We Have Lost Our Direction, Voice and Values, Towards Our Less Fortunate! Research Paper Example

Abstract

It is imperative that a wider gap exists between the less fortunate and the rich in the society today. More often, it is the government’s prerogative to uplift the standards of the less fortunate in the society. However, this is not the case in that several vices harbored by the leaders such as corruption mars such moves. It is necessary to note that the loss of direction in the provision of direction to aid the underprivileged poses negative impacts on their lives. Our democratic nation has lost its voice and values, allowing the wealthy few to dictate policies by controlling the lobbyists. This paper will highlight on how we have lost our direction, voice, and values, towards our less fortunate. Our nation’s policies are not providing subsistence for the weakest facets in our country, who, recurrently go without healthcare, food, and shelter. We need to stand against this immoral behavior. As a country, we need to come together to establish a thorough means of providing comprehensive, consistent healthcare and shelter to our homeless. This paper will highlight on how we have lost direction, voice, and values in addressing the needs of the less fortunate.

How we have lost direction, voice, and values in addressing the needs of the less fortunate

As a nation, we have a moral obligation to provide healthcare to our homeless, especially those who have served in our military. Our current laissez-faire mentality, in regards to funding our indigent, warrants substitution. Sadly, there is only one singular government program that receives federal funding to help the homeless receive healthcare. This program is referred to as the Healthcare for the Homeless or HCH. It is pertinent to note that most people are not homeless by choice. Many people find themselves in homelessness state because of the cost of healthcare, state of our current economy, mental illness, and drug dependencies. The United States government plays an exceptionally small role in funding our indigent’s care despite what many think. The current program that helps the indigents, HCH, traces back to its institution in 1987 and reauthorization in 2002 (National Coalition for Homeless Veterans 19). It has been successful in helping an average of 515,000 homeless annually throughout our nation. The program has not seen any substantial increase in funding, but there has been a large increase in those who are in need.

Many people might treat Welfare/Medicaid as bestowed with responsibility of providing assistance and healthcare for this population. Unfortunately, this is simply not true. It is fundamental to note that the Welfare Reform helped a substantial portion of the individuals prior to the1997’s initiative. After this reform, the program withdrew its aid from 675,000 people leading to their loss of health insurance. What tragically compounds those statistics is that 400,000 of them were children (“How You Qualify for Social Security Disability Benefits” 16). As our country continues grappling with its economic woes, more individuals suffer displacement and lack of access to healthcare. It is imperative that a program such as HCH may not combat hunger, homelessness, and disease without substantial federal backing. What deems inconsiderate for the less fortunate is that government bails out banks thus making it difficult for the less fortunate to access the empowerment funds. It is pertinent to note that the old and new federal programs do not reach the recommended destitute. Programs such as HUD, USICH, SAMHSA, and ASPE exist to help those get meager cost of living and those below the poverty line.

Programs such as Supplemental Security Income or SSI do not have clear-cut principles and objectives. However, the core objective of this program is to help the Americans with disabilities and not anyone. The disabilities SSI considers, must cause the individual sever impairment, which prevents the individual from gaining employment. If a person does qualify, it can take three to four months for approval. While a person is receiving SSI, he/she cannot make more than one thousand dollars a month and still receive their benefits. For most people, SSI is their only source of income. Current benefit levels of SSI are fair below the average poverty line within the country (Isidore 18). The individuals who receive benefits will only receive six hundred and three dollars per month. This sparse amount barely covers the cost of rent and in some areas does not. People who are mentally ill or disabled are often unable to supplement this income and end up living on the streets. These polices have not changed to meet a high cost of living. SSI has been set to be a reactive system that provides subsistence to our disabled and like other programs needs to change to a proactive approach.

These programs are essentially Band-Aids for the greatest underlining issues, which plague the nation’s political arena. These programs are simply a Dog and Pony show for those politicians who want to say they made a difference prior to elections.

The current hardships within our country are cascading downwards, causing unemployment and homelessness, 67,000 of these homeless are veterans. Our country’s policies are not benefiting its people but rather lining the pockets of the iniquitous. The US has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Effectively pushing companies to move abroad to obtain cheaper labor and reduced tax rates do not yield much in addressing the needs of the less fortunate. Sadly, the US dollar continues to depreciate internationally, as indicated by Standard and Poor’s recent downgrade of the US’s triple A to a double a rating. This downgrading is a backlash of the housing bubble that popped, which caused wide spread inflation of our housing market (U.S. Congress 11). The government fails to enact policies that regulate the rates of bank loans under adjustable mortgage rates. These loans create artificial inflation on the homes especially for the less privileged within the society. When adjustable mortgage rates began to rise, the baffled consumers lost their investments because they could no longer sustain their increased mortgage rates. Foreign investors felt the pain placing a terrific deal of strain on Europe. The government’s failure emerged when the government bailed out cooperation’s such as AIG, Fannie Mac, and Freddie Mac during the stock market crash. Consequently, the homeowners were left to fend for themselves. The travesty of the financial downfall impedes predominantly on the shoulders of the middle class hence devastating the poor. As our countries deficit climbs, they continue to cut the few benefits, which help the homeless.

