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Brett Smith

Professor Slanker

English 1201 Online Class

27 July 2019

Homelessness in Local Communities

Entering the Dayton city limits the first thing people notice is the big giant buildings and

colorful bridges as they run all in which ways creating a beautiful landscape picture of the

beloved city. Thousands of cites paint this same beautiful landscape and thousands of people

every day drive on these bridges through these cities. What looks to be a beautiful landscape

from afar seems to deteriorate the closer you get. What used to be buildings filled with inventory

of greatly love products now selling dust and rummage from the years of abandonment. The

closer you look into these old buildings the more you can see. What used to be cash registers and

stocking shelves is now sleeping bags and shopping carts, filled with people’s belongings that

they have gathered from dumpsters and ditches. Homelessness throughout these local

communities are hidden away under all the leftover rummage but nobody notices. People see

these buildings has trash and dumps, but others consider their home. Throughout the United

States thousands of cities just like Dayton are filled with this same issue but what is being done?

How can local communities throughout America solve this issue of homelessness and how can

they help the people who have mental and physical issues get back on their feet and turn their life

around?

Dayton, Ohio is only a small percentage of homelessness in America according to USA

News “homelessness is defined as lacking housing, whether the person sleeps on the streets, in a

shelter, or in the homes of friends and family members.” (Homelessness) This article also states,
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“an estimated 553,742 individuals are homeless, per a January 2017 point-in-time count

(Gallagher).”. The article continues to go on and say that some of the causes of this number are

because of addiction and mental health disorders are also cited but are not the most common

reasons. The most common reasons are because of lack of a livable wage at jobs, affordable

housing and medical debt. In the article written by Gallagher a nurse in a Chicago homeless

shelter gives examples of patients and why they are homeless “One patient suffered a traumatic

injury that prevented him from working.” Gallagher said. “Without a paycheck, he quickly lost

his apartment and car and turned to the shelter.” Women leave abusive relationships and don’t

have anywhere to go because her family does not live in the area. A lot of patients have laborer

jobs and they work all day and return to shelter’s at night. Unfortunately, their pay is so low, they

cannot afford an apartment. These people who are living on the street are also more likely to

develop hepatitis a because the lack of clean water, lack of access to sanitation and also being

close to those who are already infected with it. The solutions to solve homelessness are quite

impossible without more government funded aid to help serve the homeless. In this article by

Brenda Ann. Kenneally, called Why It's So Hard to Stop Being Homeless in New York. she

mentions in greater detail what is being done. “The ballooning epidemic has taxed the shelter

system, which long ago exceeded its capacity. Maintenance and sanitation are ongoing issues, as

is finding physical space. The DHS spends $400,000 a day on hotels to house the overflow

(Kenneally).” She goes onto say that the DHS has also increasingly paid landlords for private

apartments. These are known as “cluster sites” she says, “they are temporary shelters and they

are often essentially slums in substandard, unsanitary conditions without the wraparound social

services that help families exit the system.”. Not only is this problem a big issue in America but

it’s a worldwide issue. My next article written by Swaminath Gopalrao is from India and he talks
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about the difficulty of homelessness in his own country. He goes into explaining how living on

the streets in India is causing people to develop mental illnesses. In 2011 the India census

concluded 1.77 million people were homeless in India. Swaminath goes on to say,

“Approximately one-fifth of this population has diagnosable severe mental disorders which are

severely incapacitating for the individuals, resulting in very poor quality of life.” (Swaminath).

Another issue evolving in India is the number of phycologists for mental illness is very low. In

his writing he continues this statement by saying “the number of clinical psychologists and

psychiatric social workers in India was reported to be 0.07 per 100,000, and the number of

psychiatric nurses was 0.12 per 100,000 people.”. Homeless people in India are suffering without

the help of psychologists and psychiatric nurses and the numbers will continue to rise since being

last updated in 2018. It’s important to see this information because it’s easy to forget about the

other countries who are also struggling other than the United States.

