Homelessness In America

“About 610,000 Americans were homeless on a single night in 2013” (Katel). Homelessness is a problem that affects a large population of Americans. The definition of someone who is homelessness is “[a person who has] no home or permanent place of residence” (merriam-webster.com). While the homeless problem does seem to be getting better there is still a massive amount of people that are subjected to live on the street. "Although homelessness has fallen almost continuously since 2007, about 1.5 million Americans use a shelter in a given year"(Lewan). The problem with people living on the street is that not only is it dangerous because of disease, crime and being unsheltered. Homelessness is a huge problem in the United States.

Homelessness …show more content…
There are a large number of veterans who are homeless. “Nationwide, nearly 140,000 vets stayed in shelters at one time or another in 2012” (Katel ). This shows that the battle to keep veterans in their homes is still a huge problem. A lot of vets become homeless because of things that happened to them in the war, such as severe injuries or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, also known as PTSD. Both of these things can cause vets not to be able to keep a job and makes them not able to support themselves. Homelessness also greatly affects children. “1.3 million children were homeless during the 2012–13 school year” (Katel). This problem affects a massive amount of children throughout the country. A large amount of the people affected by homelessness are unable to work because of disabilities. “39 percent of homeless adults in families were …show more content…
There seems to be less homeless people, but there still are a huge number of people still stuck out on the street. “According to HUD's figures, about 610,000 Americans were homeless on a single night in 2013 — a 9.2 percent drop from 2007.” (Katel ). While a 9.2 percent drop is very good progress, there still were a huge amount of homeless people. There are systems being put in place to try and decrease the amount of veterans without homes. “The administration is planning to expand its programs for veterans housing to serve 200,000 vets annually.” (Katel ). There is systems being put in place to help the vets. But on the other hand the problem of homeless people being assaulted is on the rise. “By comparison, 60 such attacks were reported in 1999, the year the coalition-- the only entity to gather such data--began to study the problem.” (Lewan ). The general attitude towards them seems to be getting worse because of the amount of assaults that are happening to them. But the government is trying to have more people off of the streets. “The strategy originated in New York City in 1992 with a program called Pathways to Housing, which provided subsidized permanent housing combined with psychiatric care or drug treatment for chronically homeless individuals. The model later was extended to other categories of homeless persons” (Katel ). Systems like this, is the solution to end the homeless problem. Giving people a

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