Community Building: Homelessness

Running head: COMMUNITY BUILDING 1
COMMUNITY BUILDING
Name of Student
Institution Affiliation

COMMUNITY BUILDING 2
Community building: Homelessness
Introduction
Homelessness is a situation where individuals do not have a permanent resident in the form a
house or even an apartment. This is mainly because they are not able to obtain and maintain
even, secure and safe as well as proper form of housing. Different countries have different ways
of expressing the idea of homelessness. Several countries also have different statistics on the
population of their citizens who are considered homeless. Australia, for instance, have a major
proportion of the long term homeless individuals located mainly across it major cities in
Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane (Baum & Burnes, 2013). A census carried out in 2016
revealed that there has been a 14% increase in the number of homeless individuals within the
past five years. This represented an increase by more than 14000 people. It is also estimated that
for every given night, there are probable 105000 people who will be homeless and others will
also be spending the night in insecure structures. The statistics are very alarming and prove that
there are a lot that should be done in order to assists these individuals (Rossi, 2013).
Factors Contributing To Homelessness
We carried out a survey in order to determine the major factors that greatly contribute to
homelessness in Australia. A number of factors were listed by the affected individuals that
participated in the survey. We were also able to determine the most supported factor and how
they have an influence on homelessness (Carlen, 2011). The most common factors that were
listed out by the participants were the following;
 Poverty
 Lack of employment

COMMUNITY BUILDING 3
 Drug, alcohol and substance abuse
 Unavailability of affordable housing
 High costs of living
 Poor state of mental and physical health
 Immigrant or refugee status
 Running away from domestic violence and abusive relations
 Neglect from family and friends
 Poor financial management
 Natural disaster
 Personal choice
 Lack of government support
Most of the participants who took part in the survey pointed out that the most commonly
witnessed causes of homelessness is poverty, the unavailability of cheap and affordable housing
as well as lack of government support to reduce the rate of homelessness.
The survey also sought to find out whether the individuals are responsible for their situations.
Form the above listed factors, it is evident that most of the homeless individuals are in that
situation due to unavoidable circumstances and just a few are responsible for their situations
(Fitzpatrick, Kemp, & Klinker, 2010).
Categories of homelessness
There are two major categories of homelessness i.e. sheltered and unsheltered. A sheltered
individual is one who has at least a roof or shelter over his/ her head, albeit on a fairly regular
basis. An individual with completely no shelter or roof on some regular basis. Both the