Rise in Homelessness
Homelessness is a very serious problem that has been around for many years. Homelessness began to rise once the Great Depression took place. Many individuals were left with not much of a choice but to live in the streets due to the rise of unemployment. In the past few years homelessness has been increasing substantially due to unemployment once again but now because we are in a pandemic. COVID has led to the rise of more individuals becoming homeless.
Personal
Homelessness is a social issue that directly affects me because I live in the city of Los Angeles, I am exposed to this social issue on the daily; from getting off the fwy and having an individual ask for change, to getting out of a 7/11 and having them standing with a cup asking for any spare change. Homelessness is everywhere to the point that everywhere you look you now see tents set up whether it is under a bridge, on the sidewalk, or in the parks. This social issues definitely makes me feel sad and uncomfortable because it can be dangerous to have random people walk up to you and you do not always know their intentions.
I decided to choose this social issue to talk about because it is extremely sad that nobody seems to do anything about it. This problem could have gotten resolved years ago when it was not as severe as now. Homelessness is now completely out of hand, there are so many individuals without a home and it seems almost impossible to find a home for all 151,278 of them. Many people decide to not want to help out these individuals because they state that they are out there because they do not want help or because they are abusing drugs and they decided to choose that lifestyle, and yes I agree with them to a certain extent; but some individuals are dealing with homelessness because they do not have any type of education which makes housing unaffordable, due to COVID many people have been unemployed, low wages also contribute to homelessness, mental health problems, and failed relationships. If this social issue is not controlled, as it states on the news article, it is only going to get worse than previous years, in the next 4 years the homelessness rates are going to continue rising by 86%. It is not fair that many children that are the future of our society are growing up seeing tents set up in the side of the street because the government is not doing anything to help fix this social issue; there just is not enough resources for all 151,278 individuals that are currently homeless. For these reasons I chose to talk about homelessness because things have to change for the better.
Research
While researching about this social issue I came across these insane numbers that are skyrocketing in the past years. Covid has only made this social issue worse because of unemployment. There is not enough shelters for everybody and that is another issue. I did read on the article "Catastrophic" that Kevin DeLeon the L.A city councilman is looking to pass a new program to be able to build more 25 by 25 houses for those that want to be helped. Recently, the city has asked police officers to get rid of all homeless encampments in echo park, this decision was made because it was stated that individuals were trashing the park and throwing their feces into the lake. The city decided to take this matter into their own hands and clear up the park by kicking out all the homeless people and fencing the whole park to avoid them from returning. In the article "Column", Protesters were not happy with this decision because they believe that this was their safe haven and the neighborhood would go give the homeless people meals. As some homeless individuals stated "it was a community that we built". Many also stood up and stated that the city believes it was a success, but they believe otherwise. Although they were given the opportunity to stay at a hotel or motel room under the Project room-key program, they live in fear of when will they be kicked out again because it is not permanent housing. I believe that the city should not have ordered officers to boot people from echo park without having a permanent housing plan because how are they going to trust that they are going to be helped when they are just getting throw around as if they do not matter or have a say. Although the program project room key is a temporary solution I hope they are thinking of a plan of a more permanent solution. Other research information that I have gathered from the "state of homelessness", is that due to COVID 250,000 people are joining the homeless encampment community because unemployment rates. This makes it harder to find a solution for homelessness because the numbers keep on rising and it seems as if things are getting more out of hand.
These are a few images of Echo park protesters.
Echo park encampments before the closure.
Stats of individuals experiencing homelessness in 2019.
Protesters standing up for homeless individuals that do not seem to have a voice
Risks
Another reason that this social issue needs immediate attention is because of the risks that are tied with it. Many of these individuals do not have access to clean water, soap, medicine, sanitizers. This is a huge risk especially with COVID, many people are walking down the street and passing by these encampments and are not able to social distance because they are on the sidewalks and this is dangerous because many of these people do not have access to seeing a doctor and not knowing what types of diseases they might have is dangerous to the public as a whole. Police officers are also in risk when they are patrolling the area and see something suspicious, if they stop the individual and they have to pat them down that is not sanitary and it puts them in direct danger to infect their family and coworkers. Housing and helping these individuals will not only benefit them but it will benefit the community because they will not be exposed to unnecessary viruses.
Conclusion
To sum up, the social issue of homelessness is a very sensitive topic because it is a human life that we are talking about. Everybody deserves to have a second chance at life and they deserve to get help if they are willing to change, sometimes people just need a little push and knowing that they have somebody rooting for them will definitely help fix the problem of homelessness and get them back on their feet. Im convinced that the city will come up with a solution to help this social issue get resolved before it gets out of hand and I'm sure everyone as a community will come together to make sure these individuals dealing with homelessness get the permanent housing that they deserve as well as a job to be able to get back on their feet.
References:
State of Homelessness: 2020 Edition. (2021, February 09). Retrieved April 13, 2021, from https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-2020/
Hayes, R. (2021, January 13). 'Catastrophic:' chronic homelessness in LA county expected to skyrocket by 86% in next 4 years. Retrieved April 13, 2021, from https://abc7.com/la-county-homelessness-socal-homeless-crisis-economic-roundtable-population/9601083/
Lalonde, D., & Tran, H. (2021, April 12). Displacing citizens from Echo park worsens the homeless crisis. Retrieved April 13, 2021, from https://dailytitan.com/opinion/displacing-citizens-from-echo-park-worsens-the-homeless-crisis/article_08cf8768-9b2d-11eb-bd7e-d38ada77a6b1.html
Column: A week later, Here's what happened to some of the homeless people booted from Echo Park. (2021, April 03). Retrieved April 13, 2021, from https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-03/echo-park-lake-homeless-housing-los-angeles
No comments:
Post a Comment