Substance Abuse, Homelessness, Hunger and How They Relate - Research Paper Example

Substance abuse, homelessness, hungerIntroductionSubstance abuse is one of the main causes of homelessness. Substance abuse has been seen to break many families as well as communities and especially the younger generation. The homeless are likely to grow hungry time and again as a result of the poor conditions they are living in. It is the work of the community to ensure that people do not go hungry even the homeless people residing in their community or even the substance abusers. Substance abuseSubstance abuse is the excessive use of drugs and alcohol to the extent that they become harmful to an individual’s body and mind.

The use is more than the normal recommended capacity and the behavior repeats frequently to an extent of causing impairments to an individual’s health, social relationships and even work relationships (Galanter & Kleber 8). HomelessnessHomelessness is the aspect of an individual lacking housing facilities as a basic need and they end up living in the streets. These people lack a fixed or even regular place they can stay at night and end up living in tents or structures made up of unsustainable materials to shelter themselves at night which is only temporary (Shumsky 12).

HungerHunger can be defined as staying for long periods of time usually a minimum of 24 hours without eating any food for the lack of it. Hunger causes health problems as a result of lack of energy to enable them function to full physical and even mental capacity. RelationshipAccording to statistics, homelessness in the United States is attributed to the following main causes: poverty, unemployment, lack of affordable housing and the greatest of them all is substance abuse (Didenko & Pankratz 9).

Substance abuse incapacitates an individual to the extent that they are unable to function to their full physical and mental capacity. They lose their jobs and cannot sustain their families. With the lack of income and money to pay rent or even purchase food, they end up homeless and hungry and have to reside on the streets or even emergency shelters and temporarily made up tents. The deplorable conditions under which the homeless people live in provides a reason for them turning into substance abuse as a way to drown and forget their current poor state of affairs or the hunger they are constantly facing.

Importance of food pantry to the communityA food pantry is a food bank or a large storage of food products mostly the canned food that cannot easily expire and it is mostly for emergency purposes only or when a given part of the community requires the food. Since the homeless are incapacitated to provide decent food for themselves and most of the time they go hungry, there is need for the community to have a food bank to be supplying food to these homeless people occasionally (Gitterman 25). ConclusionTaking care of the homeless people as a community through feeding them is one huge step in changing their lives.

This is so because when the homeless are fed, they will get the energy to work, are likely to stop or reduce significantly the substance abuse and even eventually leave the temporary shelters and street life they lead as they get renewed hope to life.Work CitedDidenko, Eugenia & Nicole Pankratz. “Substance Use: Pathways to homelessness? Or a way of adapting to street life?” Visions: BC’s Mental Health and Addictions Journal 4.2 (2007): 9-10. Print.Galanter, Marc & Herbert Kleber. The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Substance Abuse Treatment.

Virginia: American Psychiatric Publications, 2010. Print. Gitterman, Alex. Handbook of Social Work Practice with Vulnerable and Resilient Populations. Columbia: Columbia University Press, 2014. Print. Shumsky, Neil. Homelessness: A Documentary and Reference Guide. New York: ABC- CLIO, 2012. Print.