Homelessness is a problem that many people around the world experience. While there are many reasons a person or family can become homeless, a majority of those problems come from a lack of income. Many homeless people are either retired veterans, students attending college, people who have mental illnesses, people who have drug and alcohol problems, etc. All these situations are problems that people have, which makes it very difficult to get a long-term job and make enough income to support themselves. Homeless people need help getting off the streets but are unable to do it by themselves.
Many people have come up with great solutions that are currently helping these individuals. The programs that are in place provide shelters for people who have been kicked to the streets and have no place to stay. These shelters provide food, clothing, water, and a place to sleep. I believe that shelters are the best solution to help reduce homelessness because they help encourage people not to stay on the streets while helping them seek help for their issues.
For example, Family Promise of Las Vegas is a “non-profit organization that helps families into homes and lasting independence” they do this by having housing programs in place to help their guests find houses they can afford. What I admire most about this program is that they care about their guests and want to see them up on their feet as quickly as possible. It seems like this organization focuses more on helping those individuals who have disabilities and their families. On the other hand, Shannon West Homeless youth center provides services for youth that are homeless. The services they provide are: “substance abuse counseling, mental health referrals, educational assessment, vocational training, and life skills groups focusing on a variety of issues such as anger management, independent living, money management, peer socialization, consumer and problem-solving skills, and health education.” All of these are programs that do something about the issuresolvesolves it to help kids get off the street and further their education and employment opportunities.
We will not see a change until we have more shelters built and people volunteering. Also, housing needs to be more affordable, and the minimum wage is too low. Nowadays, most businesses are giving their employees fewer hours, and the pay is not enough to spare not one cent, and people are living paycheck by paycheck. If people can pay for housing, they won’t be homeless. Many homeless people work for minimum wage, and they just don’t earn enough to afford shelter. If housing was affordable, we would not have homeless families on the streets, and if we had more shelters we would be able to help more people who have mental disabilities and those who have been injured. As a community, we need to understand that homelessness is not a choice for people and many are homeless because of the economic issues and low wages.
People who have homes should feel grateful and know that we all go through problems that sometimes puts us in difficult situations and we need to have empathy for people we can’t judge people because we don’t know what they are going through, and we should always be generous to help those in need because one day it can be any one of us that can stay without a home due to a natural disaster and we can lose everything.
