Social responsibility in poor and homeless families.

"Every year 600,000 families with 1.35 million children experience homelessness in the United States, making up about 50 percent of the homeless population over the course of the year" (NAEH, 2007). 

The National Alliance to End Homelessness discusses how the cause of homelessness revolves primarily around income; the combination of raising housing prices and businesses lowering their pay rates have removed the possibility of these families having a home. "Families that become homeless tend to share certain characteristics: they have extremely low incomes, tend to have young children and be headed by a younger parent, lack strong social networks, and often have poor housing histories or move frequently."

We already understand the importance of a stable home environment for raising children in a healthy way. Poverty, typically creating a less than ideal home environment, and homelessness make social responsibility an increasingly difficult thing to teach children. There are things that "poor housed" and homeless people do have in common, according to the NAEH: "Both housed and homeless poor families have the same (albeit high) incidences of domestic violence and similar rates of mental illness. Both poor housed children and homeless children suffer from high rates of anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, or below-average school performance."

What elements combine to create this kind of situation? Many economically stable people believe that low-income and impoverished adults are simply lazy, that they have opportunity all around them to get back to middle class and just choose to leach off of the welfare system instead. Howeer, they need to realize that there are many more factors at work in these situations.

Take, for example, the story printed in the South Carolina Post and Courier about the eviction of a single mother and her family. (You can find the whole story and its followup story under the "Community" section of this blog.) Despite holding a number of jobs to provide for her six children, the economy made it difficult for her to stay employed. The Housing Authority finally evicted her, refusing her late fee payment, and when turned out of the apartment, the neighbors helped themselves to the family's belongings - including required medical equipment.

Her older children, amazingly enough, succeeded despite the conditions, though the article did not mention the effect on the younger children. But this story highlights one situation in which the mother strived to provide for her children's physical needs and was simply unable. She appears, however, to have been able to make a positive impression on her older children of the importance of social responsibility. Many poor and homeless families who suffer the common emotional and physical affects listed by the NAEH are not so lucky.

Although there must statistically be a number of people who do exist in a mentality of learned helplessness (a belief that there's no way out of a bad situation), many families in poverty do have the desire to be good supportive parents, and find themselves unable to provide for their children's physical needs as well as their social and emotional needs, as the former requires their absence and the latter requires their presence. Employment, housing, transportation, and medical demands consume their time and resources and, as much as they may wish it were otherwise, they must rely upon others to provide in other areas for their family.

Written by Jess Tryon