Homelessness in America: Closing the Gap

Paper Summary:

This short paper outlines the problems of homelessness that exist in America. The author gives a few options for solutions and compares homelessness of today and of the past, suggesting that loss of community and social life add to the problem.

From the Paper:

"We?ve all seen them on the street. Many of us have given them our spare change while passing by. Maybe you've even served them Thanksgiving dinner in a shelter somewhere. Perhaps you've felt an overwhelming sense of pity for them, or maybe a sense of detest and disgust. The point is, homelessness is a major problem in America. You can go to any major city and find homeless people on park benches, street corners, doorways, and stairwells. And in every city, you will see almost the same thing - the average American passing by them while doing their best to ignore them - this is how we have trained ourselves as a nation to react to this problem - ignore it. It seems to big a problem to solve, so we ignore it as well as we can. Unfortunately, the last thing we should be doing is ignoring it - the fact that there are citizens of our country who do not have the basic needs that we need as humans - food, shelter, and clothing - is horrendous. I'm going to add one more necessity to that list: love and acceptance. Not only are we ignoring their physical needs, but we don't even think about their emotional needs. Luckily, I am not alone in my call to action on this subject - many groups such as the National Coalition for the Homeless, Habitat for Humanity, the Salvation Army, PADS (a close to home organization - PADS serves the southwest suburbs homeless community with shelters, food, and health care), Goodwill, newspapers and the rest of the media, and even some judges, lawyers, legislators, and other government officials join in the plea to solve this homelessness problem that seems so overwhelming."

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