The Contributing Factors of Homelessness in The United States

Imagine your younger days as a teenager around Christmas time. You are warm, gathered around a fire with your family, about to open that huge present you’ve been asking for. Now imagine being a teenager around Christmas time, cold, alone and with no place to stay. According to Jewel in her short story “Street Life Is No Life for Children”, she states, “More than 1,000,000 young people live in this country with no place to call home”. Although society looks at teenagers on the street as kids who may just be skipping school for the day, most are actually homeless, trying to stay away from their family dysfunctions. Family dysfunctions include drugs, poverty and domestic violence and are the reason why many children end up on the streets.

I can see it in the newspaper headlines already, “The family man of five caught dealing methamphetamines”. These things happen every day in the United States. Drugs are one of the biggest reasons why many Americans today are slowing going on a downhill path to homelessness. Many families introduced to drugs will split apart at one time or another. You see it all the time in the news. The parents separate leaving their kids on their own. These 15 year olds have nowhere to go, however, they know they just want to get away. Most end up on the streets, or even doing drugs themselves at one point in their lives.

Many kids in today’s society just get in extremely unfortunate situations. The father loses his job and the stay at home mother panics. The parents separate and poverty becomes a huge factor in their lifestyle. Soon the parents cannot afford to take care of their kids any longer and they are abandoned to take on the world for themselves at a young age. Jewels states, “T experienced homelessness firsthand, when I was 15 years old” (428). This is happening all around the world and many Americans are not aware of how bad this issue has become. Poverty is a huge factor in family dysfunctions in the reasons why many kids become homeless.

“Anxiety disorders, depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and suicide all are more common among homeless children”. This is a scary and true fact due to homelessness among children and adults all around the world. Another huge factor to family dysfunction is domestic violence amongst children’s parents. A lot of times fights within a family does not always lead to divorce. It sometimes leads to two parents actually getting into a physical argument where police are involved. This may many times make children feel as if they need to get as far away from home as possible. Jewel claims, “Most homeless kids are on the streets because they have been forced by circumstances to believe they are safer alone then at home” (429). Domestic violence is another factor to why kids decide to take matters into their own hands and leave.

In conclusion, most kids seen alone on the streets are not skipping school. They have been abandoned, homeless and left on their own. Family dysfunctions including drugs, poverty, and domestic violence are huge factors on why many children become homeless in one point in their life.

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