Homelessness in Macon, GA - Report Example

Homelessness in Macon, GA Introduction Homelessness is one of the major problems faced by all the countries irrespective of developed, developing or underdeveloped. The reasons for homelessness are plenty, but individual and structural reasons contribute heavily to this social problem. Many people have the false belief that developed countries like United States may not have the homelessness problem. It is difficult to believe that United Stets is one of the worst affected countries in the world as far as homelessness is concerned. Due to the recession and many related problems such as unemployment, foreclosing, and homelessness are occurring all over United States. There are approximately 750,000 homeless people in the nation. California has the most homeless people and Georgia ranks 5th in the nation and the numbers are keep increasing. The state Georgia ranks 49th in the United States in children homelessness. This includes the risk for children homelessness, the percentage of homeless children, state policy, and planning. In a small town Macon in Georgia, one of the biggest and the fastest growing problem is the homelessness. The local governments do not have a practical long term plan to prevent homelessness. Since Macon is a small city, not that many people are interested in homeless issue. Macon does not have enough shelters, services, and food providing programs set up. This paper briefly analyses the homelessness issue in United States taking the Macon as the example. General Information about homelessness problem in Macon Churchill (2010) has mentioned that the homeless people in Macon is rapidly increasing for the last few years. Last years study found homelessness in Macon County had nearly doubled since 2007, counting 619 homeless people and 524 individuals at risk of becoming homeless. The count in 2007 was 347 homeless and 494 at risk (CHURCHILL). The above statistics clearly shows that if not controlled properly, this problem is going to be a big headache for Macon. Causes of being homeless Unemployment, poverty, lack of affordable housing, unaffordable housing policies etc are some of the major structural reasons associated with homelessness (What causes homelessness). But apart from these, individual reasons like alcoholism, drug addiction, lack of qualification and social support, debts, poor physical and mental health, loss of relationships, etc can also contribute heavily to the homelessness problems. Kendall (2008) has argued that people like to form groups to meet instrumental and expressive needs. Instrumental or task oriented needs cannot be met by one persona alone and the group work cooperatively to fulfil the goal. Apart from that small groups are better for all the members to acquaint well and to interact simultaneously (Kendall, p.151-152). Modern trends show that people like to live in nuclear families a family with husband, wife and one or two children. Family expenses are growing day by day and the family relationships are weakening. Thus, the large family concepts were given way for nuclear family at present. A family with more than 10 persons was common earlier. But the changing views about life and the straining of social and family relationships contributed heavily for the homelessness problems. Society views One thing should be done before the government tries to resolve the homelessness problems. That is changing society’s views toward homelessness. Most the people in the nation know that not everyone on the street is homeless. A lot of them are spending a day begging money from others in order to keep up with their daily life including drugs and alcohols. Those people who ask for money lead to false impressions such as homeless people are lazy and they do not try to get a job to other people who work to afford their life. Those false impressions often result people saying that homeless people deserve their horrible situation. Since improve homelessness problems require a lot of help and volunteers, unless people and the society change the view, it is a hard issue to come up with the solution. Problems Homelessness is one of the fastest growing social problems in the nation. It is a long term process and needs a lot of help and concern from all different people, group, and government. Since homelessness itself causes other related problems such as teenage pregnancy, crime rates, and low high school graduation percentage, the government finds the ways to provoke people to involve resolving homelessness. The government gives a large amount of money to organizations and people to encourage them to come up with ways helping homeless people. Based on 2009 Report on Homelessness in Georgia, there are shelters at Domestic Violence Agencies in SFY. More than 8,000 adults and children stay there. Although the numbers of people who stay shelters are increased compare to last year, about 3,500 victims of domestic violence are denied because there are not enough spaces for all victims. The State Housing Trust Fund awards money to organizations that provide counseling, childcare, education, health care and job training to encourage them participate deeply and increase the numbers of organizations that try to help homeless people. In 2008, a total of 67,472 people received help from organizations and some are end their homeless life. Macon starts a project to offer a job opportunity to homeless people. In reality, homeless people find difficulties getting a job. Even if they have particular skills and experiences, employers have avoided hiring them due to perceptions. The new