Homelessness
and poverty has become an invisible epidemic in America. Why do people
become homeless? “A lack of affordable housing and the
limited scale of housing assistance
programs have contributed to the current housing crisis and
to homelessness” (National Coalition
for the Homeless). You can be the next victim to experience
homelessness in the next year.
Poverty plays a big roll on homeless people. Without an
income there is no way to pay for your
housing, food, childcare, and more necessities. “In 2011,
the official poverty rate was 15.0%.
There were 46.2 million people in poverty” (1). The major
factors that contribute to
homelessness is mental illness, lack of affordable health
care, domestic violence, addiction, and
being part of the LGBT community.
Homelessness
has been around for centuries. Even if it was believed that people were
homeless for many different reasons, they were still sleeping
on the streets. In the 1640s, it was
believed that if you were not a good Christian, God would
not meet your needs:
In the
1640’s homelessness was seen as a moral deficiency, a character flaw. It was
generally believed a good Christian, under God’s grace,
would naturally have their needs
met. People outside of that grace somehow were deserving of
their plight as God
rendered justice accordingly and fairly. If one found
themselves homeless in the 1600’s, a
person or family would come upon a town and would have to
prove their ‘worth’ to the
community’s fathers. If not, they would be on the not so
merry way to the next town or
hamlet (Downtown Congregations to End Homelessness).
Today's’
homelessness has nothing to do with people's worth or beliefs. Homelessness is
a
complex social issue with many variables (1).
In
search for jobs, people that lived on farms started to migrate to the cities
such as New
York and Philadelphia in The Industrial Revolution that
started in the 1820s- ‘30s “…had many
people walking the streets causing the country’s first
panhandling ordinances. City jails became
de facto shelter systems” (Downtown Congregations to End
Homelessness). Death and physical
disabilities were caused by poor
safety regulation. The wives of the injured and some left widowed
had some
children who depended on them and they had no means to provide for themselves
and
nowhere to turn. Kids, especially teens, were left on the streets because
their families could no longer
afford housing for them. “The 1850’s brought the
first documented cases of homeless youth, many of
whom were kicked out of their
homes because their providers could no longer afford to raise them” (1).
After
the Civil War, morphine was discovered as a painkiller, and military veterans
were
becoming addicted to it. “From the 1870s’ until the 1890s’
one could purchase morphine and
heroin with syringes from Sears and Roebucks catalogues”
(Downtown Congregations to End
Homelessness). After living a non-civilized life and
basically living in the middle of nowhere,
housewives started to become addicted to morphine as well.
“As the epidemic became bigger,
criminalization of drug addiction soon followed up as a
response and people started becoming
homeless” (1).
A lot
of people become homeless because of natural disasters. “The Great Chicago
Fire,
The San Francisco Earthquake, the massive flooding of the
Mississippi in the 1920’s from Ohio
through New Orleans displaced over 1.3 million people”
(Downtown Congregations to End
Homelessness). Natural disasters destroy what people have
worked so hard for, and it gets taken
away in a blink of an eye. This can happen to anyone,
including you, by having your house
destroyed and becoming homeless overnight.
Today,
homelessness is a bigger problem than everyone thinks it is. You don’t have to
be
living on the streets to be considered homeless. If you live
in an emergency shelter or in
your car, even living paycheck to paycheck, you are
experiencing homelessness or about to.
“Ending homelessness requires closing the gap between the
need for housing and its availability.
It requires recognizing housing as a basic human right, and
enacting policies to ensure it is
available” (USA Today).
An
example of homelessness because of domestic violence is Rebecca. “Two things
happened when I turned 12, my Father who used to beat the
hell out of us left home and the other
thing that happened is I started
using drugs…” (Homeless People). When she was thirteen years
old, her mother found another
partner who also used to beat them, but this one used to rape her for a
whole
year until she had enough. “When I turned 13, my Mum found a new partner who
lived at
home with us. He raped me regularly and abused my younger sisters as
well. I was only 13. He also
used to beat Mum up and it was hell on earth” (1).
