Homelessness in the United States of America - Module: we connect society Skills: academic, design & intercultural skills
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Course
Academic, design & intercultural skills
Institution
Universiteit Twente (UT)
The essay assignment of the SKILLS: ACADEMIC, DESIGN & INTERCULTURAL SKILLS of MODULE 1: WE CONNECT SOCIETY of the bachelor Communication Science at the Universiteit Twente. The chosen topic of the assignment is: homelessness in the United States of America.
The essay is graded with a grade abov...
Homelessness in the United States of America
When thinking of the United States of America one thinks about all the wealth and
glamour that it brings with it. Unfortunately, this is not how it always works in reality. The
United States of America is one of the richest countries in the world, but certainly not all
citizens enjoy this wealth (Ventura, 2021). There are approximately 580 thousand citizens in
the United States of America who lack one of the most important needs in their lives, which is
shelter (Statista, 2021). But how come there are so many citizens without shelter? There are
many causes to the problem of homelessness. This text will discuss three of the main causes
of homelessness in the United States of America. The goal of this text is to make it clear to
the reader what the three main causes of homelessness in the United States of America are.
The first main cause of homelessness is the housing affordability, having the rent
prices on one hand and the wages on the other. The rent prices in the United States of
America have stagnated since the 1970s, especially in the various big cities (National Alliance
to End Homelessness, 2020). When reading this one would think that the wages would have
also stagnated, however this is not the case. The low-income labor face of the United States of
America, which consists of 8 million households, has sadly seen very little or even almost no
growth in his salary (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2020).
For example, this text will take a look at the capital of the state Georgia, Atlanta. When
renting a one-bedroom apartment in this city the rent price will easily be about 1000 dollars
per month (Atlanta Mission, n.d.). At the same time the minimum wage in this city is only
7.25 dollars an hour, making just around 1000 dollars per month (Atlanta Mission, n.d.). This
sadly results in unaffordable housing for a great part of the low-income labor face.
As a second cause of homelessness this text will explain domestic violence. Many
think that domestic violence does not appear often, nothing could be further from the truth. In
the Unites States of America there are approximately 10 million citizens experiencing
domestic violence every year (Huecker et all., 2021). Domestic violence is experienced
everywhere in the United States of America, especially among single adults and the youth.
(National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2021; Mayock et all., 2021) Unfortunately, more
than 90 percent of the homeless women have experienced some form of domestic abuse
(Atlanta Mission, n.d; Kagawa et all., 2021). When escaping a violent relationship many do
not have a shelter to go to, resulting in them becoming homeless.
As the last cause this text going to discuss the problem of health. Disabilities and
illnesses play a huge role in the daily life of the homeless. Disabilities and illnesses makes it
hard and in some cases even impossible to work. When thinking of the cause of homelessness
being health one often thinks of addiction that caused it, however this is not always the case.
Some people suffer homelessness due to the fact of having some unintentional injuries, these
injuries can lead to being incapacitated for work. Medical bills and not being incapacitated for
work results in having no money for shelter (Atlanta Mission, n.d.).
When diving into the categories of unintentional injuries between the homeless this text can
see that traumatic brain injury is one of the most important injuries. To get more precise, 9
percent of all hospital admissions in the United States of America is represented by the
homeless population (Fazal et all., 2014). If this text compares the homeless with the non-
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