Most people never think about the people in this world who don't have the privileges they do, and who pretty much have nothing, mentally and physically. Some people don't have clean water or sanitary food and can’t even access a bathroom or even a place to live, and most people just don’t think about it! Those people are just happy with their lives and that’s all they need. The people that suffer through this are homeless people. Homeless people are just what they sound like, people with no secure home or place to live. I believe that people don’t care about homelessness because of the sheer number of citizens who are homeless, and the lack of support for those who are homeless to get proper mental and health care.
There are thousands of people in the United States, and millions more around the world who are homeless, and if people cared more there wouldn't be that many. There are 554,000 people who are homeless, including 58,000 families with kids in just America alone!? In Los Angeles, about 31,516 homeless residents were identified there in 2017. It's estimated that no fewer than 150 million people are homeless worldwide, or about 2 percent of the world's population. However, about 1.6 billion, more than 20 percent of the world's population, may lack adequate housing. Not many people know that there are charities that support homeless people. If more people decided to put money into the charities they could be the change in this world wide problem. More and more homeless people are “arriving” in America and in this world in general.
Health and sanitation issues are also created by the large number of homeless people in our cities and towns. This is a recent topic that people have been noticing walking in the streets of LA and other big cities such as New York. Because the people living on the streets don’t have a bathroom they can constantly use, it is spreading diseases. The diseases that are going around can possibly be deadly, if you don’t know you have it or don’t know how to handle it. People usually catch hepatitis by getting the virus in their mouths, often because they eat food or drink water that has been contaminated by human waste. So homelessness can easily cause death to common people and the homeless people themselves.
Another troubling statistic is that many families WITH kids have to live on the streets and give the kids a very unstable and unhealthy life. 15,492 homeless families with children in the U.S. are homeless. There are 22,938 homeless children. It makes me want to cry on how many children are living through that and us children who have a privileged life probably don’t even know the sad amount of kids who are homeless.
The people who are on the other side of this argument could think, “Well, why should I care if they’re homeless? I’m not, so why does it matter?” I'm saying that those people are wrong. My argument for this is, “What if it were you?” Would the people who are on the other side really like to be homeless and have everyone walk by not really care about them? A quote from Google says, “According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's Annual Homeless Assessment Report, as of 2017 there were around 554,000 homeless people in the United States on a given night, or 0.17% of the population, Homelessness emerged as a national issue in the 1870s.” It shows that the homeless rate has gone up quite a bit and as you can see has become a worldwide issue.
In conclusion, there are millions of people who are homeless, and if people cared more, the numbers would be lower. If more people cared about people in this world, people would not suffer the indignity of using the bathroom on the sidewalk but would instead have privacy. Too many children and families experience homelessness every year. Homelessness is an inhumane problem. Please consider this quote by Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see in the world,” and consider the ways in which you can help to change this problem.