There are many causes of homelessness throughout the world. Some causes may have been sudden and other were a series of events that led to homelessness. Time after time we hear and are brain washed to believe that homeless people are homeless because they chose to mess up in life or simply are low-lifes that are lazy. All those nasty stereotypes are spread from generation to generation making homeless people have a bad representation to who they are and how they got to be on the streets. Homelessness is an issue that many choose to ignore and be ignorant about. After reading  Reeve Vanneman’sonline summary of Christopher Jencks’ “The Homeless,” i was able to understand some of the earliest causes of homelessness.

As time passes new causes have began to appear. Many of the causes mentioned by Christopher Jencks are still very common. The assignment given to us brought me to some really interesting findings. Some of my findings came to a surprise although many , after doing the assignment, were  obvious causes of homelessness. One of the most obvious ones was natural disasters, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and many others can cause many to become homeless. I think it is also important as mentioned in class, to understand that there are causes that make you become homeless instantly and then there are little factors that add up and can lead to one becoming homeless. One of the ones that is a minor cause/factor is roommates. I was initially taken back because i currently have roommates. It made sense after reading about roommates as a cause of homeless because at any point in time they can decide to move out and i am then left to try to gather the money for my apartment and try to find new roommates.
Every individual homeless has a story to how they became homeless. Although many individuals think homeless is or should be blamed on the individual themself who is currently on the street they need to research different causes. The best way to open up the eyes of society is by educating them about this.