HOMELESSNESS AND MENTAL HEALTH IN WOMEN

Homelessness: Mental Health Issues for Women in Shelter System

Homelessness: Mental Health Issues for Women in Shelter System

Introduction

America is the home to people belonging from diverse cultures. The different cultures have given rise to the formation of communities, each distinguished through a peculiar set of traditional values they practice. Because there exist diversified communities, the problems they face are of diverse nature also. We cannot single out a particular problem for a single community. But there are some more common problems that have haunted these communities for long and they continue to persist till today. Homelessness is one such problem that has always posed a great challenge both for the communities and the government. This paper highlights the importance of the problem and the need to address this issue in the context of women living in shelter homes and facing acute mental health dilemmas. This paper also presents a tentative action plan to solve this daunting problem (Bachrach, 2004).

Discussion

Homelessness is an important problem, not just because it is a social problem, but also because it poses drastic mental health problems to individuals, especially women. In the past, the researchers failed to assess the significance of the issue, this lack of interest or we can say lack of information about the mental health problems faced by homeless women has hampered the authenticity of the already available research. The contemporary trend of doing research on homeless people started in 1970s. These studies did not address anything about mental health or disability trends in women. While questions of definition of "homeless" will require special care when interpreting the data, whatever the definition, there is agreement that over the last decade has seen a sharp increase in the number of homeless people in major cities of United States. The number of families settled by the local authorities in shelters, doubled from 23,000 in 2006 to over 40 000 in 1989 and from 1979 to 2006 the number of persons seeking benefits to food and lodging, has quadrupled. This growth was largely due to young men, women, couples and members of ethnic minorities and paralleled by an increasingly profound changes in the social economy - the lack of affordable housing, high unemployment, the destruction of traditional family ties and the reduction of support services. Of all these factors, probably the most important is the lack of basic shelter. In the period from the mid 70's to late 80's construction of a new social housing has decreased by 85%, which was accompanied by a reduction in anticipated proposals from the private and voluntary sectors and only in New York from 1981 to 2006 led to the loss of 243,000 housing units rented. This figure has continued to grow until the early 1990's. Compared with their peers to housing homeless young people are less likely, not only for their own homes, but also a successful primary education. In addition, the more likely that a child they were abandoned, abused and rejected by their ...