How to Stop Homelessness in the US

Outline

Introduction—introduces the concept and need of homelessness prevention.

Homelessness Prevention—identifies the major factors that contribute to devise a successful homelessness prevention strategy. Also, describes the strategies used by various communities of US to prevent homelessness.

Characteristics of a Good Prevention Strategy—identify the characteristics a strategy should have to be a successful homelessness prevention strategy for the people of US.

Cases for Which Prevention Strategies are required—identify the three possible cases for which the preventive strategies need to be developed. First of all, primary strategies are used to end the homelessness for the people who are at its risk. Secondary prevention is meant for the people who have already entered into the state of homelessness but much time has not been elapsed. The third tertiary category is for the people who have been in the homelessness state for a longer period. Finally, the effective prevention strategy combines the objectives of primary and secondary prevention strategies.

Child Welfare Service—a service through which abused children gets facilitated. They are provided with quality housing, education and health care. Thus, by making this service efficient, the number of homeless people in US can be significantly reduced.

Introduction

With every passing day in United States, hundreds of individuals and families who had never been homeless in the past find themselves on the streets of US with no home left. The overall impact of homelessness on US individuals as well as society is worse; in every aspect, the quality of life for housed people is far better than those who live in the homelessness state. For example, there is a high probability for the homeless people to suffer from the diseases such as gastrointestinal ailments, minor skin ailments, chronic physical disorders, upper respiratory infections and asthma. In addition, the homeless people and children face higher relative degrees of anxiety, depression, absences from school or workplace, problems in the relationships and various others (Tsemberis, p. 481). Thus, it is highly critical for the government and communities of US to take serious steps in order to put homelessness issues to an end.

Regardless of the quality of the services provided to the homeless people in order to get to the shelter, it is extremely important to stop the people entering homelessness; only this way, it would become possible to stop homelessness completely in US. The policies which are devised for making the people stop from entering into the state of homelessness are often termed as “Policies to close the front door of homelessness” (Bert, p.37).

Homelessness Prevention

Research conducted over the period of past few years shows that a number of factors contribute in making any homelessness preventions strategy a success. The most important contributing factors include targeting the set of population which is prone to homelessness in future, to develop the motivation in the community for supporting the homeless people by every possible means, to maximize the private resources and main stream, to ensure the availability of structured data about the homeless people of past, to foster ...