3rd paper Rough Draft

Suffrage in Our Home Country: Homelessness and Living in Poverty

 

Approximately 3.5 million Americans, 1.35 million of them being children, are likely to experience homelessness in a given year. (National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, 2003). Homelessness and poverty are two different situations, but both entail suffrage. No one deserves to be without a home, but people are losing them daily. With the rising costs of basic needs like food, it is becoming extremely difficult to make a living in today’s economy. It just simply does not seem fair that even with a job, you can still be living in poverty and/or homeless. But, in the United States this is a true statement for many Americans. Children shouldn’t be without a meal merely because their parent(s) cannot afford to feed them dinner that night. There are numerous amounts of reasons as to why people fall into poverty; but there are also plenty of things we can do to help, as well as reasons to debunk why people become homeless.

The most basic reasoning as to why people end up homeless or in extreme poverty is drug and alcohol abuse. In fact, two thirds of homeless people do have a problem with substance/drug abuse. (Leal, 2009). But, instead of shaming those who make these choices and suffer the consequences, there must be support provided to those in these situations. Mental illness, loss of a job, and/or highered cost of rent are also common reasons for homelessness and poverty, which aren’t always being that exact persons fault. We as a country need to tend to the needs of these people, not just watch our brothers and sisters fall deeper in deeper in personal suffrage.

A major reason as to why this country has even gotten itself into this mess is that funding has majorly decreased for low income homes. In 1970, there was a surplus of 300,000 affordable housing units in the U.S. But then, in the 1980s, affordable housing began to evaporate. The Reagan administration slashed funding. Federal spending on housing assistance fell by 50 percent between 1976 and 2002. At the same time, gentrification sped up, with cities getting rid of cheap housing like single room occupancy units and replacing them with more expensive stock, and units being built were more often for co-ops and condos for ownership instead of rent. (Covert, 2013)

After discussing why it is necessary to put an end to homeless and poverty as well as the trials and tribulations along the way, it is appropriate discuss how we can take a stand on homelessness, as well as decreasing poverty. The simple trick is that in order to help each other, we must first make sure we are secure. Why is it that Selena Gomez can rack in 3 million a year, yet many Americans find it difficult to get over 10 dollars an hour? The answer is simple, our priorities are completely messed up. The millions of dollars shelled out every year to simply provide entertainment must stop, and more money must be implemented to helping the majority of our people. There are more people homeless/living in poverty than there are celebrities, so why not pay them the millions?

The topic of homelessness and poverty will be never ending. It will always exist in America, because that’s the tone we have set many years ago. The idea that paying professional  football players millions is more important than being confident that that high school football player will or will not be provided a meal that night. Americans are too consumed with themselves and their big cars and big houses to pay attention to those in need.

 

Works Cited

 

"National Poverty Center | University of Michigan." RSS. Ed. Robert Michael and Contance Citro.      National Academy Press, 2003. Web. 24 Nov. 2015. <http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/#TOP>.

Covert, Bryce. "It Would Actually Be Very Simple To End Homelessness Forever." It Would Actually Be Very Simple To End Homelessness Forever Comments. Think Progress, 09 Oct. 2014. Web. 24 Nov. 2015. <http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/10/09/3577980/end-homelessness/>.

Leal, Daniel, Marc Galanter, Helen Dermatis, and Laurence Westreich. "Correlates of Protracted Homelessness in a Sample of Dually Diagnosed Psychiatric Inpatients." Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 16.2 (1999): 143-47. Substance Abuse and Homelessness. National Coalition for the Homeless, July 2009. Web. 23 Nov. 2015. <http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/addiction.pdf>.