Marion County's Homelesness

Marion County

Marion County is one of 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon . The county seat is Salem, as well as its largest city. The county has an area of ??3093 km ² (of which 26 km ² is covered by water) and a population of 284,834 inhabitants for a population density of 0.93 inhabitants/km ².

This county was founded in 1844.

For the 2000 census , there were 305,265 people, 114,641 heads of households, and 70,437 families residing in the county. The population density was 241 people per square mile. The racial makeup of the county: 81.62% white 0.89% Black or African-Americans 1.44% Native American 1.75% Asian 0.36% Islander 10.58% other races 3.35% from two or more races. There were 101,641 heads of families, of which 34.50% had children under 18 living with them, 53.70% were married couples living together, 11.00% were female-headed single-parent family (no spouse) and 30.70% were non-families (Ackerman,2005,pp. 10-20). The average size of a family is 3.19 members. In the county, 27.40% of the population was under 18 years, 10.30% from 18 to 24 years, 28.70% from 25 to 44, 21.20% from 45 to 64, and 12.40% were older than 65 years. The average age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 101.10 males. For every 100 females age 18 years were 99.50 males.

Introduction

One tends to see them sitting on foot paths, and other see the homeless people linger around dumpsters waiting for the next pile of rubbish, so that they can fish out food. Homeless people make up the social strata of every society and represent pity. They sleep in make shift houses made out of cardboard boxes and sticks along with their infinite array of fragmented objects. Discussion

Homeless people in Marion County are those who have irregular dwelling conditions as they are either unwilling to acquire or maintain safe, regular housing due to many social and personal factors. At times immigrants coming from across the border end up living on the streets or residing in the slums of the other country. India is the country which has happens to have the highest number of homeless people, and now the number of homeless persons is becoming high in the United States of America as well, due to the recent calamities which hit states like Mississippi, Florida and New Orleans (Girona,2003,pp. 30-40).

. The number has gone as high as 700,000 since the last 2 years. 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 ...