Female Homeless - Speech or Presentation Example

? Female Homeless Hallo. My is Margret Williams. Most of the people here have suffered because of lack of houses or areas as they could call a safe shelter and this has exposed the risk because of the issues that affect them as women in the society. In most cases, there have been issues about the homelessness of women because of the cultural orientation of the people, which does not give any entitlement to women to women as people who can own property and develop them. For this reason, many women who do not have men with whom they can share their lives end up in streets and other undignified places whose conditions are very detrimental for both their health and security (Burt, Pearson & Montgomery, 2007). I have observed these issues in the culture of the people who live near Acadiana Outreach Center and this could has been one of the drives to establish this center within this place. I know that it is the wish of everyone here to live a dignified life with good places to settle and feel secure in the places in which we live. The places we live after we have divorced, have been bereaved or any form of unfortunate issue that befall us and leave us without a man we can depend on for a shelter and other basic need. Although these issues seem to have little impact on the lives of the people who are directly affected, there are effects that are extended to all the dependants of the women who lack the privilege of a place to stay, a place they can call home. This is because some of the homeless women are not without other roles but carry responsibilities of mothers and the providers for younger children and also are required to offer security to these dependants. These life demands push some women into the streets or poor shelters where they seek cheap means of sustaining their lives as well as those of the children that depend on them. This is because most of the homeless women have no source of income and therefore, live on limited resources most of which come from begging and daily wages that they get from small businesses and daily labor. Today, we will focus on the ways through which homeless women can get some places to live and establish a sustainable way of living, which would be less dependent begging. This will mean that women will have their own plans to acquire dignified places of residence where they will not be vulnerable to the risky conditions of poor environment, which does not guarantee their security. We will also focus on the provision of the homes that is done by the government and how women can benefit from it with a focus of the requirement that a woman need to have so that be guaranteed it. This will not be a form of one side discussion but it will require all people to participate through asking questions and seeking clarification of an issue at any point in the course of this presentation. We that in mind, we can embark on the discussion on the various issues that have exposed women in the society to the risky homelessness and the contribution of the Acadiana Outreach Center in alleviating the condition. As many of you are aware, there are things that we face as women in the society since the cultural restrictions do not allow the women to own property. Because of this, many single mothers, divorced, unmarried, separated or widowed women who have little income have to undergo serious struggle to sustain themselves in good places in the world. Many of those who have little income do not have enough resources with which they can secure basic needs that they have for their lives. This situation has faced those women who have low education attainments because they do not secure opportunities in good paying labor market and therefore have to undergo a lot of struggle to get their needs (Burt, Pearson & Montgomery, 2007). In this discussion, I will use some materials that are contained in a small booklet that each of you will receive so that they can revisit the discussion later. These booklets will be available for everyone by the time we finish this discussion and everyone will receive a copy as a we leave this room. During this presentation, I will display the content of the discussion on the screen using a projector that is fixed to display the information for all the people in this room. The topic of this discussion is women homelessness and its consequences on their live. This is an issue that has affected many people and therefore, many of us know some of its impacts it has on the victims. When we talk about homelessness, we mean the situation of lacking to a place that is permanent and is sheltered where people can reside to avoid cold and other conditions that may happen because of lack of a defined place of residence. This can implies all the situations, which pre-exposes people to a settlement in a place that is temporary or semi permanent because they lack means to acquire a permanent place they can live. This happens because of various things, which may be beyond the ability of the affected, it may be dues to a forced move, or even poor decision to use the property a person could be having. Through this, a person may lack a place in which he can reside and this may result to other physical, mental and health risks as they situation may lead people to respond in different ways. Some of the people who have lacked homes in which they can stay find alternatives in different and a large group of them end up in the streets and to the best, some go to slums. The conditions of the places they find themselves expose them to other difficulties because they are subjected to direct impact of poor drainage, direct environment condition and they are exposed to poor risky people who would influence their wellbeing. Out of the population that is affected by the condition, women are the worst exposed because they are unable to defend themselves against malicious men who aim to destroy their live for no good course. These men exploit the vulnerability of the women so that they expose them to suffering by harassing them sexually, physically and subjecting them to other mistreatment that interrupt their lives. At this point, we can focus on the things that expose women to the problem of homelessness and which facilitate the occurrence of the same condition. There are different things that expose the women folk to homelessness within and away from the Acadiana Outreach Center. Some of the factors include the culture of the people, lack of employment and some other factors such as the family issues that have direct influence on the women as a single factor or a combination of more than one of them. In many cultures of the people Acadiana Outreach Center, women are denied entitlement to ownership of property and especially when it comes to homes. As you know, women are expected to depend on their fathers and husbands at the different stages in their lives. This means that if they are without these people in their lives, they are likely to lack many of the basic needs in their lives especially those, which come from the fallouts between them. In this regard, women who depend on these men are sent away from the homes of the men and try to find some other place they can live on their own. In many of these circumstances, the women who find themselves in such conditions end in places that have no shelter and for their dependants (Arrighi & Maume, 2007). Cultural principles of many people have prohibited women from inheriting from them male and they are never considered as equal partners in the acquisition of property in the society. This has led to most of them to end up in poverty that cannot be overcome because of the cultural disempowerments that happen in those cultures (Laurence & Urbain, 2011). In some situations, there lack of employment in many places in the society has contributed to women’s homelessness in the areas surrounding the Acadiana Outreach Center. This is because women have been limited in acquiring food and other resources in the family because they cost them a lot of money. In their lack of employment, they are unable to raise