Homelessness in America is one of the biggest social issues this country faces today. In 2013 the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development reported that 610,042 people were homeless on a given night (Bauman, 2014). In the US, more than 3.5 million people experience homelessness each year; to put this number in perspective, the people who experience homelessness in America is greater than the population of twenty states. America has tried several different ways to deal with this tremendous social issue; through health care, substance abuse programs, increasing welfare, food and shelter programs, and homeless shelters. Some of these efforts have had minimum success but none of these solutions have been viewed the panacea to the problem,…show more content… Anti-homeless laws and the criminalization of homeless have been ineffective, punitive and damaging in the fight to end homelessness. A pattern of criminalization of the homeless will be evident through the passing of anti-homeless laws. This increase of anti-homeless laws and the criminalization of the homeless have been driven by the theory of deterrence. The idea behind this theory is that a punitive approach will deter people from choosing to be homeless. The problem with this theory is that the vast majority of people do not choose to be homeless. They become homeless after unfortunate events, sometimes out of their control, have occurred in their life. A study done in San Francisco found that of those living in San Francisco at the time they most recently became homeless, 63% reported having lived in the City for three or four years, indicating that a majority of people experiencing homelessness are being priced out of their homes (Connery, 2013). To create laws based off of an extremely small percentage of the population is intrinsically wrong and a terrible idea. There is no empirical data to show that these methods of dealing with the homeless population are effective. Not only have these laws and policies been ineffective, they have had
