Shedding Light on Societal Norms: A Pathway to Resolve Homelessness in Australia

The assignment content highlights the importance of shedding light on societal norms to resolve specific situations in business or society, with a focus on homelessness and its underlying causes. It emphasizes the need to break down issues related to society development and increase interaction between individuals and society through awareness-raising activities. The essay also draws attention to the macro-level factors that contribute to homelessness, including financial problems and uncertain political situations, as well as effective plans being implemented to provide protection to homeless individuals.

Homelessness sociological functionalist
perspective

Introduction
Homeless is reasoned by several social factors under which a person depart from the
home and they are considered as unable to acquire and maintain the adequate housing. These
problems covers drugs to terror and homelessness also which affect overall life of person to a
great extent. The current research is based on social problem as homeless with the clear
explanation related to its reason and consequence on the society. The scenario has been clarified
with the use of appropriate sociological theory. In this context, sociological functionalist
perspective has been considered.
Social problem in Australia
There are several social problem prevailing in Australia as currently 38% hike in the
economic and financial issues in the society. However, the ratio of another issues such as safety,
security and terrorism has been increased 30%. Some of the specific issues are not being changed
and remain constant. IN this regard, drug and drug abuse has been increased to 4%.
. The Tasmania state of the country is facing major issue related to refugee, unemployment and
poverty as well as health issues. Along with that, religion issues are also faced along with
proportion of rich and poor people (Ravenhill, 2016). The basic reason behind such kind of issue
is higher cost of living in the state and people are unable to access the health care facilities. Such
kind of scenario influence people to live their home and get addicted from some kind of bad
habits such as smoking and drugs etc. They consume theses things for the purpose of being
relaxed and tension even without any kind of society or safety related to housing.
Such kind of social issues take place due to poor facilities in context of easy access to
health care facilities and employment etc. Not only this but 70% young people who are owning
their home are the victim of domestic violence and family breakdown. It create mental stress
among them and affect their overall life style to a great extent. However, Greens committed
towards the homelessness services for at least next 10 years. In this regard, varied kind of
housing services are provided through federal funding. This proves to be effective in catering
their requirement in an effectual manner. This also contribute towards improving the life style of
people and ensuring their certainty to a great extent (Darab and Hartman, 2013).
Description of theory

The theory of functionalism reflects the better organization of society for bringing
positive attitude among people and increasing their attention towards the most positive approach
of the life. In this respect functionalism theory shed light on cultural and social phenomenon with
regard to functions performed by them. This perspective also explained that society is having
many issues and problem because of forever changes. People are unable to adapt the change and
accordingly crime related activities increases in the society. Furthermore, it is assumed in
accordance with the functionalism perspective that in case all interdependent part of society goes
well then it would definitely bring stability and higher productivity (Wilson and Spoehr, 2015).
On the contrary, in case each part of society do not work well then it forms several kind of issues
for the better performance of the society. It can be understood with the help example of financial
problem. The recession in the market leads to increase unemployment and force people to adapt
the change with the establishment of new order and productivity. For instance, during the phase
of recession families develop the propensity to save the money and work in accordance with new
standard so as to save the money by thinking of the future perspective (Welty and et. al., 2013).
The perspective of functionalism reflects that society get the benefit out of the poverty as
it does not only focus on particular individual under the poverty but shed light on macro level
benefits. This is because all individual get the benefit and work in accordance with the set
standards. This is the reason many people tend to be in the poverty only for the purpose of
having long term security for their life time. Therefore, functionalism is most suitable for
resolving the potential issues related to society and providing the right direction to address the
specific social problem of the society. It would be effective to integrate all related resources and
showing the upward direction to society by ensuring the development and growth of the
individual.
Application of theory
The functionalism perspective of homelessness reflects that people like to be in poverty
only and they do not put efforts for their own security. However, majority of the organization of
society such as economy, families and schooling as well as government work together for the
purpose of running the society effectively. However, the homelessness is considered the
individual issue not in the organizing system (Whittaker and Holland-Smith, 2016). In addition
to this, theory shed light on four subsystems such as goal attainment, integration and adaptation