In the book by Alice S. Baum called A Nation in Denial she interviews people all over the

United States and does extensive research through her documentary. In her book she interviews

current homeless people and talks about what kind of living situations they live in as one guy

said “we go from place to place and we hope to find something indoors but at the end of the day

we just want to sleep without worrying if we are going to awaken by someone stealing our

stuff”(Baum). In this book it goes through great depths and talks about some horrible situations

people go through just to sleep at night. The people Alice interviewed in her book fight each day

to eat and sleep and hopefully even just live. They live from building to building or shelter to

shelter and sometimes can’t sleep in the same shelter twice due to max capacity of the building.

Some nights they spend on the side of the road under bridges to keep warm during winter months

and sleep near active water flows during the summer to keep cool.
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The US government has tried helping to solve homelessness problems by giving

government aid to people who qualify which eventually got ruined because people abused the

programs. They provide homeless shelters by funding them all over the United States but

eventually space runs out and capacity reaches a maximum for these shelters and can no longer

help the rapid rates of people. Food drives are led to help people in need but in some cases also

get abused. After doing research on how to help, it got me to my question of “What can local

communities do to help fix this issue?”. Organizations are created across the whole world to help

raise awareness and also help people in need all over the world and this organization called

National Alliance to End Homelessness was created to help give us answers to questions like

mine.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization

whose sole purpose is to end homelessness. The organization was founded in 1983 by a group of

concerned citizens with the same questions many people have and wanted to fix what they

thought was a temporary problem. In 1987 they grew to about 10,000 providers, public agencies,

and private partners. Since the early 2000’s they have provided permanent supportive housing,

rapid re-housing, systematic collection and use of data, coordinated assessment and entry, local

systems to end homelessness, and outcome focused crisis systems(Roman). Coordinated

assessment and entry is a processed used to quickly identify, assess, refer and connect people in

crisis to housing and assistance, no matter where they show up to ask for help. It can pave the

way for more efficient homeless assistance systems. Rapid re-housing is the most permanent

solution this organization has come up with was said by the president of the organization Nan,

“getting people experiencing homelessness into permanent housing and keeping them there. By

connecting people with a home, they are in a better position to address other challenges that may
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have led to their homelessness, such as obtaining employment or addressing substance abuse

issues”. (Roman)

Another national organization called Collation for the Homeless is another website for

people to find solutions to help local communities with their homeless problem. Solutions to help

communities from growing this issue is a federal housing assistant program. The president of this

website Barry H. Burke decided this solution would help homelessness because federal housing

programs are one of the most successful housing-based solutions to reduce homelessness. “The

two largest federal housing programs are public housing and federal housing vouchers, known as

Housing Choice Vouchers or Section 8 vouchers (Burke)”. Housing vouchers allow low-income

households to rent nicely renovated housing of their own choice and provides flexibility that

adjusts with the family’s income over time. Studies show that public housing and federal housing

vouchers are highly successful at reducing family homelessness and in ensuring that these

families remain stably housed out of the shelter system. Burke decided that this idea would help

keep costs low enough for people to be able to afford to live under their own roof instead of

someone else’s. Another solution is permanent supportive housing, this solution provides support

services also at a cost-effective solution for the homelessness crisis. The supportive housing

model combines affordable housing assistance with vital support services for individuals living

with mental illness, HIV/AIDS or other serious health problems. Numerous researches have

proven that is more cost effective to provide this than it is to provide other forms of emergency

and institutional care such as supplying doctors on sight and therapists. Burke’s organization

provides solutions to give people permanent homes and also long-term solutions for health. The

organization is built for people to slowly get back on their feet while being provided a cost-

effective way of living and also have good health. Bringing these small permanent housing ideas
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to local communities and eventually up to bigger cities would cause a breakthrough in

homelessness. It would provide people homes and health care while they get back on their feet

and jumpstart a career.

