Homelessness in America - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages... Department of Veterans Affairs, 2013). Through several federal programs, the Veterans Affairs department in conjunction with the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development are working towards providing permanent and supportive housing services for homeless veterans. Under this housing assistance program, homeless veterans and their families are provided with vouchers across the country to live in market rate rental housing. The Veteran Department also helps homeless veterans through the Grant and Per Diem (GPD) Program where community-based agencies provide service centres or transitional housing to homeless veterans. In addition, through Acquired Property Sales for Homeless Providers Program, the Veterans Affairs Department help homeless veterans obtain homes. It obtains foreclosures on Veteran Affairs-insured mortgages available for sale to shelter homeless veterans (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2013). In order to empower them and help reduce veteran homelessness, the Veteran Affairs department also provides job placement and development, vocational assistance, as well as ongoing supports towards improving employment outcomes among homeless veterans (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2013). Besides, through Veterans Affairs’ Compensated Work Therapy Program, it helps homeless veterans in returning to competitive employment; this is critical in helping them have reliable income and overcome the homelessness problem. It further helps homeless veterans through health care programs to provide care for veterans through VA Hospitals and Community-Based Outpatient Clinics. Veterans served the country well and addressing the problem of homelessness among them is a great honour for their service (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs,...
This work comes to a conclusion that although homelessness in the US is crucial issue, it is important to note that it has decreased slightly over the years, particularly among the military veterans and for people experiencing chronic homelessness. However, the number of persons experiencing homelessness as part of family has increased slightly. These changes can be attributed to policy changes and economic climate in America over the years. For example, there has been increased investment by federal government in effective solutions including permanent supportive housing aimed at chronically homeless individuals and veterans. In addition, there have been some efforts by private sector to prevent and end homelessness for individuals and families. However, despite these efforts, growing housing cost burden and increased competition for housing resources combined with population increase have contributed to persistent homelessness challenge in America. The broad range of private and public responses to various aspects of the problem of homelessness in America is adequate. For example, the Architectural League of New York has been actively involved in providing responses to this problem. Even though policy responses to homelessness have shifted in the last decade, designers have been focusing on a majority of architectural action on spaces that are occupied by homeless constituents, where they design temporary shelters for the homeless people living in the street. ...Download file to see next pagesRead More