as well as pattern maintenance. For this purpose, homelessness is caused by the lack of
integration among the family members and poor adaptation aspects through which people have
suffer from negative scenario of their life. In this manner, functionalist perspective of society
focuses on the positive changes through criminal activities and impact of severe punishment.
Along with that, government will also support to provide the home and house for the people not
having their home. It would have direct impact on the society has whole. For example, poor
families will also get themselves registered for the purpose of getting the job and finding the job
security (Dunn, Chambers and Hyde, 2016).
There are certain reasons such as financial pressure, poor physical and mental health as
well as domestic violence as well as family breakdown are some of the specific aspects. Owing
to this, it is important shed light on all these mentioned aspects in order to address the specific
issue related to homelessness. Functionalism proposed that family is an institution where every
member of family must be involved under all the stuff of the families so as to get attached with
other members. On the contrary, break down of families is the major reason behind the
homelessness and accordingly people cannot focus on their professional and personal
development. Instead, they get addicted to the bad habits related to drug use and smoking etc.
Such kind of procedure can be taken into consideration for the betterment of all related people
(Pini and Mills, 2015).
On a a critical note, functionalism theory only reflects upon the balanced point but do not
focus on recognizing the contribution of inequalities on imbalance. Also, individuals are
considered very less but overall society is considered in every aspect. Owing to this,
homelessness related issues remain less solution oriented with the application of such kind of
approach. However, functionalism represented that individual has the main issue in the
mentioned aspects and accordingly they are considered as the dysfunction in the system. Owing
to this, appropriate action can be taken for the issue related to homelessness (Edwards and et. al.,
2017). Though, the functionalism perspective also explains regarding the illegal drug response.
For this purpose, it is important to response for the societal norms and consensus with regarding
to acceptable behaviour. This perspective further reveals that illegal drug use is result of the
ineffective bond between individual and society. In this manner, theory contribute towards the
development of society with the focus on some specific issue related to homelessness and other

related aspects. In this manner, illegal drug use has also been explained effectively so as to
address all related issues and ensuring the effective completion of the all related activities
(Homelessness has no place in Australia, 2017).
For this purpose, it is important to shed light on societal norms whereby appropriate
actions can be implemented so as to resolve the specific situation of the business or society in the
right direction. However, the issues related to society development must be broken down for the
purpose of holding the society together (Neba, 2016). It is made possible with the help of
increasing the interaction between society and individual through raising awareness related to the
positive bond. This has direct impact on the drug use as individual will feel involved and issues
related to the same will be resolved to a great extent. Therefore, it is very important to shed light
on issues exist in the society and reduce the ill impact of the same on the society by introducing
the most effective approaches (Brown-Bowers and et. al., 2015).
Conclusion
The essay concludes that functionalism consider the homelessness as the macro level
under which it is very important to ensure to smooth functioning of society in accordance with
the set standards. In addition to this, issue related to homelessness is increased due because of
financial problem and uncertain political situation in the country. Owing to this, country like
Australia also have the higher unemployment rate. In addition to this, effective plans are being
implemented for providing protection to such kind of homelessness people.

REFERENCES
Journals and books
Ravenhill, M. (2016). The culture of homelessness. Routledge.
Darab, S., & Hartman, Y. (2013). Understanding single older women’s invisibility in housing
issues in Australia. Housing, Theory and Society. 30(4). 348-367.
Wilson, L., & Spoehr, J. (2015). Social inclusion under Labor in South Australia. Australian
Journal of Social Issues. 50(2). 159.
Welty & et. al., (2013). Building social capital: Examining the impact of Street Soccer USA on
its volunteers. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. 48(1). 20-37.
Whittaker, C. G., & Holland-Smith, D. (2016). Exposing the dark side, an exploration of the
influence social capital has upon parental sports volunteers. Sport, education and society.
21(3). 356-373.
Dunn, J., Chambers, S. K., & Hyde, M. K. (2016). Systematic review of motives for episodic
volunteering. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit
Organizations. 27(1). 425-464.
Pini, B., & Mills, M. (2015). Constructing the rural in education: The case of Outback Kids in
Australia. British Journal of Sociology of Education. 36(4). 577-594.
Edwards, M. & et. al., (2017). Artful interventions for workplace bullying: exploring forum
theatre. Journal of Workplace Learning. 29(1). 37-48.
Neba, D. F. (2016). The Sheltered Home Lived Experiences of the Homeless Persons.
Brown-Bowers, A. & et. al., (2015). Postpartum depression in refugee and asylum-seeking
women in Canada: A critical health psychology perspective. Health:. 19(3). 318-335.
Online
Homelessness has no place in Australia (2017). [Online]. Available through:
<http://greens.org.au/homeless>. [Accessed on 13th May 2017].