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Homelessness and Poverty in the Midwest

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Social Problem Paper

Homelessness and Poverty in the Midwest

Sarah Rose Conklin

Social Problems

Spring Semester, 2010

Defiance College

Submitted to: Alesia Yakos-Brown

Date of submission: 4/27/10

Mahatma Ghandi once stated “Poverty is the worst form of violence”, this was true when Ghandi first stated this and it is still true in society today. Worldwide there is estimated to be at least 3.5 billion people who are living in poverty daily (Mooney, Knox, & Schacht,2009, pp. 212). That is around 1/5 of the world’s population (Sachs, 2005, pp. 289) It is estimated that 2.5 billion of these people are living on less than two dollars a day and the other one billion are living on less than one dollar a day (Mooney,Knox, & Schacht,2009, pp. 212). It isn’t fair for any person or family to live on such a small amount of money; and because of the high poverty level at least 18% of the world’s population goes hungry daily, that is every one in five people who go hungry (Mooney,Knox, & Schacht,2009, pp. 212). In 2008 it was reported that there were 1.5 million Ohioans’[people from Ohio] living below the national poverty level (Toledo Blade, 2010). In 2009 the U.S. census bureau reported that the population of Ohio is at 11,542,645 people (U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division , 2010), therefore it would put the number of people living below the poverty threshold at about 8% of Ohio’s population. When looking a social problem it may be beneficial to look at the different sociological perspectives look at the problem. Every sociological perspective looks at the problem from a different view point which may help a person look at the topic from all different angles. The structural functionalist views poverty as being a direct effect from the government’s institutions in society. First the government is not providing enough jobs so when there aren’t enough

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