Beyond the Need for a House - Essay Example

From these numerous studies, "I'm Tired of Being a Slave to the Church Floor" by John Stackhouse, "The Homeless: Are We Part of the Problem" by Jack Layton, "Life on the Streets" by Thomas O'Reilly Fleming, and "No Room of Her Own" by CMHC, Sylvia Novac, J. Brown are used to support the arguments of this paper. One common theme of these articles is the identification of what causes homeless as well as how it can be solved. Meanwhile, in the pursuit of resolving homelessness, various sectors of the society are determining the root cause of homelessness often attributing it to structural problems like uneven wealth and power distribution, poverty, lack of employment opportunities, and housing shortages.

This is often due to the widespread belief that problems in shelter are more economic and structural in nature. However, homelessness should not be looked at just the lack of a permanent physical structure to settle into but the individual's lack of belongingness and comfort. The real root of homelessness goes beyond the broad economic and societal issues present in the community to more specific and deeper needs for emotional shelter. The National Coalition for the Homeless cites seven major causes of homelessness four of which are structural problems. . Unemployment on the other hand limits the ability of an individual to generate income in order to afford a decent house.

People who are unemployed generally lack money to rent a place to stay that's why they prefer streets and shelters. Homelessness is also blamed to the inadequate or lack of social intervention from the government. Declining welfare is also synonymous with only few people benefiting from it. These aforementioned structural issues and the respective explanation on how they contribute to the problem of homelessness fail to tell the true story. It is partly true that homelessness can be explained by the imperfections in the economic structure.

However, if that is the case, we should expect countries which are more economically developed like the United States to have less or no occurrence of homelessness. Furthermore, the articles under consideration reveal that the cause of homelessness goes beyond these structural issues. Stackhouse, Layton, O' Reilly Fleming, and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CHMC) provided support to the argument that homelessness is also caused by individual factors unique to each homeless. Stackhouse's account which relates the situation of BJ disproves the assumption that all homeless cannot afford a home.

It should be noted that BJ, a panhandler living in the streets of Toronto, has a two-story home in Newfoundland (230). Also, being unemployed is not always a reason why people seek shelters. Stackhouse recounts the story of an "overnight guest" who earns $600 to $700 each week by hauling scrap metals to dumps. The support from the government may well be useless as some homeless like Jake do not collect their welfare. Thus, using structural