Homeless in Montana
WELCOME!
This semester our focus will revolve around the Town Hall Meeting.
During the Spring 2009 Town Hall Meeting, students from US 101 will facilitate an evening of discussion and awareness-raising on topics pulled from The Soloist. This book explores the nature of interconnectedness amongst joblessness, homelessness, and mental illness.
This discussion will start here! Via “blogging” our students will have the opportunity to discuss similar ideas with students from other US 101sections. The responses will help you reflect upon your own thinking, while examining and responding to your peers’ writing. Through your responses, you will learn how to better articulate your ideas while examining and incorporating multiple perspectives.
Have fun and starting ‘bloggin’…
Million Dollar Murray deals with many important topics about homelessness and beyond, but ultimately three important issues were raised: how we, locally, view homelessness, how we grew up learning about the homeless, and lastly, how we pass our judgments about homelessness onto the next generation (in other words, how we shape younger persons minds about the issue with our judgments). All issues mentioned set the stage for what our nation sees for homelessness in the future, or even whether the issue is worth addressing thoroughly.
Thus far we can conclude from the reading that permanent solutions are very far off, if not an illusion. However, I am willing to argue that with a little reflection on the three important issues raised from the reading above will further our understanding and the understanding of generations to come. Currently many people don’t even acknowledge the fact that there are homeless people in the world unless they see a homeless person on the street, or pass soup kitchens or shelters on the street. No acknowledgement is detriment in and of itself. Awareness, proper handling of the situation and education are the only ways become fully aware and focused on better solutions in years to come.
What can we say about the way we treat homeless people in Bozeman? Understanding, first, that homelessness is not isolated only to big cities is essential to realizing how to tackle it in a smaller setting. There should be more help for those homeless in smaller cities because the community can aide people better since the homeless number is far less. Even still, Bozeman has built an animal shelter, but is still awaiting their first homeless shelter (it is currently in the works, however).
What are your thoughts on our local situation? Should we handle our problems differently than solutions suggested in Million Dollar Murray? Or should we go on essentially ignoring the problem here?
Drug addicts and the mentally ill may come to mind when some think of the homeless. When I consider the homeless my thoughts go to women and children.
“Most experts on homelessness now argue that homeless women with children represent the most rapidly expanding segment of the homeless population and that this is the largest group for whom social supports and services are lacking.” (Bufkin and Bray 228)
You might ask how does this concern us? “According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 1.3 million women are physically assaulted by their intimate partner every year.In Montana, according to the most recent statistics, there were 11,562 victims of assault reported in 2003.” (Gray)
The Network Against Sexual and Domestic Abuse shows in their Annual Report for 2007-2008 of the total clients served, 634 where unduplicated clients, 511 were females and 95 were children. The Network sheltered 126 victims of domestic violence for a total of 2,185 nights of which 37% of the victims sheltered were under the age of 18. (The Network)
This is happening in our own backyard and yet we have not been unable to eradicate the problem.
christopher.sturgill Reply:
February 19th, 2009 at 8:17 am
@beverly.killian,
You have a variety of well stated facts and statistics, now you need to use them to strengthen your point. It is great to have the evidence to back up what you are trying to claim, but the facts should not overwhelm your paper.
edward.arcand Reply:
March 9th, 2009 at 10:34 am
@beverly.killian, I do think that drug addicts and alcoholics manipulate the programs created for the homeless problem. On the other hand they need some kind of help also, maybe longer treatment programs. The domestic violence victims often must chose between losing there homes or there lives,the stitististics are over whelming and something must be done to protect the women and children. Our youth have even bigger obsticals to over come with little or no guidance to help them get started in the world. I do agree The State and Government needs to do more to get better programs and funding for this on going problem.
@beverly.killian Beverly, thanks for bringing up the subject of women and children as part of the homeless issue. Due to the confidentiality of a lot of the situations of these individuals, this is an aspect of homelessness that is often overlooked.
After reading your blog, I accessed the web site for The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and it seems that this organization has roots locally, statewide, regionally and nationally, and is seeking eradication of the “social conditions which contribute to violence against women and children.” (NCADV.org) It appears that this organization operates strictly on funding from corporations and private donations. If this organization is so widespread, why do you think it receives no funding from the government?
The Network Against Sexual and Domestic Abuse in the Bozeman area (whose statistics you quoted) also operates mostly on grants and contributions from the community, and seems to be doing a great service for the people who need help in this area.
Do you think that organizations such as these should be established for other aspects of the homeless problem? Is this something we should depend on the government to take care of, or should it rest more with our society as a whole?
Do you really think that we will be able to “eradicate” any of the problems that contribute to homelessness?
I personally like where you, Rebecca, are going with these ideas. The idea that people are complacent and indifferent towards homelessness in the world is very interesting. Most people do live their lives not caring or doing something about this problem, I agree. We are not fully aware of it as well. But how are we supposed to educate the people about this problem and how can we help the homeless. What are some solutions we can find to make people aware and/or do about homelessness? We have not found an answer today and it may be more complicated than just people being aware. What can people do to help? However you may also consider that the problem of homelessness in bigger cities and smaller cities are not all that different. According to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, “the most recent statewide homeless survey found 80 homeless people living in Bozeman last Jan. 31, 2008 according to the coalition. There were 46 single individuals and 34 family members, including 19 children (Bozeman Daily Chronicle). And according to a most recent census taken in 2006 it estimated 35,061 people living in Bozeman, Montana (U.S. Census Bureau). In Los Angeles there is more than close to 10 million people and 82,000 homeless people according to the Los Angeles Almanac (Los Angeles Almanac). If you do the math, in Bozeman there are 438 people to one homeless person. In Los Angeles there are 121 people to every homeless person. So in Bozeman there is a better chance for people to lend a hand out to a homeless person. However, they are not that much different because today there hasn’t been much change in either city. As you did say though Bozeman is in progress of doing a project to help.
It may be easier for Bozeman to handle this problem in some ways but the conditions of the homeless always pose the biggest problem towards the homeless dilemma. Each homeless person has a story and reason to why they are who they are today. And searching for a solution to help may be a problem not solved easily. Another thing to think of is that not everyone has the same recovery process to become successful. Maybe people are not ignoring what is going on in the homeless situation. Maybe people just don’t know what to do about it? What can they do to help these peoples’ conditions and make them a contributor to society?