Rebecca made her mom choose between her
boyfriend and her, so that's when
Rebecca met the streets. She slept with boys from her neighborhood
so she could
have a roof over her head but still ended up living on the streets.
Rebecca tried to kill herself at one point until a stranger
called an ambulance. “In the end it's a
matter of well if I get through the day then great, if I
don't doesn't matter, no big deal. It's not like
anyone's going to miss whether I'm here or not” (1).
What
do homeless people feel? Imagine being abused by the people who are supposed to
take care of you. The people who are supposed to love you unconditionally beat
you until you are
almost knocked out. All you want to do is get away or make it
all end. “A quarter or more of
homeless children have witnessed violence, and
more than half have problems with anxiety and
depression” (Child Trends).
Normally, it is girls who become homeless due to violence.
Parents
don’t want to turn their kids in to the government when they become homeless
because they don’t want their kids to be broken up into
separate foster homes and break the
family up. Angelica Cervantes, for example, became homeless
due to the fact that she could no
longer afford housing but didn’t want to give up her kids.
“Benita Guzman, 40, and her niece
Cervantes, 36, are homeless but stick together in an effort
to keep their children together as a
family, and not taken away and separated in foster homes”
(Child Homelessness in U.S. Reaches
Historic High, Report Says).
One in
every thirty children experience homelessness in their life. They don’t have to
be
living in the streets to be considered homeless. “That makes
nearly 2.5 million children who, in
2013, lived in shelters, on the streets, in cars, on
campgrounds or doubled up with other families
in tight quarters” (Child Homelessness in U.S. Reaches
Historic High, Report Says). Living in a
country full of opportunities and wealth, the fact that
there was an increase of eight percent to the
number of children being homeless was absurd. “children and
families have not received the
same attention—and their numbers are growing” (1). If the
government does not try to stop
homelessness, the numbers will get higher and the goal is
going to become impossible.
In 2000, many cities had a plan to end homelessness in ten
years. Even the president of
the United States, President Barack Obama, unveiled the plan
to end homelessness by 2015.
“And yet, 12 years after the first pledge of the 21st
century was made, homelessness in the
United States has not ended. By all counts, it has moved
steadily upward in the past decade to
about 750,000 this year…” (Are Cities' Pledges to End
Homelessness Working?).
The Ten
Year Plan outlines key strategies in addressing homelessness locally, which
cumulatively can address the issue nationally. One of the
key elements to end homelessness is
“Plan for Outcomes”. What that plan does is collects data
separating people into groups like
elderly, youth, families, individuals, and others. By
collecting that data, they can think of the
most effective strategy to help each group of the homeless
population.
The
second key of the plan is “Close the Front Door”. This part of the plan tells
you that
you can end homelessness before it even starts. “By making
mainstream poverty programs more
accountable for the outcomes of their clients, communities
can intervene before vulnerable
individuals and families fall into homelessness” (National
Alliance to End Homelessness). The
third part of the plan is “Open the Back Door”. Most people
become homeless because they can’t
afford the house they are living in. “By developing - and
subsidizing when needed - an adequate
supply of affordable housing, communities can move people
off of the streets and reduce
homelessness effectively and permanently” (1).
The
last part of the plan to end homelessness is “Build the Infrastructure”. The
first step
to end homelessness is to address the systemic problems that
leads to crisis poverty. Some of
those problems are minimum pay that does not pay for basic
needs, shortage of affordable
housing, and a lack of appropriate services for those that
need them. “Addressing all of these
issues community by community is a necessary step to ending
homelessness and poverty”
(National Alliance to End Homelessness).
