3. Do you know that according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are over 138,000 homeless children under the age of 18 in the United States of America? Many of them are unaccompanied as well. 4. As per the National Centre for Homeless Education, in public schools itself, there are over one million homeless children in America who have been forced to share accommodation with
For instance, a study published in 2009 discusses the importance of understanding the different aspects of this population in order to effectively help end youth homelessness. The study notes that are two typical forms of youth homelessness: children living in homeless families and unaccompanied youth. The first group, children living in homeless families, is essentially children who “live in families without a home” (Aratani, 2009, p. 4). Unaccompanied youth, then include those who are runaways, throwaways, and independent youth who have no contact with their family. Additionally, there is a multitude of factors that have been known to contribute to homelessness.
A homeless person is an individual without permanent housing who may live on the streets or in stay in a shelter. (What is the offical definition of homelessness? 2018) There are 554,000 in the United States. (List of countries by homeless population 2018). Including 57,000 homeless veterans.
The child’s development is already effected before it is even born. The majority of homeless parents are single women, who have a high tendency to engage in alcohol and drug abuse even when pregnant. The baby may suffer from serious health problems such as defects of the face, fingers, arms, and legs. The baby is also at a higher risk of premature birth or even stillbirth. Homeless infants (1-12 months) are prone to infectious disease due to a lack of immunisations and little access to health care.
When focusing on homeless youth, it will be challenging due to the amount of stress and issues they are dealing with from living outside a stable household. A homeless shelter that primarily focuses on the youth has brought on a negative impact because of the lack of social support with the youth and the amount of rules and regulations that homeless child has to follow. Too many rules in a child-centered shelter could cause a homeless child that has been living on their own or a financially unstable household to leave the shelter and return to their previous lives. Usually a child that has grown up in the streets describes youth-centered shelters as being the worst of both worlds, lacking the social support they need and enforcing to many strict rules for them to follow (Andrea Krusi,
Every day the number of homeless children increases. "An estimated 100 million people were homeless worldwide. As many as 1.6 billion people lacked adequate housing" (Habitat, 2015). This paper will discuss the causes of homelessness, then explaining the effects of it and finally find a solution
This can be explained by, “Studies of pregnant women in New York City welfare hotels have shown their babies are twice as likely to weigh less than five pounds at birth when compared to all pregnant women. Low birthweight babies are at greater risk of blindness, deafness, brain damage, and even death”(Hyde 56). Taking this into consideration, homeless children’s academic performance is hindered because of their poor cognitive development and the circumstances of their homelessness, including constant mobility. Math, reading, spelling, and vocabulary tests are the tests that homeless children most often struggle to succeed on and likely result in being held back a year in school(Hart-Shegos 3). This can be seen in Dicey’s Song through Maybeth’s character and the difficulty she has to prosper in school.
Homelessness is a complex social issue with a variety of economic and social factors such as poverty, lack of affordable housing, physical and mental health, addictions, and community/family breakdowns. Homelessness has increased its number by at least a 1% since last year, reached nearly 554,000 people who are living in harsh conditions. The government and its policies/bans only harm the homeless instead of being beneficial to them. With the “City wide bans on camping in public have increased [along with the]… city wide bans on sleeping in public…, sitting or lying down in particular places…[and,] bands on sleeping in vehicles have [all] increased”(Wiltz). Instead of
The people who are usually affected by homelessness are those who are in: poverty, domestic situations, bad financial stability, natural disasters, and other problems out of their control. These things are hard to stop or control and most people end up homeless because of this. Homelessness has always been a problem, yet there is something that is stopping this pandemic from being fixed. Homelessness reached
In the homeless literature, individual explanations of homeless include those characteristics that exist within people and household such as physical and mental health, substance abuse and obsession, domestic violence, single-motherhood, welfare receiving, and educational achievement among others. In particular, the reason of people become homeless is found to be closely related with family problems. It has been found that closely associated with female-headed households, unwed childrearing, and the economic hardships of six single-mothers (Weitzman, 1989; Bassuk et al 1996). According to Homeless Network (2015), divorce and sudden breakup issue often leaves one of the spouses homeless. Among homeless itself, it can be father but sometimes it is the mother and children or everyone involved based on their different experiences of life that force them to be homeless.