Homelessness in
America is skyrocketing, and the numbers do not lie. According to the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), homelessness has
jumped by a staggering 18% in 2024 alone. This is a record high bringing the
total to 800,000 individuals, about twenty-three for every 10,000 Americans. What
is worse is it’s not just the usual urban area decay anymore, families and
children are now front and center with family homelessness jumping by 40% and
child homelessness by 33% affecting almost 150,000 kids. This is a humanity
failure with numbers like these and increasing.
What’s driving this crisis? The normal predictable variables like a crashing shortage of affordable housing, fueled by rocketing rents spikes and wages that don't match those living jump cost. But that’s only part of the story. The Biden administration and left leaning local governments abandoning key pandemic era safety nets without offering sustainable long-term solutions and ways to lean the people back on their feet. Now with eviction bans lifted and rental assistance dried up, low-income Americans are left to fend for themselves. Additionally, swarms of illegal immigration and mismanaged urban planning it’s no surprise that shelters are overflowing, and city streets are lined with tents.
Who is hit the hardest and affected the most by this societal failure? All though white individuals make up most of the homeless population they take up more percentage of every other race. African American's only make up 13% of general population but yet 36% of them experiences homelessness. Due to failed welfare policies and lack of economic mobility more than a quarter of African Americans experience homelessness. Seniors too, many of whom worked their whole lives, are now facing their golden years on the streets. Nearly half of homeless individuals over fifty-five are unsheltered. That is not just a tragedy, it is a national disgrace.
America does not need
more government Band-Aids; it needs principled leadership. We need to get
serious about expanding housing options, enforcing immigration laws, lowering
cost of living, and holding local governments accountable for failing their
most vulnerable citizens. The time for political posturing is over, if we do
not fix this now, we may not get a second chance.
Many argue that the people argue that being homeless is a result of laziness and it is not the community's problem to help clean and help these people off the streets. This could not be farther from the truth, going back to what was stated earlier single parent families, seniors, children's, disabled vets etc all need help taking care of them self's of there dependencies. Helping just one family get off the streets can mean generations off the streets just by setting the kids up in a better environment to grow up in. We can't help all over night but we can start somewhere to slowly get back our streets and give everyone a second chance.
So, what can we do as a society? First off, we have to stop romanticizing policies that keep people trapped in a cycle of dependency. That means reforming public housing programs to reward responsibility and progress. Give people a path out not a permanent place to stay stuck. Community involvement matters too, faith-based organizations, nonprofits, and local volunteers have done far more on a shoestring budget than many well-funded government programs. Let us empower them, not regulate them beyond the point they cannot help.
We also need to bring back common sense to mental health and addiction services. The streets are not hospitals, and jail cells are not detox centers. Reopening institutions, fund effective outpatient care, and stop pretending that letting people slowly die on the sidewalk is somehow compassionate. Real compassion requires courage, time, and effort to intervene, to hold people accountable, and to help them reclaim their dignity.
We as a Society need to all start ignoring this global issue especially at the rate that it jumped last year. If we continue on the path were on a massive economical crash could happen and lead our streets and country to look more and more like a third world country. Other charities are marketed and advertised way better and more often by the media if people start treating homeless non profits like cancer and other diseases we could save so many families. American schools every year raise money for cancer all the time but yet not once do we even learn about the lives of people who live in the same country as us but nothing near the lives we live. American civilians without government help raise's about 1.4 billion to the homeless witch sounds like a lot, but to put that in perspective girl scouts get over 600million. Girl scouts have almost half of what the homeless get donated witch means we need a change in mindset and we need to start thinking of this as a priority problem.
Finally, let us cut the red tape. Building affordable housing should not take five years and three hundred permits. Local zoning laws and environmental regulations, often pushed by progressive elites, have made construction nearly impossible in many cities. If we want more housing, we have to let people build it. It is time to choose results over rhetoric.
This crisis is
fixable but only if we are willing to challenge the status quo. It is time for
Americans to step up, speak out, and act. Because a nation that cannot or will
not care for its own citizens is not just failing. It is falling apart.
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