enough money that can enhance them to rent, purchase or build their own homes to shelter themselves. The problem escalates in cases where some of these women have some children who depend on them for food and other needs. This happens because the little income they get from whatever sources is channeled to other needs and securing a home may not be a priority especially when food is also needed. Lack of employment does not only affect the people in the through the direct struggle to sustain themselves but it has impact on the psychological balance of the affected women. This is because the stress that is associated with lack of means to sustain one’s live exploits them of a lot of energy to work to sustain their lives. This happens because of the intimidations that some people may face as people living in low quality residence areas because they women who live there tend to feel inferior to those who live in other good areas in the society. This exerts a psychological pressure on the affected until they are unable to thrive or to engage themselves in activities that can promote their acquisition of the much needed home. Unemployment also plays an important role in classification of people in the society having many of the homeless women to go to the different places that cannot support their lives. In this respect, these women are pushed by the classification to the places that are of very poor conditions because of the automatic segregation that happen because of the classes that exist. The unfortunate thing in the classification is that even in the poor, there are other classification where those women without parents or husbands on whom they can depend are placed in other classes that are lower than the poor women who have people on whom they can depend (Laurence & Urbain, 2011). Family issues are other courses of homelessness in the area surrounding the Acadiana Outreach Center. These issues range from the divorces, separation or illnesses that cause the financial imbalance between the different people in the family and the women are the worst affected by the issue. In most cases, when an issue of family breakup happens, it is the woman in the family that is expected to leave the home and go to the places, which may not be within the area of residence of the husband (Jasinski, 2010). In most cases, these women may not be welcome back in the homes from where they came because her brother could have shared the properties of their father. This means that they are forced to find alternative elsewhere and mostly, this lands them most of them to the streets or slums at the best and this means that these women turn homeless within a very short time. Other circumstances that have in the family that have led to women homelessness include cases where they lose their husbands through death or terminal illnesses that may lead the relatives of the man to send the wife away because the woman has no one to defend her. In this situation, the woman leaves the home they may have built and established with her husband to other places where she may encounter a lot of trouble to secure a home in which she can live (McNamara, 2008). In this discussion new will focus on the impact of women homelessness and later we will go ahead to look at the ways through which we can reduce the rate of it in the society by looking at the opportunities that are available for homeless women. Some effects of homelessness in the society are economic, health as well as psychological and which may impair the participation of women in productive activities in the society. Economic effects of women homelessness are felt because the individuals in the society cannot be able to raise enough money to establish a home where they can keep their money. Many employers may not trust homeless women with their jobs opportunities and therefore, they fail to get opportunities for which they are qualified. Other economic issues that could affect homeless women is the security of the resources they acquire because they may be living in places where they lack confidentiality. This means that in their homelessness, these women cannot be able to accumulate enough resources to acquire homes or to establish their lives. This happens because most of them have no security and therefore, they can lose their resources on vandalism or robbery by strong men within their environment (Laurence & Urbain, 2011). Psychological effects of women homelessness happens where they have to undergo serious troubles at the hand of men and other women who could be having better privileges that them. This happens because these women feel very inferior to the others who could be having these privileges and this may cause unending stress to the women in the context (Laurence & Urbain, 2011). The women that are homeless suffer health complications because most of the time they spend their time out of the house where they are exposed to very much cold. Those people who find themselves shelters in the slums suffer from diseases that are related to the poor drainage and other diseases that are associated with congestion. This happens because the areas that they settle are congested and the ease of transmission of disease is high to the point that all the people who spend their lives there are fully exposed. The food these people take is of very low quality, the hygiene of the same is a concern, and this exposes the homeless women to dangers of getting diseases (McNamara, 2008). As a way to counter the growing women homelessness, there are different organizations that have come up with plans to assist the women that are homeless and one of these is the Acadiana Outreach Center, which has a plan that ensure that they can assist the women who do not have residence to acquire places to stay. The organization has allowed homeless women to get comfort from the degrading effects of homeless and it raises their psychological stability to a level that will allow these people to secure places of living (McNamara, 2008). On the other hand, the government has a plan to help those who are homeless to get some areas to settle by creating a fund that seeks to help those that are homeless to get places to stay. Through this plan everyone can benefit and women are not exceptional of the program because it targets to raise the standard of living of all the citizens in the country. It require all the people to embrace the plan of the government and seek this help instead of risking their lives and health in ways that are not possible do not promise to alleviate their problems in any way (Hulchanski, 2009). Now that everyone have heard the things that we have discussed I believe we will take the necessary step to change our lives for the better considering the fact that we have opportunities. As you leave, you can pick a copy of this document at desk near the door. One copy of this is enough for you and you do not need to scramble for them since there enough copies for each one. I hope the discussion was worth your time and that your are informed of the issues that affect women and ways through which you can get help immediately you find yourself homeless instead having to take long time in other places that will endanger your live. Thank you all for listening to me I am grateful and may you have a productive time. References Arrighi, B. A., & Maume, D. J. (2007). Child poverty in America today. Westport, Conn: Praeger. Burt, M. R., Pearson, C. L., & Montgomery, A. E. (2007). Homelessness: Prevention, strategies and effectiveness. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Hulchanski, J. D., (2009). Finding home: Policy options for addressing homelessness in Canada. Toronto, Ont.: Cities Centre Press. Jasinski, J. L. (2010). Hard lives, mean streets: Violence in the lives of homeless women. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Laurence, F., & Urbain, O. (2011). Music and solidarity: Questions of universality, consciousness, and connection. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers. McNamara, R. H. (2008). Homelessness in America. Westport, Conn: Praeger. Read More