Argumentative Essay on Homelessness in America is published for informational purposes only. The free papers are not written by our writers, they are contributed by users, so we are not responsible for the content of this free sample paper. If you want to buy a quality Essay on Argumentative Essay on Homelessness in America at affordable prices please use our essay writing services offered by EssayEmpire.

Small groups of people tending to makeshift structures of an encampment, disheveled men rummaging through garbage cans for food, and young women with small children lining up outside of shelters have become common sights across the world's leading cities. This widespread growth in homelessness has been linked with economic, demographic, and cultural trends that have come to be known as "globalization"-- the spread of manufacturing and financial activity across borders, heightened immigration, and the global ascendance of neoliberal ideology which favors free markets over government intervention. However, it is clear that these global trends interact with local conditions, such that the number and characteristics of people who become homeless may vary greatly across locales. Taking the United States as a case, what are the specific structural and demographic manifestations and correlates of its homeless problem? What factors influence whether or not homelessness is perceived as a social problem? Also, what are the different types of public policy responses that have emerged to address this persistent problem?

As homelessness significantly increased throughout America's urban landscape in the early 1980s, two opposing explanations emerged. The first laid blame on individual characteristics such as human capital deficits (e.g., limited education and job skills), substance abuse, mental illness, and criminality. The second pointed to broad structural changes in labor and housing markets and welfare provisions. However, it is now generally understood that homelessness is the result of the interaction of structural and individual factors. Structural factors help explain why the prospect of homelessness, particularly among some categories of individuals, has increased in recent years; individual factors help to identify who, among those groups most vulnerable to homelessness, is at greatest risk of becoming homeless.

As American manufacturing stagnated throughout the 1970s because of increased international competition and a series of oil shocks, firms began to close domestic plants and restructure workforces, displacing workers and driving up unemployment. Newly created jobs were more likely to be nonunion and concentrated in services, low paying, and unstable. A surge in immigration increased competition for low-skill jobs, especially disadvantaging urban residents with low educational attainment. A cheap form of cocaine called "crack" flooded the streets and significant numbers of inner-city residents used or trafficked the drug, rendering some of them vulnerable to addiction, felony conviction, and homelessness. In the early 1980s, early 1990s, and in the early post-9/11 period, cyclical economic recessions produced spikes in unemployment and forced firms to reduce labor costs to remain competitive.

At the same time, the welfare state was being scaled back, beginning most notably in the early 1980s. While deinstitutionalization of large-scale state mental hospitals had begun decades earlier, sufficient funding for community-based mental health facilities, intended to replace large mental institutions, never materialized. As a result, many persons who would have been in mental hospitals in previous decades received insufficient mental health treatment and cycled through the streets, shelters, and jails. Also in the early 1980s, the federal government took measures to keep benefit levels low for households in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program and restricted eligibility for benefits through the Supplemental Security Income program. Later, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 replaced AFDC with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a program with time limits on receipt of welfare benefits and job training. Although many participants in this program have found employment, evidence suggests that many find jobs that fail to lift them out of poverty.

At the same time, the welfare state was being scaled back, beginning most notably in the early 1980s. While deinstitutionalization of large-scale state mental hospitals had begun decades earlier, sufficient funding for community-based mental health facilities, intended to replace large mental institutions, never materialized. As a result, many persons who would have been in mental hospitals in previous decades received insufficient mental health treatment and cycled through the streets, shelters, and jails. Also in the early 1980s, the federal government took measures to keep benefit levels low for households in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program and restricted eligibility for benefits through the Supplemental Security Income program. Later, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 replaced AFDC with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a program with time limits on receipt of welfare benefits and job training. Although many participants in this program have found employment, evidence suggests that many find jobs that fail to lift them out of poverty.

Researchers at the Urban Institute have estimated the size of America's homeless problem at two points in time, using similar definitions and methodologies. They counted persons using relief services for the extremely poor and homeless and used a moderately broad definition of homelessness that included people who were staying outside or in a car, an abandoned building or place of business, emergency or transitional shelter, a hotel or motel paid by a shelter voucher, or a place where they could not sleep for the next month without being asked to leave. A count in 1996 of the service-using adult homeless, which is estimated to include about 85 percent of the street homeless population, enumerated upward of 842,000 homeless people throughout the country at a single point in time. A comparison with a similar count conducted in 1987 shows that the national point-in-time homeless population did not decline over this 9-year period but remained approximately at the same level, despite a substantial growth in programs and the continuous economic growth of the late 1990s. Also, researchers using a national representative survey sample of U.S. adults estimated that 3.5 million people experience homelessness over a yearlong period.

The contemporary homeless population of the United States is diverse in terms of gender, family status, race and ethnicity, age, and disability status. According to the Urban Institute data, approximately 70 percent are male and 30 percent are female. About 75 percent are single individuals, 15 percent adults with children, and 10 percent adults living with one or more persons other than minor children. Many studies have found that adults with children are growing in proportion among the homeless. In terms of race and ethnicity, blacks are over-represented, making up 40 percent of the homeless population but 23 percent of the adult poor population. Whites are the largest group but are under-represented, making up 41 percent of the homeless population but 52 percent of the poor population. Latinos/as are also under-represented at 11 percent of the homeless population but 20 percent of the poor population. Native Americans are overrepresented at 8 percent of the homeless population but 2 percent of the poor population. Although this study did not include data for Asians, local surveys consistently report substantial under-representation. Persons in their prime working years make up the majority of the adult homeless population, with approximately 80 percent between the ages of 25 and 54. Homelessness is rare among the elderly, likely because of social security programs, with only 2 percent of the homeless population over 65 years old. Alcohol, drug, and mental health problems are common among homeless persons, with only a third of homeless adults having no such problems and between 25 and 40 percent having struggled with one or more of these problems. The homeless of today, just as in the past, are located primarily in urban areas, particularly in central city neighborhoods.

Free essays are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can order a term paper, research paper or custom TOPIC at our site which offers professional essay writing services. Get your high quality custom paper at relatively cheap prices. EssayEmpire is the best solution for those who seek help in essay writing related to TOPIC and other relevant topics.