The
fact that this plan is not working, does not mean that it didn’t increase
homelessness,
but there is a difference between the progress and the
promise:
It would be easy to blame the Great Recession for the
failure. Millions lost their jobs and
thousands saw their homes foreclosed on, thereby putting
many of them out on the
streets. But the whole subject of ending homelessness is
much more complicated than
that. It is bound up in a web of forces that reach into the
deepest causes of poverty and
issues about human behavior. Homelessness is an issue that encompasses
medical health,
mental health and substance abuse. It’s also an education
and job training concern, as
well as a criminal justice matter and a housing problem. It
touches on family planning
and family stability, and on big city, suburban and rural
questions. There are moral and
political issues as well as budget and policy concerns, all
with a huge economic overlay.
(Are Cities' Pledges to End
Homelessness Working?). To end
homelessness will take a lot to curve poverty. That means creating jobs, and
training the people to be able to do those jobs.
Maybe
the solution to end homelessness is not a nationwide solution, but something
more
personal. Little community shelters can keep someone off the
streets and reduce homelessness
around their cities. To make big changes you have to start
small. A great example of that is Nikki
Johnston-Huston, she went from being homeless to being a
great lawyer.
Nikki grew up in great poverty. “Having moved from Detroit
to Southern California, she
found herself homeless by the time she was nine years old
along with her mother and brother”
(The Huffington Post). They lived on different homeless
shelters, motels, the streets, and being
fed in soup kitchens for a whole year. “When you are
homeless, you can stay in a shelter
overnight but you can’t leave your things there. So it is
impossible to even look for a job” (1).
Nikki
had to call several shelters when she knew the landlord of the apartments they
were living
in was going to kick them out in several hours. Having to go
through that made Nikki realize that
she wanted something better for herself. “I think some of
them thought it was a prank. I finally
talked to someone at a shelter that agreed to take us in. I
knew then that I wanted to live a
different life” (1). After knowing that that was no way of
living, Nikki was sent to live with her
disabled grandmother who was able to afford her at least a
decent childhood and an education.
When
Nikki got a scholarship St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, she was
planning
on making A’s and B’s and was excited to start her journey
to becoming a lawyer. She failed on
her first year of college. “Then, I remember sitting there
on the first day when they told us the
folks on our right and left wouldn’t be there in four years.
The first thing I thought was that they
were looking straight at me” (The Huffington Post). She felt
like she did not fit in because she
came from poverty. “I didn’t always have money to pay for
lunch. I used to pretend to be from a
middle class family so I could be like everyone else. There
were days that I thought there was
money on my food card to find out that I couldn’t pay” (1).
After failing her first year in college,
she got a job as a live-in nanny. She worked all day and
went back to school at nights. Nikky
graduated college four years later. She shares her story to
inspire people. “I want to be part of the
solution in society which means finding the right platforms.
I have an obligation to the young
people coming behind me to help them” (1). To end homelessness,
we have to start person by
person if we have to.
Albert
Camus believes that not accepting life is absurd. It is absurd to try to commit
suicide and make physical harm to yourself because you are
just trying to forget the problem.
Camus describes the absurd as “Man’s futile search for
meaning in a meaningless universe”
(Camus: The Absurd Hero). Camus beliefs relate to the
absurdity of homelessness because the
homeless believe that is it absurd to keep leaving the way
they are living. They think that there is
no meaning in life and that there is no point to keep going
with the lives they have, until
someone shows up and shows them that there is more to life
than what they think.
If we
don’t try to end homelessness the percentage of people living in poverty will
increase even more over the years. If big plans fail, then
the solution would be to start small. Try
to end homelessness in small areas where you see a lot of
homelessness happening. Austin,
Texas for example, is one of the cities with the most
homeless people that some businesses
actually shut down. Some of the major reasons people are
homeless is because the lack of
affordable housing, mental illness, domestic violence and
many more. Homelessness is an
epidemic in America and if people do not want to see it
happening they should open the doors to
people in need. If you help one person at a time to get
their stuff together, you are changing the
percentage of homeless people one by one.
