MAAmerican Governments Were you ever taught as a little kid to look away from a homeless person to save you some empathy? I was. The question is why? Why would we be taught to look away from such a serious issue. We should be attacking this cruel problem head on. California’s homelessness population has grown a significant amount as housing prices continue to rise. This issue involves unsheltered and homeless individuals and has impacted many families all over the world. The homelessness issue includes not only people who can’t seem to afford to make ends meet, but also people with minimum wage jobs, parents, kids, the LGBTQ+ community, domestic partners, and more. There are many causes to the homelessness problem in the United States. Some involve domestic violence issues, lack of affordable housing, unemployment, poverty, low wages, substance abuse, un-supporting relatives, natural disasters, physical disabilities, mental illnesses and more. There are so many reasons as to why and how people end up living on the streets it’s hard to simply list them all. You never know where life is going to take you and it's crazy to even think how one person can go from having a home one day, to living on the streets the next.
It’s easy to blame a homeless person for their actions that led them to the streets, but the truth is, even people working minimum wage jobs at over 40 hours a week with no sick days or vacations, fall under what is considered to be the standard housing income. Homelessness needs to be addressed head on by ensuring jobs that pay a living wage, adequate support for those who cannot work, access to health care, and by ensuring affordable housing because there are way too many Californians who go to sleep homeless every night. A man went down to Los Angeles in Skid Row and asked homeless individuals about their concerns for the then upcoming 2016 presidential elections. A homeless woman named Katherine who is a registered nurse, was asked about what she thinks politicians should be focusing on in the election. She answers this question by stating that politicians should be focusing on programs that are helping students proceed their education so that they wouldn’t end up like her, at a homeless shelter. Another homeless woman states her concerns about politicians not emphasizing on low income housing. Several more homeless individuals talk about how they are too living in shelters even with a job, and emphasize employment concerns in the election. Homelessness comes with many horrific effects on those certain individuals. According to the article, "Causes and Effects of Homelessness" (July, 2007), homeless individuals encounter much more health problems than the average person. For example, they are more likely to suffer from Cold Injury, Cardio-Respiratory diseases, Tuberculosis, Skin diseases, Nutritional deficiencies, Sleep deprivation, Mental Illness, Physical, sexual assault, Drug dependency, Mortality and HIV/AIDS. Homeless individuals not only suffer from health issues but they also suffer from loss of self-esteem, becoming institutionalized, increase in substance misuse, loss of ability and will to care for oneself, increased danger of abuse and violence, increased chance of entering the criminal justice system and development of behavioral problems. This is something that should not be ignored any longer. We as a nation need to find a way to help decrease the homelessness population in the country. The election was not really talked about by either presidential candidate in the 2016 election and here is why. According to Joel John Robert’s article “Reasons Why Homelessness Is Not Discussed in the 2016 Presidential Election”, he states reasons as to why homelessness is not talked about by the presidential candidates. Robert states one of the reasons is because blame is mostly always directed toward the homeless individuals. It is so easy for a person to say that homeless individuals are at fault for their “actions” that led them to where they are. Presidential candidates in this case do not want to lose those voters who will initially get upset at the fact that a president would find empathy in these individuals. Another reason as to why presidential candidates don’t talk about the homelessness issue is because the delegate math doesn’t add up. Although this serious issue was not talked about by any presidential candidate, the problem of homelessness in the United States was definitely talked about in the 2018 midterm elections. The House and the Senate both suggested that tax legislation was presenting an opportunity to advance provisions from The Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act. One third of the House signed on to support the act. The bipartisan legislation addressed the nations severe shortage of affordable and rental housing by strengthening the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. They presented us with Proposition 1 and 2 which were long term investments to increase housing for those who need it the most. Proposition 1 would authorize $4 Billion in bonds to build affordable housing for veterans. Proposition 2 would allow use for existing mental health funding to build supportive housing for homeless people suffering from mental illnesses. Luckily, both of these props were voted yes to Californians.
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AuthorUndergraduate student generated content. Blog posting and updating done by Kristina Flores Victor, Assistant Professor of Political Science at CSUS Archives
March 2020
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