Homelessness and poverty are interconnected social problems that require adequate solutions. It is impossible to find a homeless person who is not poor, which means that losing a place to live is the ultimate stage of poverty. It is connected with social segregation, stigmatization, and the inability of the person to improve their conditions of life (Kushel 1). Their health state aggravates due to the severe conditions of life without shelter and failure to receive professional medical help (Colburn and Aldern 149). Moreover, homelessness is connected with substance abuse that does not allow people to change their lives and serves as their only opportunity to avoid the depressing reality (Kushel 2). Hence, homelessness is the consequence of extreme poverty, and it has a destructing effect on the personality that the individual cannot usually stop without external help.
Victim blaming is one of the problems that poor and homeless people face in contemporary society. Most people imagine them as lazy people who do not want to work, criminals, and substance abusers, even though this image is far from reality. Scholars claim that most homeless people are poor due to the socio-economic factors that do not depend on them, including mental disorders and age (Colburn and Aldern 147). These issues lead to isolation that people cannot overcome, and their mental state aggravates with time. I can recall the stories of people who used to be average citizens who lost their jobs due to depression and substance abuse, and soon they had no opportunity to pay for their loans. Becoming homeless was the logical end of their stories, and these individuals could do nothing to escape poverty, substance abuse, depression, and homelessness. They gradually lost all connections with their previous lives, becoming typical homeless outcasts who wore random clothes they found in garbage and stinked. These examples make me think that homelessness is not only the cause of isolation but also its consequence, which emphasizes the importance of mutual support in society to reduce the number of poor and homeless people.
The problem of affordable housing and poverty among older adults is another problem that leads to homelessness. The retired people who have no opportunity to work cannot provide for themselves due to low income and comparatively high prices for renting a house. Almost 90% of older adult people who cannot afford housing costs earn less than $11 thousand annually, which is below the poverty line (Kushel 3). When I heard about older adults who decided to move from their houses to the care facility, I did not think it could be due to financial need. If these people had money to pay for housing expenses, they would not change their living place. This situation illustrates the severe problem that older adults are vulnerable community members.
Poverty leads to a situation when the person cannot pay for the house and becomes homeless. The stigmatization of homelessness is connected with the absolute exclusion of the person who has no home from social life. They cannot find decent work even when they qualify for it. Their physical and mental health dramatically aggravates, leading to the situation when homeless people cannot help themselves. The primary concern is that extreme poverty and homelessness are the dangers that the most vulnerable social groups face. Among them are older adults and mentally ill people who have no opportunities to compete with others at work. It shows that society should pay more attention to the problems of poverty and homelessness and assist those individuals who cannot survive without help and support.
Works Cited
Colburn, Gregg, and Clayton Page Aldern. Homelessness Is a Housing Problem: How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns. University of California Press, 2022.
Kushel, Margot. “Homelessness Among Older Adults: An Emerging Crisis.” Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging, vol. 44, no. 2, 2020, pp. 1–7.