Preventing Homelessness In America

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Introduction The United Nations states that over one hundred million men, women, and children are affected by homeless circumstances worldwide (Leach, 2005). Homelessness is a major problem in our communities that is difficult to fix due to the number of people who are experiencing homelessness. The exact number of people living in homeless circumstances in America is not clear due to it being difficult to track the homeless community, particularly children who do not have registered documentation and may be often relocated. The National Law Center on Homeless Issues estimates that 3.5 million individuals in America are categorized as homeless each year being youth as 1.35 million of those individuals within the age range from 12 to 21(Edidin,…show more content…
Possible interventions could be enforced in the education system. Because the targeted audience is the youth, the schools can help educate and support youth who may be homeless by offering after school workshops, and peer support groups. Another possible intervention system should be in health care because many homeless people suffer from health related problems. While free health care programs exist, they limit the people they treat by requiring proof of identification which most homeless youth do not have (Edidin et al., 2012). Community outreach health fairs can be set up at underserved communities in which the youth can receive free health services without documentations needed. In these health fairs the homeless youth can receive information they may need on important diseases they can avoid. Through community interventions it is possible to reduce youth homelessness and known behaviors in homeless youth such as, crime, unemployment, disease, and make our streets look…show more content…
While there are many reasons as to what leads a youth to homelessness poverty is essentially the leading cause to homelessness. The National Runaway Switchboard shows that between 2005 and 2008, there was a 200% increase in calls from unattended youth leaving their homes to live on the streets due to economic reasons (Finzel 2013). Furthermore, youth homelessness is also caused by being kicked out of the home, physical abuse, mental health disabilities, sexual exploitation, and substance abuse (King et al., 2007); the result from dysfunctional families may force youth to become homeless feeling vulnerable without knowing how to seek for help. As a result the youth that become homeless experience life struggles that may lead them to unstable foster homes, the juvenile justice system, and other street

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