project Macon starts solves homeless people’s unemployment. The organization finds a job that is suit for each homeless people with their skills and talents. If they keep up with their duties and do their best, they can make money from the job and it can be one way to end their homelessness. (macon.com) Children homelessness The children homelessness causes many problems. The absence of a safe place results many diseases for children. Especially young children with no home to comfort themselves result in both poor mental and physical health. The homeless children have a higher percentage of suffering from disease than other children from middle-income families. Due to the lack of care and poor nutrition, homeless children are suffering from asthma, lice infestation, and respiratory infections. Young children have a weak immune system. Therefore, if they do not get enough attention from adults, a simple illness causes a serious result. Moreover, higher numbers of homeless children suffer from mental disorders and experiencing behavioural problems than children who are never homeless. Homeless children show difficulty in expressing and sharing their emotions and thoughts. Instead of interact with others by talking and explaining, homeless children make connection with other by aggressive behaviors which include harming others, objects, and animals. Menke set up a case to study homeless student. At the beginning of the study, the girl they study has attitude problems. She cannot get along with classmates, steals other childrens belongings, and always asks for attention at anytime and anywhere. Her behaviors are abnormal compare to her other classmates. This leads her classmates to avoid her and her aggressive behaviors developed until the counselor starts work for her. (Menke, Comparison of the Stressors and Coping Behaviors of Homeless, Previously Homeless, and Never Homeless Poor Children) The academic achievements of homeless children are lower than children who are never homeless. Homeless students National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores are significantly lower than non-homeless students. The numbers of high school homeless students in Georgia are 7,541 in 2008 and only less than twenty five percent of them graduate high school. The study done by researchers in Columbia University suggests that “one of the best documented relationships in economics is the link between education and income: more highly educated people have higher incomes. Failure to graduate from high school has both private and public consequences: income is lower, which means lower tax contributions to finance public services. Also, lower income families or homeless families do not pay attention on children education a lot. Since many of them do not have a higher education experiences, they do not understand the necessity and importance of an education and their children will not understand neither because they never see nor experience the consequences and benefits of a higher education. This will pass down from generation to generation and until someone in family notice the significance, the family will suffer from poverty and homelessness (homelesschildrenamerica.org) Children Illness and healthcare Street children are always vulnerable to health problems. Physical and emotional problems can affect the street children immensely. Poor hygienic conditions, lack of control over life styles, association with antisocial elements etc will affect their health immensely. Heredity and environment are the two major things which affect the growth and development of children it is impossible for the children to grow positively in a street environment. The following facts seem to be relevant while studying the health and social problems associated with homelessness and its effects on children Children born into homelessness are more likely to have low birth weights and are at greater risk of death. Homelessness also exposes infants to environmental factors that can endanger their health. Because homeless families often have little access to health care, many homeless infants lack essential immunizations. Homeless children begin to demonstrate significant developmental delays after 18 months of age, which are believed to influence later behavioral and emotional problems Homeless children are at greater risk for asthma and lead poisoning, often with more severe symptoms than housed children. Poor nutrition also contributes to homeless children’s poor health, causing increased rates of stunted growth and anemia. Despite these widespread health problems, homeless children generally lack access to consistent health care, and this lack of care can increase severity of illness (Homelessness, p.2) Solutions The best way to solve homeless childrens mental illness is keep concern about them. As homeless children never get enough attention from their parents, they are always looking for others attention. Even Menkes study says that a homeless girl who expresses her feeling through aggressive behaviors at the beginning of the study gets along with her friends later on because she had her own counselor who seriously cares about her and her family members also spend time together with her. Health problems (diseases, mental disorders) Homeless people spend a day on the street. What that means is that they are living in crowded, loud, and unhealthy environment without a protection from germs, viruses, and even social problems. These poor conditions result homeless peoples health problems. Since they have no place to avoid severe weather condition, they catch a cold easily and