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Writer's pictureMichael Thervil

Homelessness in America

Written by Michael Thervil

VEDA Magazine Photo | Homeless Man Sleeping on Streets of Houston TX in 104 Celsius Heat
VEDA Magazine Photo | Homeless Man Sleeping on Streets of Houston TX in 104 Celsius Heat

There are a lot of things to complain about when it comes to urban neighborhoods across America. from trash and illegal dumping, to organized flash mobs and organized theft, to gangs and violence and HOA’s complaining about Section 8 voucher recipients. But the one thing that people within America tend to overlook are the homeless people that they walk by every day. What can be considered even more heartbreaking is the fact that America, which claims to be the leading nation of the free world, has a very big homeless epidemic within its borders.

What’s even more disheartening is the fact that America has an exceptionally large military veteran homeless population. With close to over 10,000 homeless veterans in California alone, one can say that it's shameful that anyone who has served their country militarily should have to sleep on the streets at all. When it comes to the state that has the highest number of homeless people overall New York takes the cake with close to 80,000 homeless people living on its streets. But then again, it's America, and the one thing that America is known for is “American Exceptionalism”.

But latterly at what cost does America turn from being exceptional to hypocritical. The reason why we are saying this is because America likes to boast about how other countries engage in human right violations but America violated the basic human rights of its own citizens. While taking care of errands in Houston Texas, we stumbled across a homeless man who was sleeping on the streets. What makes this situation so bad is that Houston, like much of America at this present time, is experiencing a massive heat wave that is scorching the nation from coast to coast with no end in sight, it seems. On this day it was 104 degrees Celsius.

At this temperature, you can later cook an egg on the ground and this man was sleeping on the streets. This man is not alone in America. to date there are at least 582,462 experiencing homelessness roughly. The figures can be compounded if you factor in people who are technically homeless but are able to stay with a friend or relative. Many homeless people in America suffer from mental health issues as well as other ailments such as drugs, alcoholism, and disease. We can only hope that America can fix the epidemic of homelessness within its borders – but our guess is it won’t. Why? Because there’s no profit to be made in social welfare programs; especially when it comes to aiding the homeless in America.


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