Essays On Homelessness: The Best Tips For Students.


Homelessness has been identified as human rights under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) that was established by the United Nations in 1976 and designed to make governments obligated to providing adequate housing under a human rights. Australia is a signatory to this covenant and therefore obligated to ensure they are working towards complying. Much of the academic research related to homelessness is done to look at how effectively Australia and other signatories comply or ignore their obligations. Other research takes the view of those affected and attempts to highlight the plight and difficulties homeless people go through in everyday life. It is using research from these two areas’, policy compliance and those affected, that I will analysis whether a human’s right approach is the right fit.


To look at why Australia has this problem, I will break this essay in to five distinct topics that can be linked to see how the homelessness occurs and how it may be eliminated. Each topic will present research and how it is viewed by the interviewee in the course of their dealings with the problem. Centrally to each topic though, is the human right aspect and how those affected are either having their rights respected, ignored or abused.

A recent Global Wealth Report released in October of this year, highlighted that Australia was in top place in terms of global median household wealth and second in the world for wealth per adult, just behind Switzerland. Add to this the 10th highest number of ultra-high net worth individuals in the world. Given this evidence of the wealth available in Australia, the growth in homelessness is seen as even more disturbing problem. Statistics showed that the number of homeless people in Australia grew 4.6% at the last census.

On How to Eradicate Homelessness Essay - Aithor

Homelessness is a human problem and it is therefore important that for this essay, research was conducted more broadly that just that of academic literature and reports. To do this, an interview was conducted with the CEO of Foundation Housing. This organizations purpose is to move people in to housing through emergency accommodation, medium term stay and long term affordable rental properties. Foundation Housing are one of a number of organizations that exist locally or nationally that assist those seeking accommodation. They operate differently to traditional charity model in that they are owners of multiple properties across the state. The purpose of the interview was to seek feedback on many of the topics raised in the research literature and gain an understanding whether a human rights approach to eliminating homelessness is both doable and front of mind for these organizations.

Background research was conducted on the topic of homelessness via several means. There is ample academic literature that discusses the problem and the effectiveness of attempts to eliminate homelessness. To compliment this research, reports in to homelessness were also reviewed as they give evidence of whether the problem is improving or declining and the demographics of those deemed homeless. To add insight to this, some qualitative research was also done with Foundation Housing. The CEO, Kathleen Gregory, was interviewed for this. Kathleen is a leader in the area of affordable housing and reducing of homelessness and has contributed to several reports on the subject. After initially failing to get a response to my interview requests from organizations, I used a contact I know that does work in the homeless area and she made the introductions. The interview was conducted at Foundation Housing office. My questions for the interview were subject to a couple of rewrites as my research of the available literature gave a better insight in to the issue.

Australian cities are still a major draw cards for many current residents of the nation and those seeking to settle in Australia. The fragility of the Australian land and the often-harsh environment has resulted in the bulk of the population moving to urbanized areas for opportunities to work, live and look to own their own home. These urban centers are often ranked as some of the world’s most livable cities and escalating demand for housing has seen housing affordability scale to heights that are out of reach of many new and existing Australians. The affordability issue is just one that has seen rises in the rate of homelessness in Australia since 2011. There are other factors that cause and influence the growth in homelessness and this essay will identify some of those in an effort to try to better understand why the problem of homelessness exists in a country as wealthy as Australia. This essay will focus on key issues that cause homelessness to still be a problem in Australia whilst also looking at the stigma associated with those that are homeless and how a human rights approach is one possible way of eliminating homelessness.

You might be asking: Why is UGM making such a big deal of World Homeless Day? How does a day devoted to homelessness really help anything? Actually,...


Causes and Solutions to Homelessness 1386 words [Essay Example]

The most substantive critiques of Housing First point to this larger economic reality: homelessness is a problematic condition, but it is not the problem in itself. Our economic policies guarantee that there will always be someone left behind, and without addressing this core problem, any triage can’t really stem the bleeding. In the meantime, every policy is, by its nature, a half measure. Unfortunately, there is a growing market for quick fixes masquerading as solutions for systemic problems. ‘Teach the homeless to code’ was a joke before it was a reality in San Francisco, followed soon by the homeless shower bus, and innumerable homelessness-solving apps.

Possible Solutions To Homelessness In America - 625 Words

We asked men living at the UGM if they wanted to participate in an essay contest. Several were enthusiastic. The theme? "Tell us what you wish people knew about homelessness." The submissions ranged from thought-provoking to eye-opening to downright humbling. Here are our contest winners:

Solutions To End Homelessness Essay - 1449 Words | Cram

Poor housing conditions are shown to worsen health conditions—especially for older adults and people with disabilities—which in turn can lead to homelessness. Older adults and people with disabilities face dual health and housing crises and need more access to community-based health care and support services, such as mental health care, outpatient treatment for substance use disorders, transportation, assistive technology, and personal care assistance. This is particularly true for people of color, especially Black people, and other marginalized populations.

On How to Eradicate Homelessness Essay (Speech) - IvyPanda

I have listed definition as a topic here as it became apparent through my research that defining homelessness is a part of the challenge in how it is addressed. This is highlighted by Chamberlain in his 2014 report on reshaping the policy agenda for homelessness. The first eleven pages of this report are dedicated to defining homelessness. It is important to understand how a human rights issue is defined to then be able to look assess how governments address the issue. Terms used in defining homelessness, such as ‘adequate housing’, invoke just as much discussion in the literature in how to describe ‘adequate’ in a context of where the definition is describing homelessness in certain contexts. For example, city versus rural, developed country versus developing country. Others go even further and states that there is no internationally agreed definition. This difficulty in defining the problem gives governments the ability to approach the topic without having to address the issue directly. How do you legislate for something that has a mixed consensus on how it is described? This has resulted in the Australian Federal Government referring to the rights of homeless people as privileges, as opposed to rights.