Homeless youth
(First draft essay)
The homelessness is one of the biggest problems in the United State, and other countries such as Canada. For many years, these countries tried to solve this issue, but they failed, and one of these countries was Canada. Canada government has spent too much money on this issue, but they couldn't do anything, and the number of the homeless people is growing rapidly. In 2009-2010 the winter Olympics Games was in Canada, specifically in Vancouver city where I used to live in. At that year, the government couldn't come up with a solution for homeless people, so they moved them to another city called Victoria until the Olympic has done. Homelessness is a big issue, so in my paper I am going to discus the homeless youth problem in the United State. I am going to ask questions, and answer them. All my answers based on researches that I already did my observations during my volunteering in the Interfaith Sanctuary, my filed notes, and the answers that I got via my facebook. First of all, I chose the Interfaith Sanctuary to work for, because I love helping people, and solving problems, and I got these aspects from my father. My father is a doctor, and according to him, he became a doctor because he likes helping people, and he want to develop his community. My research question is how should the agency and the government treat homeless youth and make their life style better? I think I have several ways to reach my goal of this research, and some suggestions for both government and the agency.
First of all, what is the definition of the homeless youth? The homeless youth is the young people who have spent at least one night in the shelters or in the streets without parents or someone take care of them. Marjorie J. Robertson said. The age of the homeless youth is between twelve and seventeen years old, and the majority of the homeless youth is between fifteen and seventeen years old according to some articles that I read. And according to National Coalition for the Homeless, any homeless under eighteen years old called youth. Second of all, why these young people became homeless? There are three main factors make young people tend to be homeless. The first factor, is the family problems. Family problems are the most common reason that make young people leave their houses. a big percentage of homeless youth left their homes after having physical and sexual abuse, weak relationship between the parents and the child, and when the parents don't feel of the responsibly towards their children. According to a study in the Homeless Youth article "46% of runaway and homeless youth had been physically abused and 17% were forced into unwanted sexual activity by a family or household member." And in another study, more the half of young homeless who stay in a shelter said that they have been asked to leave their homes by their parents and some of them their parents knew that their children are leaving and they did nothing. In fact, I do have a short story that support my point. One year ago I was In Vancouver Canada, and while I was walking to my coffee at 7.20 am, a young girl stopped me, and asked me to by a drawn paper from her. I asked her how much the drawn paper, and then she respond by her fingers which means two dollars. I asked her why you don’t go to a school. So, she said "I don't have house, so how you want me to go to a school" and during the conversation, she told me that she has a family and they have a house, but she has been asked to leave the house, and to be responsible about herself. The second factor is the financial problems. This factor is becoming more common recently, because of the economic recession around the world, and especially in the United State. As we see now, the prices are going up, and not everyone can afford a house or at least a place to live in. And also, the difficulties of finding a job is one of the main economic problems. One of the Interfaith Sanctuary volunteer, and at the same time homeless told me with sadness face "Can you Imagine Abdul that I can’t find a job, even though; I have a certificate, and experience." Honestly, I almost cry, but I controlled myself, because I didn't want to make the problem worst. The man who told me that called David. David has been homeless for a long time, and he doesn't have big problems such as drugs addicted or alcohol problems. And the third factor is the residential instability.
Unfortunately, the number of homeless youth is growing so fast, so we have to know how many homeless youth do we have. And what are the problems that they are facing? According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, the number of the homeless and runaway youth is 1,682,900, and this number is included both males and females. And according to the National Center on Family homelessness, the number of homeless youth is 1.3 million. The percentage of homeless youth is increasing dramatically while finding a solution for the recent problems so slow, and by this way the communities may face many problems in the future. In Boise, ID the percentage of the young homeless is growing dramatically according to one of the agency in the Interfaith Sanctuary. In my second visit for the Interfaith Sanctuary Housing Service, I asked an agency about the number of homeless youth, so he told me literally "Unfortunately, the number of homeless youth is growing rappelled" then, he moved his neck down, and took a long breath.
There are several problems and challenges that homeless youth face every single day. The first, not every homeless youth housed in the shelters, because of the scarcity of shelters beds. This problem is one of many problems that I observed during my volunteering in the Interfaith Sanctuary. Last week, when I went to the Interfaith Sanctuary with my group, the weather was so crazy(heavy raining, and windy), and according to Abel who is one of the Interfaith Sanctuary agency, the community expects more people in this kind of weather, while the capacity of the community is 128 persons according to Lisa, the boss of the Interfaith Sanctuary, and exactly that what happened last week during the bad weather, so what they agency had to do is to build tents out side the community, because we welcomed almost 160 persons, and at that time I used my engineering brain, and I designed a simple fast way that the community could build the tents by. Also, "Many homeless youth find that exchanging sex for food, clothing, and shelter is their only chance of survival on the streets." Homeless youth article. Thus, the homeless youth are in a high risk of contracting AIDS, and other diseases. Last semester, I did a research based on the blood donation and the AIDS, so according to my research results, the homeless youth are so close from getting the AIDS as I mentioned previously, and they may get other diseases that might kill them in the long term. And also, education problems are another issue that homeless youth face in their life. Some of the homeless youth don't study at all, and some of them go to school, but they either not good as other students or they fall in asleep during classes. Having families’ problems, health problems, and financial problems never help the homeless youth become good at schools, so the communities and the government should do their job toward the homeless youth.
Ultimately, what should the government and the communities do towards the homeless youth? Each one of my audiences has to do several things toward the homeless youth to make their life style better. First of all, the government should support the communities financially more than their support now. One of the ideas that I like from "Who deserve a head start?" article was written by Erin which is invest a small percentage of the government surplus in these communities, so the communities can cover all homeless youth in the United States. The government should find jobs for the homeless youth or roles to play in the societies. FB responses. Also, the government should build more shelters, because as I mentioned above, the capacity of the shelters is not enough for homeless youth. "Youth go through emotional, physical, intellectual changes in their lives. So they need proper advisory services to deal with these situations" and this under the government job. FB responses. And also, the prices of the house under the government control, so they have to provide house for homeless youth families. One of the best suggestion that I got through my FB is to support the homeless youth to complete their degrees, thus the can find jobs, and live normally. On the other hand, the agencies have also several functions to do. The first, providing health care services, proper education services, figure out ways to reintegrate the homeless youth into the societies. Having counseling services for people with any depression, personality disorders is the agency responsibly. FB responses.
