Homelessness in America: Why should we help the homeless?
Anabel Ortega
We are used to seeing homeless people in our everyday
lives, but how often do we stop and think of ways we can help them? Most
of us just stroll awkwardly by them and some of us don't even notice them at
all. In either case we don't take the time to help them; we don't give
them money or food. This is the problem with our society today--we are
becoming highly desensitized to the major issues going on around us. We don't
worry for those who are less fortunate than us and the issues that plague them.
The homeless need our help, many people complain about them, but they are
not going anywhere any time soon if we don't find ways to aid them.
There has been a sharp increase in homelessness due to the United States'
damaged economy. In 2010 there were approximately 407,966 homeless people
that number increased to about 640,000 homeless people in 2012. According
to the Jan.17 2012 article on endhomelessness.org, this number
represents just the people that have been in shelters. This means there are actually about 1 million homeless people in the U.S., when you count all the people that haven't been in a shelter. The U.S.' economy is
bad, that is why there is a high unemployment rate. When people lose
their jobs and can't get any form of income they struggle to pay their
mortgage, and when people can't pay their mortgage they lose their homes.
There are thousands upon thousands of homeless people in the U.S.; most of
these homeless people don't live in homeless shelters because there aren't
enough shelters in America for them. There are currently only 2332 homeless
shelters in America, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless
organization. This number is decreasing since these organizations don't
have enough money to keep their programs running. 2332 homeless shelters
are not enough to house almost 1 million homeless people. Some have argued that
we should solve the homelessness problem in America by having more government
funding towards homeless programs. Other news articles have argued that
homeless people should not receive help from the taxpayers; they claim that the
homeless brought this bad luck upon themselves and that it is not their responsibility
to help them.
This argument is
illogical, and it is tragic that some people actually think like this. It's like arguing we shouldn't give
aid to those who are injured because it is their fault they got hurt. We
shouldn't blame the homeless for their current condition. Sure--some of
them may have come to their current state of homelessness because of drugs or
alcohol, but this is not always the case. Even if they did, it is not our
place to judge. We don't know what may have led them to turn to drugs and
alcohol, so unless we know these people personally we shouldn't judge
them.
Editorials such as Jason Williams' the Aug. 5th editorial on SeattleTimes.com have argued that we shouldn't give money to the homeless because they will most likely use it for drugs or alcohol. This is partially correct; a PBS article from June 2010 cited that 38% of homeless people in shelters report alcohol use problems, and 26% report drug use problems. These figures do give the impression that if we give money to a homeless person chances are they are not using it for something good.
However, this does not mean our kind acts and efforts to help the
homeless will be gone to waste. If the government and people in our
society really push to improve homeless programs then we can make a change.
According to the PBS article mentioned above, 39% of homeless people
report mental health problems and 46% report chronic health conditions.
This proves that we need to create better homeless programs and shelters
because in doing so we will be saving the lives of many people. Homeless
people can't access health care easily, so it is our job to help them. If
new homeless shelters and programs are created then we are giving these people
a chance to rehabilitate themselves. When they do get better they can
become useful members of society. By helping the homeless we are making
our society better as well because we are taking mentally ill people off the
streets, and we're giving them proper care; so that they can get better.
Those who argue that we shouldn't help the homeless because they are criminals
should also be in favor of improved homeless programs. If these new
programs are done well then they will be an effective way to take homeless
people who are criminals off the street. In doing so we will be creating
a safer society and we will be giving these people a second chance to have a
better life for themselves.