Homelessness – A Deeper Look
Be a Citizen, not a Tourist in your own City.
Homelessness is the condition of people without a permanent dwelling, such as a house or apartment. People who are homeless are most often unable to acquire and maintain regular, safe, secure and adequate housing.
They walk amongst the inner city streets restless, hungry and cold trying to make a few dollars so that they can eat. However, after hours of embarrassment and public negativity, they hardly make enough money to buy a cup of coffee. In the unconscious eye of the public, the homeless are viewed as scammers and people who due to their outward appearances and their economic status are considered to be a people of lesser value. It is only through the conscience media eye of the public that the problem of homelessness is acknowledged. Unfortunately the homeless only receive acknowledgment during major holidays, and it’s during these periods that we see them sheltered, in new apparel and fed. Seeing the media portray the homeless in this state provides us with temporary justification for all the times that some of us neglected them in the past.
Philadelphia has a high poverty rate of 26 percent, one of the highest in the nations. You see homelessness everywhere, but the difference between Philadelphia and other cities is that our city approaches this issue. Every year, about 15,000 people in Philadelphia get placed into shelters. In 2015, 400 thousand people were found living in poverty, but not much could be done. In 2016, homelessness organizations in Philadelphia reached out to over 6,500 individuals living on the streets, in cars, abandoned buildings, transportation stations, and other places where it’s not safe for humans to sleep. In 2017. Veteran homelessness has not desisted, and youth homelessness is an important problem, especially with LGBT teens.
I chose to base my project on homelessness because people without homes are no different from us, they are still human beings. That could have been us if circumstances had been different. Imagine after one last emotional embrace between you and your parents, your dad reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet and hands you a twenty dollar bill, which just happens to be all that he has. As you began to wipe the tears from your eyes, you officially acknowledge that you are now homeless. Although your current situation is depressing, you breathe sigh of relief knowing that at least your children are in good hands and won’t have to carry the emotional baggage of being homeless. Before walking you take one last look at your parents and smile at the thought of how they expressed their love for you over the course of your life. It’s with this overwhelming feeling that you draw strength from to overcome homeless and with that, you begin to walk. Little do you know that living on the streets will test you like no other trial in your life has done before. It breaks my heart writing this, it breaks my heart I was once a naive child that made fun of the homeless. Now I am trying to make a change. It is my passion to help those in need.
By the closing of this post, the reader will be aware of homelessness and the reason why I chose to base my project on this topic. As I said before, the issue that I'm trying to fix, or at least change is homelessness. Goal #1 for this project is to interview at least three to four homeless shelters. Goal #2 for this project is to raise funding to donate to the shelters. Goal #3 for this project is to contact opportunities to add emergency shelter. Goal #3 is to provide care packages to help support the homelessness and the agencies.
Annotated Bibliography https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-J9RsVGcXvLYZ8EpymZhmyvwFxYdwe9kQkntE4zTJns/edit
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