definition of homelessness

Homelessness is a very complex and characteristic phenomenon of today's society that supposes that some people live below the line of what is considered worthy, that is, they live without access to housing or a roof, without access to work, without constant feeding, in the open, without any help from the state and with an extremely primary quality of life.

Situation in which a person lives below the poverty line and cannot even satisfy their basic needs

To put them in more concrete and simple terms, homelessness is a worse conjuncture than poverty.

Specialists in economics, the state and the media, use as a reference to talk or not about indigence or poverty, a basic food basket, made up of the basic goods and services that a person or a typical family require to live in a satisfactory, meanwhile, when a family or person cannot cover basic needs with their income, they will be considered indigent.

Thus, homelessness can be determined by looking directly at the income of a person or family.

Today, the social complexity is such that it has been agreed to use the word indigent to designate a person who is less than poor because the latter can access some basic rights although not in the best conditions.

The homeless, however, is a person who lacks all rights and who leads an inhuman quality of life.

For a person to be considered destitute or living in indigence, certain central elements must be present: thus, many of the indigent are people who live in the open, in public spaces or with extremely precarious and unstable housing.

On the other hand, a homeless person has very few resources due to the lack of work and the absence of the State to fulfill those rights.

It is normal, although not decisive, that a homeless person should resort to crime to try to pay for some minimal food.

A current problem that is growing and that must be addressed by the states through public policies

Homelessness is a very current phenomenon in modern societies, especially in urban areas.

In many of the great cities of the planet we can observe a sad contrast between those people who own everything or who at least have their basic rights satisfied and those who do not.

The destitute have fallen outside the system, that is, not only do they not have access to a good quality of life, but they also do not see their human rights respected, becoming almost invisible and forgotten by the rest of society.

The solution to homelessness depends mainly on the State.

Although all citizens are responsible for working together for the common welfare, it is the State that must ensure that all rights are respected and that all people have access to the same quality of life, offering them the most important services and resources to be able to get your life on track.

In this regard, we cannot ignore the work that many non-governmental organizations do to help homeless people.

In any case, and beyond these bailouts, via subsidies or charity, homelessness will never be solved unless policies are promoted that guarantee opportunities for all to access a home, education, health care and a job.

The main obstacle that homelessness presents is that it is a state of affairs that tends to be projected in time because those who suffer from it have almost insurmountable difficulties to be able to get out of it, and then, this causes their impoverished situation to spread to their children , that is to say, it is hereditary, with which poverty multiplies.

Just as issues such as climate change have become relevant and present issues on the agenda of world leaders, homelessness, which is not a problem in recent years, but a long time ago, but has increased in recent decades, it should also be included in the discussions of global problems, this would be a way to begin to at least find solutions.

For any person, living in conditions of poverty is unfortunate, sad and degrading, however, when it reaches children, it becomes an even greater problem because the child who must grow up in this scenario will have his development severely compromised in every aspect.

For example, a child not having to eat will have dire effects on his growth and future.