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Tell Them Who I Am Life in the shelters was very hard as the women did not have anything constructive to do to earn a decent living. The women woke up in the morning, prepared themselves, took breakfast and went out to their daily activities until evening where they would return, have supper and later go to bed. The main problems that the women faced were unemployment, women’s struggles, such as depression or alcoholism and lack of decent housing as well as proper food. They however loitered looking for casual jobs to do so that they could survive every day or received help from social workers and the men in their lives. 2. The women did not have decent jobs and had irregular labor market since they could not easily find jobs.
Mostly they had casual jobs that earned them very little money which could hardly sustain them. Mostly, these women loitered in the streets looking for any job that was available. Mostly, these women worked for long hours when they had jobs to do. But when they did not have anything to do, they did not work at all. For the few jobs they did, these women earned very little money that could hardly sustain them. The shelter living complicated their finding and keeping jobs since most people did not offer them jobs after realizing they were from the shelter. 3. Most of the women in the shelter were from poor families that were financially unstable, and when the situation worsened, they ran to the shelter.
However, various factors such as poverty, broken marriages, divorce and cruel parents made them flee their homes. Some were forced by situations to run away from their homes and join the shelter like abusive relationships and parents. The women had poor relationships with their children, husbands, parents, and siblings as they had either ran away from them or even abandoned them for the shelter. However, some were passionate and wished they could go back. 4. Rarely did the women receive help from the men in their lives since they were poor.
Some however received help from the men in their lives although it was not sufficient enough to get them out of the shelter and afford decent housing. 5. Social workers offered these women a lot of help that was in monetary terms such as loans as well as other personalized necessities and medicine. A good number of the women received small loans that were subsidized to help them in their daily lives, some received as low as $10 to $20 dollars. 6. Consequences of homelessness of these women were poor socialization among them with the society, lack of self-esteem and high poverty levels since they could not get good and well-paying jobs.
Moreover, as a consequence of their homeless status, they were separated from their families and siblings.
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