Homelessness In Our City

Have you ever noticed a homeless person in Philadelphia that needed help but you didn’t exactly know-how to help them? The Philadelphian community is suffering to get Homeless people, families, and children off the streets. This is a big issue that should be discussed and fixed to get people off the street and help anyone in a bad situation. “Homelessness In Philadelphia.” I chose this issue because it needs more discussion, more awareness, more attention to make the issue a little better. My family and I, at any free moment we have we always try to donate or give something to the homeless people on the streets. This issue matters to me because I try to put myself in anyone’s shoes, and if I were in a dire predicament, I would want people or anyone in my corner to care enough about me and my situation to want to help. This topic is essential for others to know about to help but to know that there are many non-judgemental people in the world who are willing to help you or anyone you know that is in a challenging situation.

Homelessness is a massive issue in Philadelphia. According to Know Homelessness, there are about 5,700 people that are considered homeless, but 950 out of the 5,700 are unsheltered. Philadelphia has the lowest number of street homeless people than any other city in the U.S. Things you should know about homelessness in Philly also talked about how 1.6 million people that live in the city of Philadelphia, and 400,000 of them were found to be living below the poverty line in 2015. They can’t find jobs or have jobs but don’t get paid enough to pay bills, and the rent gets higher. People no longer have enough money to spend, etc. to add on Project Home stated: “A person would have to work 86 hours per week at the minimum hourly wage of $7.25 to afford even a modest one-bedroom apartment.” this just makes me think like how does the government expect people to be able to live comfortably? But then it goes in talking about children experiencing homelessness, and it exactly said: “3,899 School District of Philadelphia (SDP) students experiencing homelessness, 58 percent remained in their school of origin, 19 percent attended different schools, and 5 percent enrolled in more than two schools.” These are some excellent points to bring up because I know that some people in this world take children to a very soft spot in their hearts.

Now that we have some background knowledge of the issue, we can see how recent events made the Homelessness population go up even higher. As we all should know, Covid-19 is a big deal now, and while we were in Target, Walmart, and other stores arguing over who will get the last pack of toilet paper, I don’t think we ever thought about how this pandemic will affect the homeless. Well, the City of Homelessness enlightened us on the experiences of homeless people during the pandemic. They first started by stating: “After SEPTA enforced new Covid-19 rules and placed barrier decals to ensure social distancing, fewer homeless people were seen sleeping on trains, though many still ride the rails for hours in a semi-hypnotic, drugged state. Even in a pandemic, the trains serve as a kind of temporary home.” Then it went in on how Liz Hersh, the director of Philadelphia’s office of homeless services, talked about how the “city streets are home to about 850 unsheltered homeless people.” City Life gives us the perspectives and quotes of actual homeless people. “T.S. Eliot ( a homeless person) talked about how December is one of the cruelest months because of the holidays that are coming around, and it reminds you of everything that you’ve left behind.” going back to my thought of putting myself in someone else’s shoes I would be really sad about not having any family on special holidays.

Lastly, Understanding Homelessness talked about the challenges that homeless people face, such as “Safety & Security, Physiological Needs, Cleanliness & Hygiene, Barriers to employment,” etc. It had a page called the “Explore Data,” and you can find your state, city, country, or region to see how many homeless people there were in January 2015. 1 Dot=5 Homeless people. One of the parts that I enjoyed about this sit was that it has a section that tells you and shows you how you can help homeless people. For example, it says that you can help with “Addiction services, Better data collection, Clothing supply, Finding jobs, Flexible housing types, Food provision, Fundraising, Health services,” and many more.

After all of my research, I feel that I have more knowledge of the different things that factor into people becoming homeless and how I could help them live better in this world in the situation they’re in. I’m wondering if more people were to take just an hour out of their day could the homelessness population decrease? What is one good strategy you have to help homeless people? I hope to learn more about how to make things better in the world in general.

[Annotated Bibliography] (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lEoKEJ6IvhtKKP79x-XdYJC9ZNH2gBteyY7hIkInNao/edit?usp=sharing)