For our indigent to be capable of transitioning back into mainstream society, reestablishing their physical health is fundamental. Many of our homeless have more than one chronic illness, which precludes them from being capable of maintaining a stable job. Though our country’s people, seems to have acquiesced to the meager care we provide to our indigent, are homeless bear the hardship with illness. It is estimated that eight to nine coexisting medical problems affects a single homeless person simultaneously. Predominantly, easily remedied problems such as dermatologic conditions, vision disturbances, tooth decay, foot problems, ear, and respiratory infections go untreated. Such are the diseases that need governments support in facilitating treatment for the less fortunate (Allamanno 8). The government has failed to initiate programs that address the chronic conditions such as sexually transmitted infections, substance abuse, depression, schizophrenia, posttraumatic stress disorder, personality disorders, hypertension, diabetes, and asthma in favor of the poor.

Typically, these acute and chronic illnesses lead to hospital emergent care. Community and State hospitals are burdened with this expense because the law requires them to treat this population. Because these illnesses have gone untreated, it leads to longer hospital stays. It is noteworthy that long-term hospital stays exponentially increase the healthcare dollar for hospitals, state and federal government and ultimately the taxpayer.

Few states have outreach programs, which provide free immunizations against infectious diseases, condoms to prevent STI’s and supplemental birth control. This includes free birth control for homeless women, clinics to maintain basic health care, and needle exchange programs (Moore 17). What do these states have? They have the means to coordinate with large medical cooperation’s for donations. These companies could donate clean needles, birth control, condoms, and immunizations for a federal tax incentive. Furthermore, these states have many medical and nursing schools that lack places to train their students. Instead of having these students donate their time to large privatized hospitals they should be initiating the income generating activities for the poor in the society. Obviously, under a licensed educator or other qualified medical professional.

Along with substandard medical care, the lack of shelter inhibits the individual’s ability to maintain one’s own nutrition, hygiene, and basic healthcare needs (National Coalition for Homeless 4). The combination of no shelter, no medical care, no food, and no way to conduct basic hygiene is a deadly cocktail. In many states such as California, homeless people do not have a shelter that they can go to regularly. The decline of government and state funding has closed doors for the homeless.

Within the US, there are exponentially more animal shelters than homeless shelters, over 5000 animal shelters and only 3282 homeless shelters. Sadly, even the states that are able to keep their homeless shelter doors open frequently do not have enough beds and food for the needy. Compounding this problem are requirements for the homeless to have a state ID to obtain access to the facility (Donohoe 4). Many times, it is difficult for the homeless to keep an ID because they are stolen or lost. Theft within shelters as well as violence is common. If the doors to these homeless shelters keep closing and the need for a state ID precludes the homeless from the shelter, we will continue to see a rise in cost within our hospitals.

Recent investigations into the healthcare needs of the homeless show it is exponentially more cost effective to provide that care then to ignore the problems. An example of a strong state-run intervention program for the homeless is the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless; this program was instituted in 2003 (Gandel 10). The facility’s mission is in, preventing homelessness, in hopes to work toward a lasting solution in providing care for our indigent. The main goal of which is to amalgamate healthcare, housing, and other service programs to a well-rounded comprehensive approach to subsistence care. This program is successfully addressing the causes of homelessness and not just a singular entity. Twenty-five years have elapsed since the coalition became effective. They have fair an immense deal better than most contending with the increased demand of shelter and decrease funding hence proves the effectiveness of this program over time.

Currently, Vietnam Era homeless veterans are more numerous than those that died serving in the war (Cohn 3). Less than six percent of these veterans were female. The overwhelming majority are males coming from impoverished backgrounds. A large fraction of this group is suffering from mental illness. It is essential to note that two thirds of this majority is also struggling from chronic drug, alcohol abuse, and addiction. Over thirty percent have both mental illness and drug dependency.

These veterans have difficulty taking advantage of their earned benefits due to their illnesses. The Veteran’s Affairs office historically does little to promote veterans use of these benefits. Additionally, veterans are increasing in numbers because of the increased age of our population and continuous wars (Joel 12). This indigent are the same as soldiers who participated during the world War II, Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Statistics provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that 56% of these homeless veterans are Black or Hispanic; despite being the smaller demographic in relation to the time they were enlisted. This portrays lack of family support and educational status. Remarkably, in the last few years the Veterans Affairs office has made considerable strides in trying to prevent homelessness among veterans. Four-star General Eric Shinseki was paramount to many of these changes, and he continues to push the government to help veterans receive the services they need.

Our country can help the homeless by having case managers in hospitals that help them receive adequate healthcare. Those case managers would be responsible for, creating and maintaining a homeless ID card, which can be re-issued if lost. Imbedding a microchip in this card to track healthcare conditions would streamline service. This would require the homeless individual to remember a four-digit pin to grant access to the information (Moore 12). Furthermore, those case managers should have access to assign and approve a care plan for this populace that the government funds, so that an individual can receive regular treatment. These case managers could work with the local medical and nursing schools in setting up clinics. These clinics could provide regular care for acute and chronic conditions, which afflict the homeless (“How You Qualify for Social Security Disability Benefits 15”). These facilities may serve as indicators of needle exchange program, free vaccinations, free birth control, free condoms, and other types of preventative care.

Conclusion

The bureaucratic nature of this country is inhibiting our nations means to provide for all of it’s’ people. To address these issues, we have to stop turning a blind eye away from our moral obligations. Where there is a will there is a way. We must have the will as a people, to provide healthcare, food, and shelter to our indigent (McLean 18). The fact that we have more stray animals shelters within our communities than we do for the homeless demonstrates a skew moral compass. When we add the large populace of homeless veterans to this equation, this travesty becomes incomprehensible. This inhumanity needs to be addressed.

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