A Decent Shelter

   

  Over the centuries human beings and creatures in this universe are looking for one basic thing and that is home. The most important requirement for all humans is finding a shelter or a house to live in. That’s why most people rent or buy or build a house to feel safe and secure. Homelessness is a very bad phenomenon. This phenomenon is affecting a huge number of people around the world nowadays. In every country there are many social classes in their societies. Those Classes are divided in to upper, middle, and lower. The majority of people who were in the middle class became in the lower due to the economic crisis and there are other reasons that cause people to lose their dwellings. 

     The first reason is poverty. Homelessness and poverty have s strong relationship between each other. People who do not have money cannot have a home or a house due to their low budget. One of the goals that people want in their lives is to find a small house to feel safe and secure with their families. Drug addictions is one of the reasons why some people become poor and homeless because the people who are addict will put all the money they have just to hold a small amount of drugs. Those addicts will not pay attention until they lose all what they have such as losing their home, family, and friends. According to Alice S. Baum and Donald W. Burnes “The rate of tuberculosis among the homeless is some 200 times greater than for the population as a whole. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome affects some 25 percent of the homeless, and the rate of infection is increasing dramatically. The mortality rate for the homeless is three times greater than for the American population, and the homeless die 20 years earlier than expected. Sixteen percent of the deaths among the homeless are a direct result of substance abuse, and up to 50 percent of the deaths are related to alcohol and drugs.[7]” (Baum and Burnes). Furthermore, orphans who lose one of their parents are enough to make them poor. Those Orphans will try their best to find shelters, but if those orphans were kids, then they have to stay in foster homes until they are eighteen. After that orphans will be on their own.

     The second reason is natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, volcanos, or earthquakes. There are large numbers of people who are losing their homes each year for these natural disasters. These disasters are ruining people’s lives; it is not easy to build a new home in just one day because these disasters are affecting millions of people not just one person. In the last ten years a lot of catastrophic disasters happened, one of them is hurricane Katrina which was considered as the biggest natural disaster in this century. According to Lizzy Rantner talking about the loss in hurricane Katrina “For many, the most glaring reason for their homelessness has been the persistent shortage of affordable rental housing in a city that was once a renters’ town. Before Hurricane Katrina, more than half of all New Orleans residents rented their homes. But since the flood destroyed some 52,000 units of rental housing, fair-market rents have ballooned an average of 46 percent, floating right out of many working people’s grasp.”(14). Another example, in 2010 an earthquake destroyed Haiti and turned it into aches, leaving the people homeless and devastated. The most recent and effective hurricane was hurricane Sandy that took place in 2012. Sandy caused a huge damage for different countries such as the United Sates, Cuba, Jamaica, and others.

     Another important reason is wars that are the creation of the human being. Many people lost their houses during wars, so they start to find shelter or they went to other countries or cities as refugees to find a safe place to live in. The problem here is the difficulties that people face after the war. For instance, the World War I and World War II that happened last century caused a lot of problems for people, many people in different countries lost their houses and had to move to a different country in order to form a new life there. The Syrian refugees is another example that are currently facing a hard time, they are moving out of Syria to Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and other countries to find shelters and haven. However, with this huge number of refugees those countries cannot absorb this amount of refugees because of the economic crisis that affected the world nowadays.

    Broken families are also one of the reasons for homelessness. Families have a big influence on the child’s life, and if the child was not raised in a healthy environment, then this will affect the children in a bad way. For example, Children who are facing violence from their parents cannot express and talk about their issues, which will usually end up by the child running away and being homeless. Moreover, Parents who are facing the economic crisis and cannot support each other would either have two solutions get divorce or stay together which affect the whole family, and sometimes families loses there house by getting a divorce.

     The last reason for homelessness is health issues and sickness. Nowadays more and more diseases are spreading fast around the world, and the cost for curing this disease is very expensive and most of people cannot afford it. Some diseases will affect people’s life in different ways such as losing their jobs, which is considered one of the essential requirements to make money and buy or rent a house to live in. People nowadays are paying a lot of money to be cured for deadly diseases and some of them will go in debt by giving their homes to banks and people and after a while they recognize that they lost their homes.

     To have a home is one of the most essential needs for humans. Some people believe that sleeping under a roof is much better from buying a palace or sleeping in a five star resorts. There are several causes for homelessness such as poverty, natural disasters, wars, broken families, health issues and sickness. Homelessness can affect the humanity in a bad way. It can destroy socialites by molding people personalities to do bad things to search for money and shelters to feel safe and secure. Homeless people are part of the society; they need people to help them in order to over pass these problems and to find a solution to live in a decent house. 

Works Cited

Baum, Alice S.Burnes, Donald W. "Facing The Facts About Homelessness." Public Welfare 51.2 (1993): 20. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 15 July 2013.

RATNER, LIZZY. "Homeless In New Orleans." Nation 286.7 (2008): 13-18. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 July 2013.

Image: http://www.olsonkundigarchitects.com/Projects/38/Delta-Shelter