhattan, it is not unusual to see a dozen street people all needing help of some kind. If we stopped to help every one of them, we would end up being full-time social workers. In saying this, are we constructing an easy way out for ourselves? In the past year, I heard two sermons preached at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which claimed that we couldn’t simply pass by those who are suffering on the streets. One sermon even went so far as to say that we shouldn’t just give the poor we encounter 50 cents or a dollar; we should “enter into dialogue” with the beleaguered souls. We should let them know of our concern, and like the Good Samaritan, help them on their way to a happier and more fruitful life. -J. Douglas Ousley (Bender, Bruno,p154) After opening their hearts and wallets many Americans hearts have hardened towards the homeless. Americans see little change in the fight to free our cities of homelessness, and until a change is made Americans will continue to have a negative attitude towards the issue. Challenges that the legal system faces have caused them to label homelessness as a status, not a crime. Litigation has made it much easier to get shelter in the major cities. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Los Angeles has more homeless people than any other community in America”.(Bender, Bruno,181) In various cities around the U.S., the homeless have turned to the courts in order to find some success in hopes one day they will have a home to call their own. The law has been described as the mechanism of social control. Social control is a method of controlling deviant behavior. The legal defense on homelessness is called right-to-shelter. These litigation’s are based on state as well as local laws. The Supreme Court said in 1974 that there was no right to housing, federally. There is also no right to Emergency shelter. It is said that in New York homeless persons do have the “right -to-shelter” by virtue decree in the Callahan v. Carey case. This was true being that the city live up to certain obligations, which were to not turn away any homeless persons from New York’s municipal shelters. Despite the time it is taking in order to rid our streets of the homeless we should be quick to help those in need. It is not asking to much of us to give to someone in ...