Three out of five people are chronically homeless and struggle with a disabling condition. Five percent of people experiencing homelessness are fleeing domestic violence. I believe that we can end homelessness by doing various things such as volunteering at a shelter, looking at the percentage of homelessness in your area and surrounding areas to see how many need help and to prevent more from happening. We could also look at the organizations and companies that are already helping people who are experiencing homelessness and look more into those to see how you could help.

There are a lot of homeless people as we all know. But the percentage of homelessness is higher than it should be. As of January of 2018, there were 552,830 people counted as homeless in the United States. I know it does not really seem like a high number compared to the whole population of the United States but that is still a high number that needs to go down. In 2020, Greater Los Angeles counted 66,436 people experiencing homelessness. That is a lot of people in Los Angeles alone and that’s not good. San Bernardino’s homeless population count grew for the third year in a row, 3,125 people experiencing homelessness were counted. That is a 19.9% increase over 2019. Homelessness is increasing rapidly and we could help stop all of it.

There are many ways that we can help as well, such as working or volunteering at a shelter, inviting people experiencing homelessness to a community event or even organizing an event. Having people who are experiencing homelessness be involved in things like this may have them be more social and give them motivation to get their things together. Volunteering your time at a shelter can help the homeless become more friendly and outgoing and it might make them want to make more friends and get a job. I think volunteering at a shelter or just interacting with people experiencing homelessness (at a shelter would be more safe) would make their day at least and I think it would male them a little more social.

There are some organizations that help the homeless which is great because there are people who are willing to help. Goodwill raises money through donations of new and gently used items such as clothes, electronics and toys. Mercy Housing is an organization that provides affordable housing and supports those with services for low income. Feeding America has more than 200 food banks that have helped feed more than 46 million people. The United Way focuses on education, income and health for the homeless. These organizations and so many more are being very helpful and are making a difference because they are helping people who are experiencing homelessness by providing them with things they may need.

Another way to end homelessness is to obviously prevent it so it does not keep happening. Preventing homelessness is not always going to be easy; the number one thing that can prevent homelessness is to reduce the risk of housing crises. Reducing the risk of housing crises means supplying safe and affordable housing, health and behavioral health resources and affordable child care and legal assistance. By reducing the risk of housing crises there could be a decrease in the percentage of homelessness America and even around the world.

With all of this information and resources about how to end homelessness and how to prevent it, we could at least reduce the numbers of homelessness by having people who are experiencing homelessness be more social and possibly learn leadership skills that would be good for a job.