Works Cited
Are Cities' Pledges to End Homelessness Working? http://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/housing/gov-homelessness-rising-decade-after-pledges-to-end-it.html
National Alliance to End Homelessness: http://www.endhomelessness.org/pages/ten-year-plan National Coalition for the Homeless. http://nationalhomeless.org/about-homelessness/
The Huffington Post. Gina Rubel - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gina-furia-rubel/from-homeless-to-lawyer-o_b_560343.html
USA Today. Maria Foscarinis -http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/01/16/homeless-problem-obama-america-
Have
you ever felt lost when you forget your phone at home? Afraid that you’re
getting multiple text messages, calls, and social media notifications, but you
are not able to check them? Internet addiction has yet to be classified as
“psychopathological framework”, but as more and more individuals value the
network, it is becoming a problematic epidemic (Christakis). It has been proven
that over 70% of internet addicts have suffered from other addictions such as
drug use, alcohol, pornography/sex and many other things that effect one’s life
(“Internet Addiction Disorder”). Are you willing to let this absurdity of
internet use take over the world? archers believe that while an individual is
excessively using the internet, their brains begin to release more dopamine,
which is a “neurotransmitter in the brain that regulates pleasure” (“Life in
the Age of Internet Addiction”). As technology is constantly enhancing and
becoming more accessible to anyone who owns a phone, it is causing for the vast
majority of the American population to be attached to the technology around
them, especially adult males from the age of 18 to 30 years old (1). Addiction
to the internet is classified similar to any other common addiction to other
objects or doings. As the internet became more popular in 1990, people began to
utilize it more than usual, and it is only continuing to grow on us (“Dr.
Kimberly Young Internet Addiction."). It is continuously advancing, and it
has become the main source of a person’s social life. Kimberly Young, a
licensed psychologist and an expert on internet addiction, discovered that
after the internet became a daily routine for the human population, in 1995, it
became extremely addicting (1). She published multiple books such as “Caught in
the Net”, “Tangled in the Web”, and others. She then founded the Center for
Internet Addiction around the same time to help those who felt like the
internet was taking over their life (1).
Internet addiction is not recognized as a
true “mental illness”, but it is causing for medical practitioners and other
health officials to become concerned with people who need therapy and treatment
centers for what can be classified as something more than just an everyday
social media and internet problem.An
addiction is an addiction, and Hilarie Cash, a researcher, attempts to promote
the understanding of the problems and epidemics that the world is currently
facing and for the future predicaments to come (“Internet Addiction: The
next Mental Illness?”). Cash, the
Director of the “reStart program for internet addiction and recovery”,
established this program to help those who are struggling with depression,
anxiety, a substantial amount of stress, and other personal issues that affect
a person’s life each day (1).
In
2011, Gabriela, a young 20 year old college student in New York, had trouble
with staying away from being online (“Miss G.: A Case of Internet Addiction”). It
eventually got to the point where she would sleep with her laptop and stay up
for hours a day on the internet just looking for entertainment. As she would
start on one website, it would lead her to another, creating a chain of
internet searches (1). Gabriela considers surfing the Web as “a state of being”
that helps her become more relaxed. This would be one of the many cases that
demonstrate what the web can do to a person’s belief about their well being
once they get a hold on such technology that we have to this day.
As
this epidemic creates feelings that we once got from other humans, will we stop
communicating with others in the future and just refer back to the internet? Is
it worth losing your ability to maintain your social skills because you become
used to staring at a bright screen? The questions about the internet are
endless and it is even more ironic that as researchers create an analysis about
internet addiction, the internet is being used as a source to develop important
precautions.
Internet
addiction disorder, also known as IAD, has multiple names such as Internet
overuse, pathological computer use, and problematic computer use (“Getting Help
for an Internet Addiction”). In 1995, Dr. Ivan Goldberg established internet
addiction disorder as a psychiatric disorder based on compulsive actions with
the web. IAD remains in the debate of what to really define it as by the
American psychiatric community and what solutions are the most useful and
helpful for a person who experiences this disorder (1).
The
most important thing about addictions is discovering that you have one. People
tend to get so wrapped into what they like to do thinking they are creating
hobbies, but in reality their “hobbies” become the source of their addiction.
