It’s summer time right now and everyone is going to the park, the beach, or out of state. When I go to the park to eat during my break, I see many homeless people sitting on the benches. When I go home on the train I see them begging for some change so they can eat or feed their children.
The number of homeless people in NYC has been gradually increasing, and not many shelters can house them, because they are full of people. To solve this, the city should create more shelters.
According to the organization Coalition for the Homeless, homelessness in NYC has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In May 2019, there were 61,129 homeless people, including 14,674 homeless families with 21,372 homeless children sleeping each night in the New York City municipal shelter system. Many people become homeless due to evictions, job loss, domestic violence, or overcrowded housing. Homeless shelters are overcrowded and full of people, the majority of them families.
Even though there are homeless shelters, thousands of homeless people sleep on NYC streets, in the subway system and in other public places. African-American and Latino New Yorkers make up the majority of homeless people. There have to be enough shelters for everyone to live in because the people who cannot stay in shelters that are overloaded are living on the streets.
The problem is that some of the homeless, may have run away from their house because they don’t want to live with their parents or their parents kicked them out.
Most of the homeless people have mental health problems and they need to get help, but there is no one to help them because they live in the streets and no one pays attention to them. Many homeless people don’t know how to deal with their problems and turn to alcohol and drugs, and become addicted to it.
I personally do not know anyone who has been homeless, but my mom has heard that a family friend is living on the streets because he has alcohol problems. The family is trying to look for him so they could help him, but can’t find him. It broke my mom’s heart hearing about this and that night she prayed, hoping the man was safe wherever he was.
The number of shelters needs to increase. According to a 2015 assessment by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 564,708 people were homeless on a given night in the United States. At a minimum,140,000 or 25 percent of these people were seriously mentally ill, and 250,000 or 45 percent had any mental illness. There should be medical employees who can examine the people and get them the treatment that they need. Homelessness is not something that can be ignored-not when you see many of these people on every corner.
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