One of the largest issues the country is facing today is homelessness, and almost nothing is being done to stop its growth. Jeannette Walls was once a victim of being homeless and poor. She wrote about what it was like growing up poor and always on the move in her memoir entitled The Glass Castle. She tells about her experiences travelling across the country, never finding a permanent home. She often encountered obstacles such as always being hungry, being shot at, and in some cases sexually abused. With a large homeless population in the country, actions like these often happen and go unnoticed by the government. With a large homeless population in the country and abusive behaviors happening all the time, the government should step up and provide funding to help the homeless by providing housing, help prevent abuse, and help prevent any homelessness in the future. …show more content…
The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates the homeless population to be at, “a low of 250,000 to 350,000 nationwide” (Fogel 386). The Community for Creative Non-Violence however claims it’s at, “a high of 2 to 3 million” (Fogel 386). Even if the homeless population is around 250,000, that is a lot of people who need somewhere to stay. The lack of attention from the government on this problem is disappointing. With such a large homeless population the government can't just keep ignoring this problem. People are suffering every day on the streets while the federal government is just trying to indirectly solve the problem by letting the individual states deal with it. The government needs to establish a specific federal department that deals with homelessness if they ever hope to get rid of this
This grim situation is depicted in the writings of Jeannette Walls. In the memoir, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls illustrates a perfectly dysfunction childhood characterized by persistent poverty and the chaos of her parents who were stuck in their broke lifestyle. The amazing thing about
Imagine growing up on the streets, living in cars, in broken homes and then living in an apartment on Park Avenue in New York City. The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls, is a memoir about Jeanette and her siblings childhood, going through poverty and parents who were were irresponsible, neglectful and careless. The memoir talks about the many obstacles their family faced and how they overcame them. Jeanette moving to New York symbolizes a new chapter in her life and becoming independent from her family, and finally breaking the “skedaddle” streak. After high school, college is the next step in life.
In Jeanette Walls’ non-fiction life changing story about living in poverty, The Glass Castle, she describes the The Glass Castle reflects much of Jeanette’s life living in poverty with her mom, dad, Brother Brian, and Sisters Lori and Maureen. Constantly short on cash and food, Jeanette frequently has to move from city to city in the desert area while her dad looks for a steady job. When her dad finds a steady job in the desert on the west coast, the family is able to buy a house but unable to manage the income because her dad is an alcoholic and her parents never learned to manage cash. Both of her parents are educated but very lazy. Her mother manages to get a job as a teacher but soon decides it is too much and Jeanette and her siblings
In the past few years, there has been many homeless camps lately that has been building up with families that the government either had swept up or get rid of trying to hide them from society. The government main goal of getting them into permanent housing really will not solve anything. Like our homeless for the most parts do suffer trauma and that is what they know so far but in the inside, many of the homeless like living where they are, they
Political dimensions of the urban policy dilemma: The political dilemma is whether the government should take responsibility for the lack of affordable housing, and to what extent the government should intervene in social conflicts. There is the conservative argument that homelessness is inevitable, and that government should be more hands off. For instance, the homeless are heavily dependent on welfare, and on governmental institutions, which is a burden for taxpayers that have no relationship to the homeless population.
It is no surprise that some people would have an issue with the city officials getting involved. Some people just believe nothing needs to be done because the homeless are not harming anyone, but they are. The city officials found a study which showed homeless camps have an effect on public health and public safety (“Denver Made the Right Move on Homeless Camps”). The study informed city officials of the issue which caused city officials to begin work on getting homeless people help and getting them into a shelter. Denver is setting an example which should be recognized by other states.
The current government is creating a situation where more families along with their children are experiencing homelessness. An individual may be considered homeless when they lack permanent housing and have to stay in shelters, abandoned buildings or vehicles, on the streets, or in other forms of unstable situations. Many homeless people start out with jobs and stable residences, but then social and economic factors intervene, causing a rapid change in their living situation causing them to leave, and live on the street. Even with the population of homeless keeps increasing, the government does not aid nor benefit the homeless because they only worsen the homeless problem by having laws that go against homelessness, not helping mentally ill homeless population, and having the lack of subsidized housing.
One of the many examples of poverty in the glass castle is the sacristy of food in the Wall household. Jeanette says “ I pretended to help Brian with his homework so nobody asked why we weren’t eating”.(2)The USDA estimated that 11.1% of US households were food insecure in 2018. This means that approximately 14.3 million households had difficulty providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. Rates of food insecurity were substantially higher than the national average for households with incomes near or below the Federal poverty line.(3)
In her memoir, the Glass Castle, Jeanette Wall’s discusses and explores many different concepts that affected her family dynamic and her development. One of these matters is homelessness. Individuals are able to live in a stable environment, sleep in a warm bed, wear clean clothes, and enjoy proper meals; but not all of these basic needs are enjoyed by everyone and their families. This undesirable situation is portrayed in Jeannette Walls novel. Jeannette vividly depicts homelessness by exploring its causes, its impact on daily life, and its effect on her family.
Homeless: Choice or Chance? Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle is a story of one unparalleled family who constantly is moving from one place to another. The family seeks shelter in abandoned houses in extremely slipshod conditions.
The issue of homelessness in America has been evident since the early 1600’s. Across the country men, women and children spend their nights on the streets not knowing when or if they will ever find a permanent home. States and federal officials or city councils have tried to alleviate or at least reduce the number of homeless over the last several decades at a city, state or national level but it continues to be an ongoing problem. There is a multitude of factors that account for the growing homeless population that affects each state in the country differently. Though there are many contributing factors that contribute to the amount of people living on the street at any given night in the U.S.
Homeless are often set up for failure by these things so they end up getting into trouble and in jail by not being able to pay for such unreasonable things. Police are already viewed pretty negatively by the homeless and by doing this it just adds to the negativity. So, homeless become even more less susceptible to come to the police for help. Homeless that fining effects are often put in a position where they have no place to go because shelters are either to fall or too violent and sleeping in your car or the streets is criminalized. To conclude I think this solution to getting homeless off the street is moving in the opposite direction.
I am writing to you in aspiration that I may coax you to look thoroughly into the seriousness of homelessness. I staunchly believe that the National Alliance to End Homelessness, such as the HEARTH act that was passed on 2009, should be conserved and voluntarily supported by our citizens, not only our government. In the review, Poverty and Policy: An Evaluation, Kathryn Baer states, “NAEH is right, whether dollars spent to keep doubled-up families and the rest from joining the already eligible on the streets or in shelters is another matter.” I understand that the United States is trying to balance the budget, but i believe that cuts have to be made in order to keep our citizens off the streets. When you see a homeless person, do you ignore them?
Although homelessness is associated with images of people sleeping on streets, but this notion is inaccurate because it was initially uncommon and excludes several other populations. Homelessness has always existed within the United States, but it was not until the 1980’s where it started to become recognized as an issue (Perl et al., 2015a). Homelessness, several years’ prior the 1970s, was not visible, and the demographics were normally single men living in hotels with single-room occupancy (Perl et al., 2015a). Once the homeless population started to increase, homelessness started to become visible and its demographics also started to change. Many may agree on what is defined as homelessness, but a federal definition does not exist.
The mainstream press regularly relates poverty with homelessness. Reports about poverty frequently highlight homeless families living on the street. This representation is completely deceptive because only a minute portion of people living in poverty will turn out to be homeless. The tremendous bulk of the poor exist throughout the year in non packed housing that is in good shape.