Some individuals refuse to come to their senses and believe that they have a
crisis developing. A few ways to know that you reached the point of becoming
officially addicted to the internet would be: spending more time with your
computer or mobile device more than actually communicating with others, not
being able to tolerate your own boundaries that you have created to not overuse
the internet, not being able to go throughout your day without it, and lying to
others and yourself about how long you use it (“11 Ways to Detect and Solve
Internet Addiction”).
Many
researchers would classify internet addiction as a single disorder, but there
is a variety of ways to categorize this addiction depending on different
behavioral issues and its main commonality. Some different internet addictions
include video game addiction, which is the excessive use of online games,
pornography addiction, also known as the overabundance of viewing and
collecting online pornography, social network addiction, or the obsession with
knowing everything about everyone, online gambling addiction, which are
websites that provide you with the pursuit of monetary gain, and lastly online
entertainment addiction, also referred to as excessively browsing the internet
and watching videos that waste time ("Internet Addiction – Symptoms,
Signs, Treatment, and FAQS – Tech Addiction”). Now the question remains, what
type of addiction have you developed and what is the best way to solve this
epidemic and get away from excessively using the internet?
There
are many ways to go about solving internet addiction, but there is no specific
way that is 100% useful.Even though the
use of the internet becomes excessive, it is asked that you use the internet
for one last search to clear your mind from any web desires (“Getting Help for
an Internet Addiction”). The website “Helpguide.org” provides tips and
important information to assist anyone who has trouble getting off of their
computers, laptops, smart phones, and the internet in general. Another great
idea would be to introduce the internet addict to others who are capable of
controlling their internet use to a reasonable amount. Showing an addict what
is known to be healthier is crucial because without an example, it would be
even harder for one to know what is right (1)
Getting
addicts involved in other activities helps to take their minds away from their
obsessive desires for the World Wide Web. Providing support for the change that
an individual may have to experience is important to show encouragement, but it
is essential to continue to maintain a boundary that should be kept consistent
to keep away from any temptations. Decreasing the amount of time spent on the
internet is significant and starting somewhere is better than not starting at
all. Some individuals create a new routine for themselves to follow to avoid
being attached to what will soon control their daily lives. If the situation
becomes uncontrollable to manage on your own, encouraging an internet addict to
seek professional counseling would be the next step to stopping this absurdity
from growing.
It
is a proven fact that internet addiction has appeared among adolescents more
frequently than any other age group (“Getting Help for an Internet Addiction”).
As smart phones are advancing and obtaining faster web connections with wifi,
teens are constantly on their phones accessing the web. Anxiety, depression,
and isolation are all factors that emerge within those who believe that they
“need” the internet (Cosslett).
A 17 year old young man from China, Teng Fei,
was given electro-convulsive therapy, also known as ECT, for overusing the
internet at a centre in China (Branigan).
He stated, “I admit the internet can be quite alluring and sometimes I would
use it all day, but if I had others things to do – like playing basketball – I
wouldn’t use it at all.”(1). Fei would insist that he did not have problems
with accessing the web, and he believes that internet addiction is
non-existent, but his parents thought otherwise (1). His mother would send him
to the clinic where he received dozens of shocks that would last about half an
hour to make him agree that he had an internet addiction disorder (1). Fei then
declared, “…at the beginning they just wanted to create fear so you would
follow orders. The shocks were punishment if I did anything wrong.” (1). Teng
Fei’s parents were trying to “teach” him that the internet was unnecessary and
that he needed to follow their orders about not using it as much (1). Although
people can take different routes into training their kids that the World Wide
Web is not needed, people will continue to have their own ways to solve the
troubles the internet brings in their own families.
