Homelessness & Lack of Affordable Housing. Literature & Language Essay

Homelessness & Lack of Affordable Housing
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Homelessness & Lack of Affordable Housing
Introduction
The lack of one of the basic human needs, shelter, is on the rise in the United States and other countries around the world across the economic divide. A majority of people are becoming homeless in Western countries at an alarming rate owing to a wide range of factors arising from the social, political, and economic aspects of society. The rising number of people without a place to call home is raising concerns among governments from the developed, developing, and third world countries. The highly competitive global economy accounts for one of the primary factors contributing to the worsening situation of homelessness across the globe. The housing and real estate industry of the global economy, for instance, makes for one of the most lucrative industries around the world. Such trends lead to increased cost of housing in major cities, which leads to increased evictions due to unaffordability of the housing units available for individuals living in such urban centers. Los Angeles County provides an excellent platform for the analysis of the primary factors contributing to the rising cases of homelessness in the United States. The lack of affordable housing, inadequate public assistance, and the breakdown of the family are the three main causes of homelessness in the United States and around the world.
Homelessness
It is, however, important to understand the meaning of homelessness or the state of being homeless to establish the scope or extent of the problem in the United States and around the world. Homelessness refers to different types of situations describing the circumstances behind the lack of a shelter or home for an individual. According to the United Nations’ Institute of Global Homelessness (IGH), a homeless person may fall into three different categories defined by equally unique features CITATION Lou19 \l 1033 (Louise, 2019). A homeless person or homelessness, for that matter, states the institute is the lack accommodation characterized by lack of a legal claim or title to occupy a given house or shelter. The outlined situation may be a result of eviction due to unpaid rent arrears or inability to meet the same. Examples of individuals without accommodation include people of sleep on the streets or pavements or those who sleep in their cars, the railway stations, as well as unoccupied buildings CITATION Lou19 \l 1033 (Louise, 2019). Individuals living or occupying temporary accommodations lacking in important features such as protection from hostile weather conditions, theft of personal effects, as well as lack of basic housing amenities such as running water CITATION Lou19 \l 1033 (Louise, 2019). Such temporary accommodations are also characteristic of overcrowding from the high number of homeless individuals seeking such shelters. The internally displaced individuals who spend their time in makeshift camps, as well as those who spend in night shelters, form excellent examples of persons living in temporary accommodations. Another type of homelessness describes the lack of positive social interactions and integration within one’s dwelling, which are also characte...