Homelessness

A detailed Summary of Homelessness

On the last Sunday in November 1993, as the temperatures plummeted into the low 30s, a woman lay down on a bus bench in the nations capital covered only by an old blanket and the cloak of night. She was alone. She was homeless. When she lay down to sleep that cold night, she was anonymous. Today we know her name---Yetta Adams. She was 43 years old, the mother of 3 adult children (Jencks 98). Sometime during that night as she lay on that bench, she died. Yetta Adams was not the first person to succumb to death on a cold street, and she will not be the last. Her death however, was marked because she died across the street from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development which just a few weeks prior, had committed to making homelessness in America a top priority.

Homelessness has been a major national issue since the early 1980s and the questions that surround its actual causes are highly debated. The main focus centers primarily around the question of whether social !

and economic conditions are responsible, or whether the homeless themselves are responsible for their plight. We will examine some of the causes of homelessness in America which include: lack of affordable housing, mental illness, lack of efficient governm

and in the face of minimal resources of the community, particularly supportive housing, thousands of mentally ill joined the ranks of the homeless.

Works Cited

Arizona: Blue Bird Publishing, 1988.

Jencks, Christopher. The Homeless. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1994.

The American government has a large part in the responsibility of the increase in the homeless population. Public housing projects were first federally funded in the 1930s. Since then, subsidized building of low-income housing has slowed dramatically due to budget cuts. It is estimated that two-thirds of people that need subsidized housing, do not have it. There is also a desperate need for social services that is not being met by governmental agencies, specifically in the areas of: community based mental health services, job training services, adequate income maintenance programs, and food stamps.

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Approximate Word count = 969
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Miscellaneous

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Homelessness

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