China
has created a “tighter” policy into controlling the use of the internet that
now requires for society to register their personal information to be protected
from junk emails and from using things that are illegal (“China Tightens
Internet Controls.”).Internet addiction
was classified as a clinical disorder in 2008 and addicts in Beijing joined an
Internet-addiction treatment center that required for its residents to stay for
a minimum of three months at the center (1). At this treatment center, exercise
drills, therapy sessions, games, and reading time were the beginning of a
change for the residents (1). The purpose for each of these techniques was to
promote social skills and to counter the sense of isolation that was developed
with this addiction (Traff). Controlling the internet is very important to
Communist party chief, Xi Jinping. The deputy head of parliament’s legislative
affairs committee, Li Fei stated:
"When people exercise their rights, including
the right to use the internet, they must do so in accordance with the law and constitution,
and not harm the legal rights of the state, society … or other citizens,"
(“China Tightens Internet Controls.”).
A policy was even created in Japan; the sound on
your camera/phone should be on at all times to prevent anyone from abusing
their use of the internet and to protect the privacy of others. People tend to
overuse the internet in negative ways, therefore, in some areas any material
that is considered obscene is banned and multiple websites are now blocked
(“China Tightens Internet Controls.”).
On the other hand, Albert Camus’
opinion about life and how it should be was that nothing in this world has
meaning to it and that people should go on about their lives according to their
desires. If a person wants to spend hours a day on the computer, then they
should be able to do what they choose because in the end, nothing matters.
People tend to find their own ways on getting the true meaning of anything in
life, but Camus didn’t “waste” his time finding something that is not definite.
Camus believes that something either exists or it doesn’t exist and that there
is no other way to look at things (Class Handout).
Surfing the World Wide Web can
start off as an interest, but if not controlled it can lead up to problematic
measures that involve addiction. Internet addiction is a growing epidemic that
has no exact cure, but some solutions include getting involved in other
activities such as sports, providing addicts with support to change their
habits and creating new routines for those who have trouble “staying away”.
Albert Camus would agree with the fact that some are addicted to the internet,
but he would also almost encourage them to continue on with their desires
because, again, in the end, nothing really matters.
Work
Cited
Branigan, Tania. "Case
Study: Electric Shock Therapy in China for Internet 'addiction'" The
Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 2009. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jul/14/china-internet-electric-shock-treatment>.
"China Tightens Internet
Controls." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 2012. Web. 01 May
2016.
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/28/china-tightens-internet-controls>.
Christakis, Dimitri A.
"Internet Addiction: A 21st Century Epidemic?" BMC Medicine BMC
Med 8.1 (2010): 61. Web
Cosslett, Rhiannon Lucy.
"Five Ways to Curb Your Internet Use and Get Your Life Back | Rhiannon
Lucy Cosslett." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 2014. Web.
28 Apr. 2016. <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/09/5-ways-internet-use-web-addiction>.
"Dr. Kimberly Young Internet
Addiction." NetAddiction. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.
<http://netaddiction.com/kimberly-young/>.
"Getting Help for an
Internet Addiction." How to Find Help Treating an Online Addict.
N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.psychguides.com/guides/getting-help-for-an-internet-addiction/>.
"Internet Addiction –
Symptoms, Signs, Treatment, and FAQS - TechAddiction." Internet
Addiction – Symptoms, Signs, Treatment, and FAQS - TechAddiction. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.techaddiction.ca/internet-addiction.html>.
"Internet Addiction: The
next Mental Illness? (Opinion)." CNN. Cable News Network. Web. 03
Mar. 2016.
<http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/17/opinions/steiner-adair-internet-addiction/>.
"Life in the Age of Internet
Addiction." Life in the Age of Internet Addiction. 2013. Web. 01
Mar. 2016.
<http://theweek.com/articles/468363/life-age-internet-addiction>.
"Miss G.: A Case of Internet
Addiction." Opinionator Miss G A Case of Internet Addiction Comments.
2288. Web. 03 Mar. 2016.
<http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/miss-g-a-case-of-internet-addiction/?_r=0>.
Traff, Thea. "Treating
China’s Internet Addicts." The New Yorker. N.p., 2015. Web. 01 May
2016.
<http://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/treating-internet-addiction-china>.
