Homelessness

The Stewart McKinney Act of 1987 defines a homeless person as Aone who lacks a fixed permanent nighttime residence, or whose nighttime residence is a temporary shelter, welfare hotel or any public or private place not designated as sleeping accommodations for human beings@ (583). Included in the homeless population are people who stay with friends or family for a short period of time and then decide to find shelter on the streets because of conflict with the people whom they are staying with, or because of personal pride. In the early 1980=s homelessness was determined to be a major problem in the United States. These years saw a steep rise in the number of homeless, due to poor economy and diminishing financial help for housing and income.

The homeless consist of all types, races, and ages of people. A large portion of the homeless population consists of men but the number of women and children living on the streets is on the rise. Current statistics show that women and children now make up around forty percent of the homeless population. According to John J. Macionis one-third of homeless people abuse drugs and one-fourth are mentally ill. The current homeless population is mostly non-white and has an average age of t

Every year thousands of people flock to our nation's capitol to see our beautiful cherry trees. Imagine for a moment a nice young couple and their two children taking a trip to admire our nations capital at its most beautiful. They walk along the avenue as the father explains some of Washington=s history to his little girl, but he notices she is distracted by something and he directs his attention to the direction of which she is looking. He sees an old looking man who appears not to have seen a shower in months, dressed in what used to be military fatigues, but are now rags. He sits in the shadows next to a rusty old Folgers can containing some loose change and a piece of cardboard that reads, AVietnam veteran, please help, God bless you.@ Once the homeless man sees that he has the attention of the little girl and her father, he starts to approach them and ask for some spare change. At which point the father then grabs his daughter by her hand and says to his family, Adon=t even look at him,@ and then rushes them away.

According to the Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics homelessness in America has several causes. One such cause is the competitiveness of the business market. Companies are no longer as loyal to their employees as they used to be. Many corporations now use overseas laborers. Also, a diminishing amount of low-skill jobs, due to industrialization has increased the chances of low-skilled workers finding employment. The Chicago coalition for the homeless states that a person must be employed full time and earn more than $8.29 per hour in order to exceed the federal poverty level for a family of four. According to the 1997 census report 2.3 million people worked full time but were still below the poverty line (5).

The direct effect of homelessness is that approximately 700,000 people are sleeping on the streets each night. Controversies on File points out that people stay away from areas where homeless people are because they do not wish to be confronted by panhandlers. People often feel threatened in areas where homeless people are because the homeless are often mentally disabled or on drugs. Areas inhabited by the homeless become run down and barren and businesses are hurt (1).

Society sees the homeless as a growing and unsightly blemish and wants it to go away. The government dropped the more compassionate pollicies of the past and began evicting the homeless. According to Stacey Chambers the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty discovered that laws have been passed to make many of the activities that are associated with homelessness illegal in forty-two cities. This is mainly achieved by not allowing the homel