Category: Weekly Assignments

Micro-reflection

One of the challenges I face working on  Annotated Bibliography was coming up with a beneficial research question.   After pondering  a variety of different subjects for two days, I narrowed it down to a subject that I can identify with and encounter daily.  Once I established my research question, I  had to frame it to make sense to the reader.   Living in New York City, most people have interaction or connection with the homeless population.    Most people view the homeless as an individual that fell on hard times or made poor life decisions.   I believe it a broader issue that contributes to the cause of homelessness.    That develop my question; now the next difficult task was finding three creditable sources.

To narrow my resource to just three was a challenging obstacle; the reason why is I wanted  the sources to dig into the question and not scratch the surface.  I wanted in-depth articles that provide research and data to answer the question.  Another big challenge most of the article I review was outdated, and  most articles focus on providing the solution to the growing homelessness problem.  So, finding the three sources that address the question took a lot of time and effort.   After reading through countless articles, I finally narrowed down to three and began the Annotated Bibliography.

After completing the research, it was differently worthwhile.  I was able to discover many different circumstances that play a part in homelessness in the United States.   To name a few, it started s with poverty, policy, mental illness, and race were just some of the surrounding factors that contribute to homelessness in the United States.  I think one of the pitfalls I face with this assignment is the question covers many different areas.  I was not expecting to discover so many issues that impacted the homeless population.   In the process for future assignments, I will detail the question better to target one subject.  Overall, it was a great learning experience.

What is the contributing factor that generates homelessness in the United States?

In the past few years, I worked in a city shelter that provides services for the homeless population. I have noticed each year; the numbers of homelessness increase around New York City.  Homelessness is not just, and New York City issues this misfortune of homelessness effect  many States. Most people have the perception homelessness is not a significant issue; however, it is an ongoing problem all across America.    Thousands of people are without proper shelter, living on the streets, parks, subways, or other public spaces. Each year, thousands of people are forced to go without proper shelter or a place they can call home.  For example, New York has close to 80,000 men, women, and children classified as homeless.  Also, half of that number is chronic homelessness with becoming an ongoing problem.    How is this possible in today’s society? What are the surrounding factors that each year the homeless issue is not resolved?   Most Sates are assistance to provide help; for example, emergency shelters, transitional housing, rapid re-housing, and permanent supportive housing are services and benefits offered to help reduce homelessness.   Even though the aided the homeless population is provided the numbers  tends to increase each year.  I want to uncover what are some of the significant reason’s homelessness is a going issue.  It is more to the problem that a person is having financial hardship and fails to maintain proper shelter.   We must look out for other factors, such as poverty, social exclusion, mental illness, race, lack of funding for affordable housing, and contributing factors to the increase of the homeless population. .

Marybeth Shinn : Homelessness Poverty and Social Exclusion in the United States and Europe. Distributed by European Journal of Homelessness Volume 4, December 2010

The Article Homelessness Poverty and Social Exclusion by Marybeth, a professor at Vanderbilt University, studies how to prevent and end homelessness and develop opportunities for social exclusion groups.  The article focuses on lifetime homelessness in the US and Europe.  The United States is one of the leading countries with chronic homelessness, income inequality, less generous social warfare policies.   Shinn states poverty and social exclusion are key causes of homelessness across the nation.   She also argues social exclusion is related to homelessness by influence the generosity of social welfare benefits.  Income, wealth, mental illness, poverty,  Incarceration, and race also play a part in homelessness.  Some of her research was developed by conducting a household survey from 1990 to 2006  to obtain data from different countries regarding the contributing factors.  From the data that was imputed in the chart on page 23, the United States was the leader in lifetime literal homelessness and Imprisonment.  However, rank the lowest in Social benefits.