it develops into a serious condition such as mono. More than twenty percent of Tuberculosis cases are developed due to increase in the number of homeless people in the United States. Homeless people do not have enough money to buy proper shoes and clothes because they do not have a job. For that reason, they have to wear the same cloth for a long period of time without cleaning. This leads to skin diseases and infection of bacteria. Also, one of the biggest issues is that because homeless people sleep on a street, they suffer from sleep deprivation. There are not enough shelters to protect homeless people from noise, anxiety, and tiredness. The sleep disorders later cause of irritability, behavioral impairment. (http://www.spa.ucla.edu) The study called "Factors Associated with Incarceration History among HIV-Positive Persons Experiencing Homelessness or Imminent Risk of Homelessness." shows how HIV/AIDS disease is related to homelessness. The study says that homeless people have a higher possibility getting HIV/AIDS and between five and eleven percent of homeless people are already have HIV/AIDS. About ten to fifteen percent of homeless people are drug users. In order to earn money for drugs, some people who are homeless do homosexual or heterosexual activities. Also, they reuse needles to inject drugs. In addition, they have a weak immune system because they have no money to go to hospital, no cares from others and poor nutrition. So, once one homeless person affected by HIV virus, the other homeless people who are around that person have a possibility getting HIV virus too. Community environments (drugs, alcohols, teenage pregnancy) Drug addiction, alcohol addiction, teenage pregnancy etc are contributing substantially to the homelessness problems. People with drug or alcohol addiction may have loss of control over their life and they will normally seek shelter in streets. Such people will undergo severe criticism at their family and they will be forced to leave their home. Commitments of the current people are increasing day by day. Personal, social and professional commitments and the failure in fulfilling such commitments increases the stress and people forced to take shelter in alcoholism or drug addiction. Teenage pregnancy is another major social problem associated with homelessness. People stays in streets will often face sexual abuse. It is difficult for the teenage females to take shelter in streets. Antisocial elements will abuse such teenage girls sexually and unwanted pregnancies could be the outcome. “Many of the street children who have run away from home have done so because they were beaten or sexually abused. Tragically, their homelessness can lead to further abuse through exploitative child labour and prostitution” (THE PROBLEMS OF STREET CHILDREN) Programs offer (shelters, services) The Obama Administration provides $1.4 billion for homeless grants and another $1.1 million has been rewarded to solve the problem. Most of money Obama Administration offers goes to more than 6,000 programs including housing and services for homeless people and families. This new plan let organizations and programs that are willing to help homeless people to keep open their doors and be more proactive. The government has done this program for years and it shows improvement since these grants provide permanent and transitional housing to people who are homeless. Also, like other program that introduced in 2009 Report on Homelessness, these grants fund services such as job trainings, child care, and mental health counseling to start a new life. (maconnews.com) Another program called The Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness Program (PATH) is a federal program that funding for organizations that treat homeless people with mental disorders and use resources to help homeless people end their homelessness. More than sixty percent of homeless people in metro areas in Georgia are currently enrolled in PATH service. Healthcare services for homeless people are still in a process. There is a Federal program that helps solving homeless people’s health issues but not enough opportunities for the majority of homeless people. (dca.ga.gov) Conclusions Homelessness is a big social problem everywhere and America in general and Macon in particular facing serious homelessness problems. Structural and individual problems like poverty, unemployment, unaffordable housing policies, lack of education, alcoholism, drug addiction, changing concepts about family relationships etc are the major causes of homelessness. Children are one of the major victims of the homelessness problem. Lack of safe places for their shelter damages their physical and metal growth. It is difficult for the children to seek education properly staying in streets or other’s control. Serious health and social problems like HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, theft, sexual abuse, violence etc are some of the outcomes of homelessness. The current administration has taken serious measures to counter the homelessness problem in United States. Moreover, many charitable trusts and public agencies are playing their part in solving these social problems. Homelessness problem should be addressed from the grass root level in order to wipe it off permanently from the American soil. Works Cited 1. CHURCHILL, THERESA. 2010. “Macon County Homeless Numbers Rise”. 3 May 2010. 2. “Homelessness”. 1999. 3 May 2010. 3. Kendall, Diana. 2008. “Sociology In Our Times, 7th Edition” 4. “THE PROBLEMS OF STREET CHILDREN”. 3 May 2010. 5. “What Causes Homelessness?”. 3 May 2010. Read More