|
What is one purpose of going to visit another country? People go to visit other places for many reasons: business, family vacation, relaxation, to visit beautiful sights, etc. Every country has something beautiful to see.
However, it does not matter how beautiful a place is, there can be some problems which are not apparent to the tourists. When we visited Japan, we were exposed to the problem of homelessness. Indeed both the United States and Japan have the common problem of dealing with the homeless.
The Issue at home:
According to researchers, New York City has an estimated 50,000 homeless people. When most people think of homeless people they already assume that they are alcoholics or drug abusers. However, according to the U.S Conference of Mayors, the homeless population is diverse: 20% are unemployed, 22% are mentally disabled, 11% are veterans and 34% are drug and alcoholic dependent. We see there are many reasons for homelessness. Many of the homeless are visible in train stations, street corners, parks, etc. However, there are many people in shelters or people that are involved in programs to help the homeless. Many of the homeless really want to be helped.
Each year, millions of homeless people in the United States need important health care services. Most do not have health insurance or cash to pay for medical care. Finding health care is an enormous challenge for the homeless. What help can the homeless find? There are many shelters in New York City and programs that could help homeless people.
We went to "Common Ground" which is a program that provides help for the people who need help to do community service in order to obtain an understanding of this issue in New York. One form of assistance this agency provides is a place where the homeless can stay. They provide housing not only for people who live in the streets but also people that get paid a low wage and cannot afford decent housing. They also help people find a job. At Common Ground there are many activities for productive use of spare time. The variety of workshops that they provide include yoga, cooking class, library, computer class and many more. When we went to Common Ground we signed up for the cooking class. About 15 people that live in the building attended the class.
To conduct our research, we designed a questionnaire and distributed first among people who lived in the housing of "Common Ground" so that we could discover the reasons for their obtaining residence there and how they felt about living there. By these questionnaires we were able to learn that many were homeless because they were alcohol and drug dependent. However, not all of them lived there because of these reasons. There were others that were homeless because they lost their jobs.
We were trying to find out if agencies like "Common Ground" changed peoples' lives for the better. We asked, "How has your life changed since you have been residence at the Common grounds?" On person responded by saying, "It has changed my life to a better one. I feel happier and I have seemed to learn how to handle responsibilities." This is really the proof of how people are being helped and the effective work that "Common Ground" has done.
We also designed a survey to pass out to people to get their perspective and knowledge about the issue of homelessness. By these surveys we were able to find out that a 35% of the people were not well informed about the issue of homelessness. Also 35% admitted that they did foresee a time in their life when they might become homeless. Even people that may seem to have led a regular life do live in fear of becoming homeless. We know that in America many people live from paycheck to paycheck and the fear of homelessness looms for many.
|
|
