Homeless in America Essay

Families live, die and are born on the streets of vast cities of United States. Less attention are shown to those who are homeless, people focus more on bigger issues when this is a major problem that has occurred for years. Statistics shows that 1.6 million youth run away from home each year between the ages of 12 and 17. The predominant race for runaways is White non-Hispanic (57%), Black non-Hispanic (17%), Hispanic (15%), and Other (11%) follow (Blaha). Homeless children most likely leave their original homes because of the way of life and the hard pressure due to their living environment and family issues. Homelessness makes children sick, wounds young children, & homeless children often struggle in school. Homeless children are in fair or poor health twice as often as other children. They have higher rates of low birth weighted need special care right after birth for times as often as other children. Also have very high rates of acute illness, with half suffering from two or mo re symptoms during a single month. Despite state and federal efforts to provide homeless children with improved access to public school, at least one-fifth of homeless children don’t attend school. This is because they either have no transportation from the shelters to school or lack of school and medical records makes registration harder. Daily demands off finding food and shelter push children’s educational needs aside. Homelessness and poverty are linked. Poor people are frequently unable to pay for housing, food, child care, health care, and education. Difficult choices must be made when limited resources cover only some of these necessities. Often it is housing, which absorbs a high proportion of income, which must be dropped. Being poor mean being an illness, an accident, or a paycheck away from living on the streets. Homelessness and street life have extreme effects on children. Their unstable lifestyles, lack of medical care, and inadequate living conditions increase young people’s susceptibility to chronic illnesses such as respiratory or ear infections, gastrointestinal disorders, and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV /AIDS. Children fending for themselves must find ways to eat; some scavenge or find exploitative physical work. Many homeless children are enticed by adults and older youth into selling drugs, stealing, and prostitution. Studies show that at least half of homeless youth has been a victim of physical or sexual abuse. This is hard to believe when first heard, but once one thinks about how much exposure they have to the world, criminals, and offenders the fact becomes more realistic and believable. Some studies have come up with two theories to examine the homeless youth which is the lifestyle-exposure theory and the routine activity theory. In these theories the youth’s proximity, exposure, guardianship, and target congruence are examined. They are more likely to get raped and end up with a sexually transmitted disease. Since they are always on the streets, this gives the predator’s easier access to their prey (the youth). Both the theories, lifestyle-exposure and routine activity theory, are associated together because they both pay no attention to criminal motivation, but focus on how what they do in the everyday lives are related to their exposure to many dangerous people and places. With the youth being so exposed many say this is high potential risk of being victimized. When the theories are combined they include the four concepts which is proximity to crime, exposure to crime, guardianship, and target attractiveness/congruence. The fault in these theories is that they both ignore the sources of criminal motivation. One a child is around a certain area enough, they most of the time adapt the characteristics of the environment and do as they see. If everyone around them is stealing then the child is more likely to steal, if everyone is having sex around them then they might get use to the fact of seeing sex and may not see it as bad. Drug use by children on the streets is common as they look for means to numb the pain and deal with the hardships associated with street life. Studies have found that up to 90 percent of street children use psychoactive substances, including medicines, alcohol, cigarettes, heroin, and etc. The mental, social and emotional growth of children is affected by their lifestyles. There are numerous reasons children chose to run away from home during the early twentieth century: death of parents, abusive home life, broken homes, and poverty. The majority of them go without shelter for varying lengths of time. Because homeless difference between runaway children and homeless children was that runaways chose to leave their home for the reasons above while homeless children were victims of social and economic factors that left and runaway children are too young to work and lack marketable skills, they are often recruited by criminals involved in the illegal drug trade, prostitution, and pornogr aphy. They are either active participants in these activities or serve as recruiters of other vulnerable children. Experts generally agree that homelessness among children is increasing in both rural and urban areas. The causes are social in nature. These children are often homeless along with their mothers and are victims of economic recessions, job loss, and high housing costs. Data on the extent of the problem is inadequate and can be found only in isolated case studies. Children become homeless because of the families. Families become homeless because there is an imbalance between the number of households that live in poverty and the amount of low-income housing availability. If there are more households that need assistance than the housing units can afford then some people become homeless. In some households, some families pay more than the 30 percent which is the required percentage that is required by the federal government for the family to pay based on which they can afford to pa y for housing. In some cases where the family cannot even pay the 30 percent this is when they become homeless. â€Å"In one study referenced by the National Network for Youth, 51% of runaway and throwaway youth responded physical abuse. The Department of Health and Human Services asserts that up to 40% have been sexually molested.†(Blaha) â€Å"Emotional and mental stress also is common. According to the National Network for Youth, 50-56% of homeless youngsters report mental health problems over their lifetime. Staffs at runaway and homeless youth shelters paint an even bleaker picture. According to their data, 63% of the runaways they work with are depressed; 50% have trouble with school; 20% abuse drugs and alcohol; and 17% have been in the juvenile justice system. One survey found that 26% of those in shelters and 32% of those on the street have attempted suicide. A separate survey relates that nearly one-third of shelter youth have attempted suicide at some point in their lives.†(Blaha) Some youth use school as a safe place. It is times where they can get off the streets and actually feel like a regular child. They can get a free meal, they can interact with children their age and not predators. Some are so in to going to school because they see it as their way off the streets. They go to school and take it serious so they can move on to college and get a job so their own children will not end up in the same situation. â€Å"School is a place of safety, structure, and opportunity. Yet homeless children and youth face unique barriers to education. These barriers include being unable to meet enrollment requirements; lack of school supplies and clothing; and poor health, fatigue, and hunger. When these barriers are not addressed, homeless children and youth often are unable to attend school, which prevents them from obtaining the education that is both their legal right and their best hope of escaping poverty as adults.† (Facts about Homeless †¦ ) There are some places that the youth could go for safety, the National Safe Place. The National Safe Place is a program that provides safety and others services for youth in need. The NSP informs and educate youth about other things that they could do rather than be homeless. â€Å"National Safe Place is an outreach and prevention program that is uniquely designed to provide immediate safety and access to services for any youth in need. In partnership with over 360 youth serving agencies and over 10,000 businesses and community organizations across the United States, the Safe Place program educates youth about alternatives to running away and homelessness and provides easily accessible links to service providers. Ongoing data collection indicates that National Safe Place has been successful in reaching endangered youth at risk of abuse, neglect or serious family problems but that expanded program models remain needed. â€Å"(Walsh) In essence, children become homeless because of many reasons such as death of parents, abusive home life, and poverty. Homelessness has a major affect on children in America. This unstable lifestyle makes it difficult to afford things that a child need such as housing, food, and an education. There are many ways that one can help the homeless youth, a person must go out of their comfort zone and just try to help. â€Å"Homeless people need shelter, food and most importantly they need love. One easy way to help a homeless person is paying for a hotel room for the person. It will not benefit them for long but at least the will have a shelter for some days. Many people will not give homeless people money because they are afraid it will be spent wrongly on alcohol, drugs, etc. Not giving a homeless person any money because of that reason is wrong yet if you know without a doubt that the homeless person in question will spend it that way it may be wise to spend it for him on something he really needs, like a roof over his head. Simply give the homeless person the money. Instead of trying to be in control of what and how the homeless person spends the money give them the money and trust that that the person will spend it right. â€Å"(Tucker)