Most solutions for fixing homelessness are to increase income for people who are

struggling or increasing income for everyone. With incomes typically much lower than is needed

to comfortably pay average rental costs, millions of people are finding themselves not being able

to afford anything and end up becoming homelessness and fall into housing instability. A

reduction in hours, a lost job, an illness or an unexpected expense can turn on someone into an

inability to pay the rent, an eviction, reliance on extended family for a place to stay, and,

sometimes, entry into a homeless shelter. Income support programs that can assist low-income

people, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or unemployment

compensation, help many people fight against economic crises. However, people experiencing

homelessness find these programs to be very hard to access and the benefits offered may not

offer enough to help them achieve stability. The main reason of helping people experiencing

homelessness increase and stabilize their incomes within homeless assistance programs. While

some people exiting homelessness will do so with a permanent rent subsidy that can buffer them

from the effects of income fluctuations, the majority must depend on income from employment

or benefits to help them pay rent. There are a lot of different ways to improve pathways to

employment for low-skilled, entry level workers through investments in subsidized employment

and programs funded under the Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act (WIOA). The

availability of work supports for low-income households, such as child care and transportation

assistance, can also have a big impact on whether or not a household can sustain employment.

There are also opportunities to improve income supports programs for low-income people. As an
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example, TANF assistance can be made more readily accessible to families experiencing a

housing crisis that might help avert homelessness for some. Training local staff in the SOAR

(Supplemental Security Income/Social Security Disability Income Outreach, Access and

Recovery) model can reduce the length of time eligible people with disabilities must wait before

receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

In the book A Nation in Denial it provides many examples of how people can help these

in need. In the book in mentions how in New York City a company who was trying to give food

to homeless people for a day through a soup kitchen was unable. Due to certain licensing issues

that city wouldn’t allow people to accept food from there because of the poor conditions of the

soup kitchen. People still wanted to eat the food and the city officials went as far as to put bleach

and dangerous chemicals in the food so people wouldn’t eat it. This book goes into giving ideas

on how to fix the solution, but it more focuses on showing people how bad it is all over. It gives

people the outlook of trying to be more helpful to these people who are struggling, and people

should be more positive towards them in ways, so they don’t shutdown and give up on life.

How can local communities help end homelessness through their own ideas and change

the outlook on homeless people in America? Ways people can help the homeless is by reaching

out to homeless individuals through street outreach and mobile outreach services and once they

engage with homeless individuals, youth and families with children, they can provide assistance

that ranges from paying a first month’s rent to offering permanent supportive housing so that

people with disabilities can become stable and productive members of their communities. While

permanent housing, is often used with supportive services, it is the best way to end homelessness

as said through my citations, many individuals and families need short-term stabilization before

they can find housing that will meet their long-term needs and a way of doing this is people can
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provide emergency assistance to homeless persons in the form of homeless shelters. Some

homeless people can be reluctant to leave the streets and accept emergency shelter or transitional

housing because of the fear of being mistreated or afraid to accept the help, as a community

people could operate drop-in centers, places where homeless youth or adults can get off the

streets and find a temporary safe place. And often, once homeless people begin to trust the drop-

in center staff, they agree to leave the streets and enter transitional or permanent housing because

of the welcoming feeling they get when they are there. For the numbers of homeless people in

America with mental or physical impairments, often having drug/alcohol issues, the only way to

help is to provide permanent housing and help through doctors like doctor Swaminath Gopalrao

in India.

Research has proven that throughout time homelessness is not just caused by one thing

but many things. Providing help to those who are struggling surviving everyday life is important

and also is very needed in these very terrible times. With increasing prices on living and food it’s

getting harder and harder for people to support families and children and eventually get involved

into drugs in order to help pay for living expenses. People are getting laid off jobs and are unable

to get a new job because of the lack of education which is needed for even a decent job in most

cities. Providing people with more funds to be able to assist in going back to school for a GED or

even college education to help provide bigger and better jobs for the country but also the many

people who don’t have a job at all. Providing a more positive outlook when coming in contact

with homeless people is important also so they know people want to help. Treating people badly

is a reason they stay away from help because they will not go to the helping services they need

because they will feel that people are judging them or going to mistreat them. When people yell

things out the windows of their cars or throw things at them or cuss at them as they are asking
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others for money or food are examples of why they stay away. These people have been through

so much and many people don’t understand what it’s like to be in that situation and most of us

never will so providing these helping services and giving a more positive attitude towards other

fighting this problem can make a big change of its own. But people also don’t care how bad

someone is feeling because it’s not them. People find spending money on these situations is a

waste of money and not worth their time.

