Fighting Homelessness

As of today, there are over 500 million people in the world that are homeless or in the danger of becoming homeless. This is a global problem that must be resolved and there are many steps that can help to reduce homelessness. Some of the ways to battle homelessness are, building affordable housing, creating more emergency shelters, and direct homeless to shelters.

Affordable housing is an important step to combat homelessness. Because of overpopulation and inflation, the prices of housing have dramatically increased making it harder for the homeless to find a place to live. It is also hard for the homeless to get a job to pay for housing because they have no permanent address or telephone to be contacted at so there are no means of income. The government should decrease military spending so they can have money to fund the building of affordable housing. Also war should be halted because it causes destruction of homes, villages, and towns which leads to homelessness.

Another step to fight homelessness is to build shelters for them. They are vulnerable to the weather changes, and can get extremely sick from the cold. Shelters can also protect the homeless from violence in the streets. Shelters can provide them with food, as well as a place to stay.

Some states prohibit panhandling and if caught, they would be arrested and jailed. When release, the homeless would have a criminal record which would make things more difficult for them especially when finding a job. What should be done is to train policemen to guide them to homeless shelters where they can receive assistance.

http://iws.punahou.edu/user/JStevens/project/2006/07/global_homelessness_1.html