Dear Next President, 

More than a million people have become homeless over the years. Homelessness has become a problem around the world and is still a problem today. People may think it isn’t their problem, but it is. Most of the homeless people are children, women, and veterans who fought for our country. Some of the homeless couldn’t afford to live in their homes and were forced to live in shelters and on the streets. According to Bill Quigley, a law professor in Loyola University New Orleans and from Huffington Post, “Most people are spending the night either in homeless shelters or in some sort of short-term transitional housing. Slightly more than a third are living in cars or under bridges or are in some other way living unsheltered.”

Homelessness is a ultimate problem in the U.S. People need to help the homeless. They never wanted it to be a problem in their lives. They wished everything was different. That they’re consequences won’t cause them a problem in their life. But life isn’t always fair with people. Sometimes life just wants to get to people who want to have that perfect life. Homelessness can mean two things: one is being in a home but it doesn’t feel like an average home. For example, say that you, your mom, and your father live in one small home. But then others start sharing the home with you. Soon that home because crowded and it doesn’t really feel at home at all. Then there is the other reason to be homeless, which is being on the streets without no home or shelter. Both of these meanings happen around the states but, being without a home has been the case around the country for all those abandoned buildings all around cities and neighborhoods.

Many of these people are homeless because they couldn’t afford their rent on their homes. Rent in their area was probably at a very high price and they couldn’t be able to afford it. According to Bill Quigley from Huffington Post, “The lack of affordable housing is a primary cause of homelessness, according the NLCHP (National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty). HUD (US Department of Housing and Urban Development) has seen its budget slashed by over 50 percent in recent decades, resulting in the loss of 10,000 units of subsidized low-income housing each and every year.” The information that was shown gave out examples of how the homeless couldn’t afford to pay rent each year. Poverty is also the case for the homeless. According to national homeless.org, “in 2011, the official rate was 15.0%. There were 46.2 million people in poverty.”

Amongst the millions of homeless, are children that are under the age of 18. They are either sheltered into homes, foster care, or the institutions couldn’t take in more children. HUD reports that there are more than 1 million children that are homeless and are in public schools. Many of these children are still awaiting to be adopted or to find their parents.

On the other end of the spectrum; there are women who left their homes because of a few of reasons. They either couldn’t afford rent or it was because of severe or physical sexual abuse. This is the leading cause for women to go into homelessness; they run away from their partner due to the abuse they get at home. There is also the Veterans who fought in the war. According to Bill Quigley from Huffington Post, “Over 57,000 of them are sheltered or unsheltered. More than 60 percent of them are unsheltered and nearly 5,000 of them are women”. These Veterans had shortage of affordable housing, livable income, no access to health care, and the veterans also have PTSD when they are left homeless.

Others have different views on the matter with homelessness. There are several reasons why they won’t agree on helping the homeless. They believe that these people ended up the way they are by themselves and that they just need to work it out by themselves. The cities are also disagreeing to help the homeless. According to Bill Quigley From Huffington Post, “More than 187 cities are making it illegal to beg, loiter, sleep in subways, sleep in your car, and sit and lie in a particular area.” The other reason is that most homeless are faking being homeless and are probably trying to get more money for themselves. But what if they are really homeless? Do you really want to let a live human being starve or freeze to death? 

My solution for the problem is to make more shelters for the homeless. There is already a organization that has made homes for the homelessness for free that is called, “Habitat For Humanity”. But we need the money by getting more taxes on the wealthy because the wealth has more money to share to the homelessness. Then people will have to donate some of their belongings that they don’t want or don’t use anymore to them. People shouldn’t be very greedy with giving away their blankets, foods, or other things that they don’t seem to use and need. Then there has to be volunteers to help out and make sure nothing goes wrong; fights, robbed. We need people to care about these people who are going through a rough time out on the streets. Volunteers will have to take shifts like a store. They will have to make sure that each volunteer is well rested. Of course volunteers will be paid for helping out the homelessness. Then I want cities to make it not a crime to be homeless. Where do they think these people are going to sleep? They have no home or shelter. So the cities should help out also and make it not illegal and start helping out.

I conclude my letter by saying that the next president should make decision about this. Would they like to see how these people are suffering out in the streets right now? These people need help, so let’s help them get back up. We need to make a change in our world.

Sincerely, Julieta G. Michigan