Running head: Sociology

AIU-Online
Sandra Fitzhugh
Homelessness
Abstract

Homelessness today is increasing at a large rate and is an issue for today’s society. Although there are a lot of people in this situation such as our middle class who was once in place of good standing now face homelessness in alarming numbers across the country. Homelessness can affect your community economically, socially and politically while causing concerns in the area of public safety and cost of living as a whole. This paper takes a look at the reasons there is homelessness in our society today and the things we together can do to get this situation in control to help those who need it most.

When we look at homeless people we as a society always want to make an assumption of people who are homeless not knowing the underlying reason that cause people to be in this situation in the first place such as economic strife of losing their job after working for a company for 20 years or more and being replaced with someone who is younger. Homelessness means a person having no shelter of their own or a name on a lease. Even though there are studies that say that homelessness is because of drug abuse, depression and other disorders and that is a choice there are several other factors that contribute to people being homeless like the wars, unemployment, foreclosures and the break up of families all play an important part as to why people find themselves on the streets. There are a lot of veterans who are homeless and have to live off the state for help with food stamps and other assistance, but a veteran should never be in this situation after serving their country and most of us today are just a paycheck away from being homeless ourselves. As a veteran I found myself in this situation and had to find a way to get myself out of the homeless situation so I had to look beyond