Homelessness or houselessness is the state of an individual who lacks a stable, proper, and safe housing system or a simple shelter to live under and is left unsheltered or unhoused.
The person who suffers homelessness mostly moves here and there across the streets to find temporary shelters and seeks emergency accommodation. He has no permanent home or place to live. Homelessness and poverty both co-relate and their law and order vary across different countries.
There are different types of Homelessness we observe in the United States and more than 12,000 people are experiencing homelessness.
Always consider, there is a problem and there is a solution whenever it is about societal stigma related to poverty, hunger, and homelessness. However, we often end our heads upon the problems associated with Homelessness and categorization of how far it can lead us to understand the different aspects of the single problem.
Different Types of Homelessness
- Transitional Homelessness
This is a state of undergoing the complete transition of your existing lifestyle. People who often suffer a sudden change in their lives in form of serious trauma, loss of job, medical illness, personal or family crisis, domestic abuse, economic challenges, physical accident, or psychological disorders face a transitional period in their lives where they have to undergo several challenges to retain their normal living conditions. But now many charities running homeless need help with apartment programs to provide them temporary shelter.
The catastrophic event in their lives is so strong that they can’t handle the sudden outbreak due to a lack of proper guidance and emotional or financial support. Oftentimes, the people facing transitional homelessness do have other expensive properties like watches, land, and vehicles, except the emergency house to stay so they prefer to sleep and eat in their cars. They can get enrolled in many transitional housing programs as well.
Above 4 lakhs of people among the homeless population are suffering transitional homelessness. People are mostly unprepared when they face the sudden elimination of their sense of belonging to a house and get overwhelmed by the fact that they are left with no adequate stay for sleep. This augments their original challenges and suffering even more and makes them deviate from their core issues.
- Episodic Homelessness
This is a state of having at least three episodes or events of being completely homeless within the last 12 months. If this number of episodes exceeds the limit of three, it is then called chronic homelessness. This kind of homelessness belongs to most adolescents and adult youth due to their addictive habits and substance consumption.
According to the research, the average stay for an individual going through episodic homelessness is 54.4 days and the number of episodes they experience within a span of three years is 4.9.
There are various intervention and counseling programs for people undergoing such homelessness. Bad financial health and improper upbringing start to harm an individual from his adolescence phase only, but the manifestation of the exterior behavior is realized when the person finally enters the unhealthy lifestyle habits. The correct child-rearing practices among households in the United States can prevent potential episodic homelessness and lead to a great societal life.
- Hidden Homelessness
The most common yet unnoticed category of homelessness is hidden, hidden for a reason. The individual who prefers to stay temporarily in a guest house, in a friend’s or relatives’ house, or a temporarily made shelter suffers hidden homelessness because they do not have immediate house support or enough financial guard to afford the emergency housing arrangements.
This kind of homelessness is often found among the youth as they do not have well-planned settlements for the emergency loss of their home or eviction on stay by parents, due to their immoral behavior and addiction. They lack nationally identified housing support schemes due to their hidden role and hence prefer to find their refuge mostly with friends, neighbors, or classmates. The younger generation who undergoes huge catastrophic events also falls into this hidden idea of homelessness where they just don’t prefer to be identified to be cured socially and struggles with their own space of few known people.
- Homelessness in California
Increasing Homeless Population in California,
- 1,18,000 in 2015
- 1,35,000 in 2017
- 1,60,000 in 2021
The homeless people in the state of California represent almost 30 % of the homeless population in the United Nation.
Since the year 1970, the state of California has been experiencing a housing shortage. According to the published national reports, in terms of the house units per resident in the United States, California is ranked 49th which is a dominant number in the increasing housing shortage in the state.
The research speaks about the volume at which California undergoes the condition of homelessness, which is majorly not in favor of poverty, substance addiction, or mental illness but the issue of affordability.
The coastline cities in California don’t suffer from poverty and opioid addiction compared to the cities belonging far from the western coastal areas, despite they suffer homelessness at much higher rates than inland cities.
Causes of Homelessness
The common cause is poverty, the underlined issues are multiple which leads to homelessness in society.
- The controversial subject of urban house planning, gentrification derives a major series of flaws against the poor people. The influx of the more affluent class of people into the existing lower-class neighborhood raises the demand and price value of the residency which ultimately challenges the affordability of the lower and middle-class people.
- Wealth disparity and income inequality are major factors that appraise the issue of affordability amongst the different classes of people. The affluent people are the least affected but the lower class of people are the most affected due to the unfair distribution of wealth resulting in their lack of proper resources to sustain the right distribution of income according to their skills and capabilities.
- Medical illness, Physical disabilities, psychological disorders, or Mental trauma are some of the standing red flags to attract potential harm to an individual’s life and lead to homelessness. Schizophrenia and Autism Spectrum Disorder are the most common mental disorders prevailing in the United States.
- Social Exclusion, Gender Disparity, and Domestic Violence are reasons that ultimately attack to basic human survival spirit leading to homelessness. Woman-based Victimization where the male dominates the power over the female results in a lack of social equality and promotes a conflicting environment where many people have to give up their homes and shelters.
- A natural disaster that causes physical damage like earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, cyclones, and volcanic eruption, makes people vulnerable to homelessness.
Concluding
The main causes and issues were though greatly dealt with by our conscious reading, the mere read would not justify the depth of such societal problems where all we require is a contribution globally to raise the awareness to handle the minutes of issues from their roots.