So the next time you are entering the city limits of that big city by driving over that big

bridge over the water, picture what the inside of the city looks like. Imagine all of those buildings

that used to carry shopping carts of people’s homes and personal items and sleep hundreds of

people who didn’t once have a home to now being empty except for the items the now open store

sells. Imagine the helping hand of a community coming together and providing help to those who

struggle and now provide a different outlook on life for those who once fought this issue.

Homelessness is one of the biggest issues in American that needs to be solved and it all starts

with one idea or one person. Hundreds of ideas have been produced to help such as providing

permanent housing for people who can’t afford to pay rent. Providing drop-in centers for people

who are reluctant to ask for help from a shelter, it allows them to access all of the benefits of a

shelter without having to stay for long periods of time. Rapid re-housing is another option for

helping the community as it’s a more permanent solution for people. Providing emergency

solutions is also another good way to help people is because it provides them medical care they

need and can stop the spread of diseases into shelters and other people on the street and also

gives them the necessary care needed to live. All of these solutions can help the numbers drop

down. None of these solutions are outrageous far-fetched ideas and slowly communities are

seeing the numbers of homelessness in areas drop dramatically. Pushing these ideas in our own
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communities is the solution people need to help our own communities. Allowing schools and

companies provide donations are small steps in providing funding to get these ideas going and

working.

The next time someone can provide help to someone who is less fortunate or struggling

and is coming to someone for help, don’t push them away or yell at them to leave because

someone else we know could be in that situation before everyone know it and it takes only a little

time to tackle this big problem. This bug issue can be fixed as a community and people can use

all of the solutions provided to help us in bringing down the rate of homelessness in our societies

and providing a overall better life for millions of people. People can fix homelessness, but also

need people to want to fix homelessness. What will you do the next time you see somebody

asking for help? Will you help them or ignore them? It only takes a little bit of help to go a long

way and that’s what some people don’t realize. By the end of this research I wanted to be able to

compile all my research and learn new ways to help homelessness. At the end of this research I

have found many different ways to help this epidemic and I think the more people who do

research on this would also think of new ideas. I will use the information I’ve learned over the

last few weeks and I will continue to research until I can get more people to help in fixing this

issue. This research has helped broaden my knowledge and I know the next time I see someone

struggling I know I will help.

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This graph represents the top five highest percentages of homelessness by state and the lowest top five rates in 2015.
(Fedschun)
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Works Cited

Baum, Alice S. A Nation in Denial. 1st ed., vol. 1 1, Routledge, 2019.

Burk, Barry H. “Proven Solutions.” Coalition For The Homeless, Coalition For The Homeless,

www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/ending-homelessness/proven-solutions/.

Fedschun, Travis. “Homelessness Ticks up Nationwide, as West Coast Still Leads the Country.”

Fox News, FOX News Network, www.foxnews.com/us/homelessness-ticks-up-

nationwide-as-west-coast-still-leads-the-country.

“Homelessness Is a National Crisis.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report,

www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/2019-03-04/commentary-

homelessness-is-a-national-crisis.

Kenneally, Brenda Ann. “Why It's So Hard to Stop Being Homeless in New York.” Intelligencer,

New York Mag, 22 Mar. 2017, nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/03/nyc-homelessness-

crisis.html.

Gopalrao Swaminath, et al. “Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 and Homeless Persons with Mental

Illness in India.” Sinclair College Off-Campus Authentication Form, Indian Journal of

Psychiatry, eds-b-ebscohost-com.sinclair.ohionet.org/eds/detail/detail?

vid=15&sid=e4d008b7-8868-4ee5-be4b-

922fc331afa4@sessionmgr4006&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU=#AN=135824991

&db=a9h.

Roman, Nan. “Creating Systems That Work.” National Alliance to End Homelessness, National

Alliance to End Homelessness, endhomelessness.org/ending-

homelessness/solutions/creating-systems-that-work/.
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Semuels, Alana. “How Can the U.S. End Homelessness?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media

Company, 18 Apr. 2018, www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/end-

homelessness-us/479115/.