The Homeless Essays - Homelessness, Humanitarian Aid, Socioeconomics

The Homeless Essays - Homelessness, Humanitarian Aid, Socioeconomics The Homeless Homelessness is a very large problem that America has come to face with. Millions of people, including children, families, babies, veterans, and the elderly live day by day without food, water, a roof over their head, or love. People that are mentally ill also have to tough it out on the streets, which can be very confusing to them, and dangerous to us. This problem must be solved soon, because it's not getting better fast enough. People have not always had to suffer with homelessness. Though the problem has almost always existed, it had not reached a severe level until the early 1970's. With every war there has been a small trickle of homeless veterans to follow, but the Vietnam war and Korean war left a wave of many people without anywhere to go. This was just the start of the problem. Many homeless people lived in places called Skid Row. A place with cheap bars, entertainment, and very cheap housing in buildings called SROs, or Single Room Occupancy. They could be rented from .50 to .90 cents a night. Then cities started to grow, and in the mid 1970s One million SROs were replaced with parking lots, buildings and apartments. Skid Row eventually vanished. Then the government decided to decriminalize drunkenness, loitering, and vagrancy. That means there were a great many homeless people that would normally be arrested under these conditions, still roaming the streets. Women and children started to f! ilter in to the homeless scene, and then in a huge recession in the 1980s 11,000,000 people were laid off (9.7% of all jobs). The numbers of homeless people soared. It didn't stop here though. President Reagan and Bush dropped public housing funds from 30 billion dollars to 6.7 billion, a net loss of 37,800 houses per year. By the beginning of the 1990s, over one million people were on waiting lists for homes. Homeless people can be categorized into four basic categories, families, lone, transient, or bums. A person in a family is usually a man and wife with one to many children living on the streets. A lone person is that who has no connection to anybody and never travels, but stays in the same general area. A transient is a person who never settles down for more than a few weeks, but keeps moving throughout cities by means of walking and hitch hiking. Within these categories are sub-categories. These sub categories are taken from a random group of 1,000 homeless people, and what their numbers would be. CATEGORYPEOPLE Families220 Lone Individuals780 Under 19146 Women229 Elderly Men17 Veterans Men188 Mentally Disabled Men125 Disabled Men28 Full Time Jobs7 Part Time Jobs27 Sporadic78 Effort173 Bum (Undeserving Homeless)49 Even the people with full time jobs are in need of permanent residence. These people live on eating scraps of food from trash cans, and possible meals from shelters on occasion, but those are usually three times a week at dinner, or some other type of schedule. People who have homes rarely think, nor can comprehend what terrible things that the homeless have to go through. They live in abandoned buildings, cars, buses, boxes, on park benches and underground. They eat bits of old fruit and meat with the mold and green sludge scrapped off. One man and his son used up their $60 of food stamps that they were giver for two months. For a week they lived on ketchup and mustard. Within three days of the condiments disappearing the boy had both his feet amputated due to frostbite. This was in New York. There are some people who still have a spark of interest in finding jobs. They look for places to work, and they try to establish an address and connections. If a homeless person is absolutely dedicated to ending his own homelessness, he will most likely find his way out. The one category that people assume all homeless fall into is the undeserving homeless, or "bums". These are usually men in their 40s or 50s who sit around all day and do nothing. They don't try and help themselves or others. They lie and cheat and honestly deserve nothing because they could never give anything if they were forced to. They make up a very small group in fact, about 4% of all homeless. Drugs are

The Growing Problem of Road Rage

The Growing Problem of Road Rage Statistics tell us that most all of us have been involved in an aggressive driving experience either as the victim or the aggressor at some point in our lives. Aggressive driving and road rage is on the rise, and according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety (AAA), it is one, if not the top concern for many drivers today. AAA reported that at least 1,500 people a year are seriously injured or killed in senseless traffic disputes. The following includes excerpts from a report issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Characteristics of Aggressive Driving The term aggressive driving emerged during the 1990s as a label for a category of dangerous on-the-road behaviors. The category comprises: Following too closelyDriving at excessive speedsWeaving through trafficRunning stop lights and signs Aggressive driving occasionally escalates to gesturing in anger or yelling at another motorist, confrontation, physical assault and even murder. Road Rage is the label that emerged to describe the angry and violent behaviors at the extreme of the aggressive driving continuum. Graduating From Traffic Violation to Criminal Offense The NHTSA defines aggressive driving as, The operation of a motor vehicle in a manner that endangers or is likely to endanger persons or property. An important distinction is that aggressive driving is a traffic violation, while road rage, aside from the yelling and gesticulating, is a criminal offense. Contributing Factors To Aggressive Driving Experts suggest many reasons for the increase in aggressive driving and road rage. Sociologists suggest it is due to the breakdown in our societys sense of community and a disintegration of shared values.Psychologists point to the intoxicating combination of power and anonymity provided by motor vehicles.Traffic engineers tend to believe the problem is due to inconsistent driving speeds among travelers. Traffic Congestion Traffic congestion is one of the most frequently mentioned contributing factors to aggressive driving. Drivers with low tolerances for traffic delays might respond by following too closely, changing lanes frequently, or becoming angry at anyone who impedes their progress. Running Late Some people drive aggressively because they have too much to do and are running late for work, school, their next meeting, lesson, soccer game, or some  other appointment. Many otherwise law-abiding citizens often justify speeding when running late, almost as they would a medical emergency. Speeding because one is running late to pick up a waiting child or getting an elderly parent to a doctors appointment is often deemed as okay in the minds of even some of the safest drivers. Anonymity A driver can develop a sense of anonymity and detachment when insulated within the privacy of a vehicle. Tinted windows further detach drivers, adding to the misconception of being an observer of the surroundings, rather than a participant. The anonymity for some may provoke antisocial behavior unseen in other normal interaction they experience with others. Combine this with having the power of a motor vehicle and the knowledge that it is unlikely they will ever be seen again by those they offend and the result can be extreme rudeness and even turn an otherwise nice person into a dangerous, raging individual. Disregard for Others and for the Law Much has been written about the erosion of shared values and respect for authority, variously attributed to the fragmentation of the extended family, increased individual mobility, media influence, and other characteristics of modern society. It does appear that civility and respect for authority have decreased, the trend epitomized by the phrase, Im just looking out for number one. Habitual or Clinical Behavior Most motorists rarely drive aggressively, and some never at all. For others, episodes of aggressive driving are frequent, and for a small proportion of motorists, it is their usual driving behavior. Occasional episodes of aggressive driving might occur in response to specific situations, such as speeding and changing lanes abruptly when late for an important appointment, when it is not the drivers normal behavior. Among the chronic aggressive drivers there are those who learned the driving style and consider it appropriate and others who may have learned to drive properly, but for whom the behavior is an expression of illness. Clearly, it is a matter of degree and not all anger is uncontrolled, or even inappropriate, that is, it is not the anger, but what a person does about it that matters (e.g., anger that motivates a person to call the police when encountered on the road by an obviously impaired or dangerously aggressive driver). However, chronic anger, habitual or persistent aggressive driving, and especially a pattern of confrontation on the road, must be considered manifestations of pathology, in addition to violations of the law. Sources:National Highway Traffic Safety AdministrationRoad Rage: Causes and Dangers of Aggressive DrivingAAA Foundation for Traffic Safety