Government Does Not Support Homeless People for Provision of Enough Help - Essay Example

Government does not Support Homeless People for Provision of Enough Help Introduction The homelessness in Canada is currently among the major forms of social crisis extremely affecting youths followed by women and children. Many public programs such as churches and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) have shown their fair support to minimize the issue of homelessness in the country (Westhues, 2006). This has highly helped curb this crisis around the country. Although the government of Canada tries to end the road to homelessness, they use two dominant approaches to manage homelessness crisis, which most homeless youths do not welcome. These approaches bring many problems to the homeless youths and adult (Westhues, 2006). Arguably, the government of Canada does not give homeless people to provide enough support. The government of Canada employs two dominant approaches to manage the homelessness crisis in the country. The two dominant approaches adopted by the government include, emergency supports and the control method. To begin with, emergency supports, which local social service agents provide include voluntary organizations, and health centers. These emergency support agencies also help homeless people with their basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing, and health care services (Wellington, Greenbaum, & Cragg, 2007). However, provision of food range from traditional food “soup kitchens” to muffins/doughnuts and coffee during daytime in drop-in centers. Unfortunately, the shelters provided are just mere temporary shelters, especially provided during cold seasons by Out of Cold Programs (United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, 2000). These are the only support services the Canadian Government provides to the homeless people instead of providing other essential services such as education, permanent shelters such as constructing childrens homes for the homeless youths, and offering employment opportunities since poverty is among the major causes of homelessness. Therefore, even if the government offers support services to the homeless, it does not give enough help to the homeless youths. The second strategy used by the government of Canada to help the homeless people is the “control” method. Most politicians in Canada keep on advocating for policies, police actions, and laws to control the actions of homeless youths and adults who perceive to be delinquent and deviant. For instance, police officers use strict and harmful actions to ensure control of activities carried out by homeless youths in the city streets (Organization, 2004). The government implements police practices, bylaws, and laws for the purpose of eliminating or restricting informal income-generating tasks, and ensuring that the homeless people do not sleep in public places instead of providing shelter and creating employment opportunities to these needy citizens (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development & Local Economic and Employment Development (Program), 2003). The government only ensures that homeless people do not sleep in public places and eliminate informal income-generating activities, which they engage to cater for their needs instead of finding better solutions to them. Additionally, in the year 2000, the implementation of the “Safe Street Act” made aggressive panhandling and squeegeeing an illegal activity, which is the homelessness main source of income (Organization, 2004). In addition, Community Action Policing of the years 2000 and 2001 insisted on increased police inspection to the homeless youths. Although the government of Canada tries to provide support for the homeless people, the two dominant approaches used to address this social crisis issue pose major problems to the homeless youths (Lyon-Callo, 2008). These problems are true evidence that the government of Canada does not support homeless people to provide enough support, hence force them to live a more confused and miserable life. One of the major problems that homeless face is nutritional problems. Both homeless men and women are found to consume low nutrients and energy intakes. This results in severe diseases, hence leading to loss of life (Lyon-Callo, 2008). Another problem that government poses to the homeless youths is mental and physical health problems. For example, police use policy practices, which are strict, for instance, to eliminate informal income activities, which may cause physical or even mental health hazards to the homeless youths. The lack of necessities forces homeless youths to encounter a problem of infections and impaired function (Lyon-Callo, 2008). Some of the diseases highly affecting and causing death of a large number of homeless people include hepatitis B., HIV, depression, sexual transmitted diseases, and substance abuse. The females are, however, exposed to the risk of unexpected pregnancies hence increasing the homelessness population (Hulchanski & Homeless Hub, 2009). Arguably, the government does not support the homeless to provide enough help since due to these poor health conditions and nutritional vulnerability of street youths prevent them from moving off streets despite provision of employment and housing. Moreover, most homeless youths do not make use of the charitable, governmental meal and snack support program. Homeless youths claim that food purchasing is more preferable compared to the meal and snack food provision program. This is because they can decide on what, where, and when to take their meals, hence enjoying the opportunity to control their life and be self-independent (Hulchanski & Homeless Hub, 2009). The process of obtaining food from the governmental charitable food programs is time-consuming and frustrating: the food demand is more than the amount of food offered. For instance, in churches, the process of food taking is long lineups. Sometimes, they do not have enough amount of food, so they have to go back and cook for more food. Therefore, the street youths have to wait meaning that you have gone and rest and come back to the lineup, which is time consuming (Hombs, 2011). Another issue associated with these government programs is that they have limited access since they only operate on particular hours in a day and specific days in a week. This means that, on contrary, to health context, which states that any human being should take three meals on a daily basis, the homeless youths should only eat on certain days (Hombs, 2011). Eligibility criteria to enjoy the program service are restrictive and for them to access these benefits, they have to involve themselves with other community programming activities (Hewitt & Canada, 2004). For example, for an individual to obtain meals in five days per week, he or should involve in skill stabilization/ development programs implemented by Toronto City. This means that the youths must work extra hard in order to get enough food, which can satisfy their demands. Conclusion Up to this point, one can confidently conclude that, the government of Canada does not support homeless individual to give enough help. Instead, the approaches, which the government employs, pose major challenges and problems to the homeless youths and adult forcing them to live a miserable life (Coyne, 2007). The government should offer free services to these needy citizens, but instead they have to involve themselves in community activities implemented by Toronto City to enable them obtain enough food. Instead of the government of Canada providing clothing, food, and shelter to the homeless individual, it implements strict policies to eliminate illegal informal business activities and ensure that they do not sleep in public places. In order for the government to provide enough support to the homeless youths, it should lounge projects to build rehabilitation centers to cater for the needs of the homeless youths (Coyne, 2007). This will be advantageous since the street youths will get access to learning facilities, food, and conducive shelter. Accumulating all the street youths in the rehabilitation centers will reduce health issues such as disease, infections and drug abuse through the provision of sufficient health services. This will also reduce cases of stealing and illegal income-generating tasks (Hewitt & Canada, 2004). If the government of Canada considers these aspects, then the issue of homelessness will become a theme of the past. References Coyne, B. V. (2007). Homelessness: A bibliography. New York, NY: Nova Science Publ. Hewitt, J. A., & Canada. (2004). Homelessness and the criminal justice system in Canada: A literature review. Ottawa: Dept. of Justice Canada, Corporate Management, Policy and Programs Sector, Research and Statistics Directorate. Hombs, M. E. (2011). Modern homelessness: A reference handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO. Hulchanski, J. D., Homeless Hub (2009). Finding home: Policy options for addressing homelessness in Canada. Toronto, Ont.: Cities Centre Press. Lyon-Callo, V. (2008). Inequality, poverty, and neoliberal Governance: Activist ethnography in the homeless sheltering industry. Toronto: UTP. 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