Albuquerque Heading Home

215 Third St, SW

Albuquerque, New Mexico
Phone: 505 226-1700
Fax: 505 226-1705
March 1st, 2016
Dear Mr. Dennis Plummer,
Per your request, I am writing this report about the effects of homelessness to our society
in New Mexico particularly as well as United States generally. The main goal of the report is to
increase the awareness of people about homelessness as a national issue and how it involves in
many social problems.
In order to achieve the goal, we approach the problem by using different methods:
-

Set up several interviews with people who work for New Mexico Coalition to End

Homelessness, APD, and hospital.

Obtain the data about the cost of homelessness by using Internet, scholar journal, and

other secondary sources.

Survey a number of people on the University of New Mexico campus.

This report also shows how homelessness could impact our society in different levels
economy, social security, education, and health of the community. Please review the enclosed
report I have attached for more detail.
Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Khiem Bui

THE EFFECTS OF HOMELESSNESS

REPORT
BY
KHIEM DINH BUI
February 25th, 2016

INTRODUCTION
Background:
Homelessness has become a huge issue in modern US society that impacts all peoples
lives and the economy of the country as well as many other aspects. Every day, there are
thousands of people who are still living on the street and who are in need of help. Generally,
homeless people all have very similar problems such as poverty, mental illnesses, lack of
housing, jobs, substance abuse, domestic violence, and criminal history that pushes them out on
to the street. New Mexico, where I currently live, has the thirteenth highest rate of food
insecurity in the nation and is tied with Mississippi for the highest poverty rate. Approximately
17000 people in New Mexico are homeless, including 5000 children in Albuquerque public
school who do not have a place to live (Janet Page Reeves). This in some stage can shock people
for reading these statistics. Moreover, the society can be impacted by homelessness in a number
of different aspects such as economic, health, education, and national security. The effects of
homelessness can be classified into every level of society from those people who live in such
situations to the social leaders who try to solve for solutions.
Literature review:
Operating and maintaining homeless support service systems such as shelter bed, medical
services, and law enforcement on homeless are costly ventures. Apparently, the costs are mostly
come from the taxpayers and donations. Dennis Culhane (2008) has emphasized that
homelessness is way more expensive to society than the costs of solving the problem. Yet, many
public education campaigns and newspapers periodically make a simple case that the cost of
housing homeless is cheaper than the cost of a shelter bed, hospital emergency room, or prison
cell. Because the funds for homelessness are limited, which means the homeless services can

only provide the most basic needs to those people. As the result, homeless people have to find
other ways to help them afford their needs that could lead them to violate the laws or even
commit the crimes.
Homelessness could be found as the influence to children, the future of our country.
Ashley DeMarcus (2005) has discovered the effects that homelessness has on childrens
education, mental well-being, and physical health.
Purpose
The purpose of the report is to increase the awareness of people toward homelessness and
how it involves in many social problems in New Mexico since New Mexico ranked 46th in
homelessness in the nation. (Nation Center on Family Homelessness). In other words, the
purpose of the report is to analyze how homelessness impacts the New Mexico in many different
ways such as economic, health, education, and social security.
METHOD
In order to analyze how homelessness influence the society, I set up several interviews
with some people who work for New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness (NMCEH), APD,
and hospital, which take place in the third week of February. As I go along with the interviews, I
also use Internet and scholar journal to help me obtain the data that shows the costs of
homelessness to the society. The information I get from these data and interviews could help me
to see how homelessness impacts society in different levels economy, social security,
education, and health of community.
Limitation
For surveying people who could never be in homeless situation, it may give them
difficulty to imagine how people live in homeless and how homelessness could affect society.

People who take the survey are not completely willing to answer the question truthfully.
Moreover, the data and statistic in the report have been researched and collected since several
years ago, so they do not give the exact current statistics.
RESULT
-

In the conversation with an agent of New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness and
also based on their website, a homeless person could cost the taxpayers up to
$40,000/year just to keep that person stay alive. The cost is including food supply, shelter
bed, medication services, and law enforcement. (New Mexico Coalition to End

Homelessness)
The cost of supported housing intervention is $17,200 per unit per year. (New Mexico

Coalition to End Homelessness)

According to Million-Dollar-Murray, the police department documented that up to
$100,000 is the cost for one homeless man due to court, jail, and police enforcement.

(Million-Dollar-Murray)
In the interview with Huan Nguyen, an APD officer, nearly 35% of criminal cases are
involved to homeless population. Most of them are related to violence crimes, drug uses,

public harassment, he said.

According to Barley Melekian, the lieutenant of Santa Monica police department, the
grown of homeless population causes some social problems such as: the conflict over the
use of public facilities, public demands for enforcement action against activities that are
often only marginally criminal, and the need to provide police service to an economically

disenfranchised class of people. (Police and the Homelessness)

According to a research project has been done by Ashley DeMarcus, she discovered the
many effects that homelessness has childrens education, mental well-being, and physical
health. Based on the research, she found that:

A homeless child faces rather discouraging barriers to his or her academic success,

provided that he or she is able to continue attending school.

Homeless children have four times the rate of delayed development, are suspended

twice as often as non-homeless children.

Homeless children are at a greater risk for detrimental effects on their IQ and poor

academic achievement.
Homeless children have four times as many respiratory infections and five times as

many stomach and diarrheal infections.

Homeless children experience twice as many emergency hospitalizations, and four

times the rate of asthma as non-homeless children.

Homeless children have six times as many speech and stammering problems.
Based on the data from research has done by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service
Administration in 2010, they found that:
26.2 % of all shelter persons who were homeless had a severe mental illness.
34.7% of all sheltered adults who were homeless had chronic substance use issues.
Over 60% of people who are chronically homeless have experienced lifetime mental

health problems.
Over 80% have experienced lifetime alcohol and/or drug problems.
Over 92% of mothers who are homeless have experienced severe physical and/or

sexual abuse during their lifetime.

About 50% of homeless mothers have experienced a major depression since

becoming homeless.
The following figures are the statistics and data that we have obtained from New Mexico
Coalition to End Homelessness and from doing survey. Please read the annotation below
each figure for details.

The cost of Homelessness (2010)

$800

$716

$700
$600

$550

$500
$400
$300
Cost per night per person (In dollars)

$200
$100

$30

$33

$77

$82

$0

Mexico Facilities

Figure 1 Statistics provided by New Mexico Coalition to end homelessness. This figure shows the cost
of Homelessness that the government has to pay for each homeless person per night.

Number of homeless vs shelter beds (2012)

1800
1555

1600
1400

1355

1200
1000
800
586

600

517

400
200
0

Persons in homeless families

New Mexico

Number of family shelter beds

Albuquerque

Figure 1 Statistic provided by New Mexico Coalition to end homelessness. This figure shows the
number of homeless people versus the number of beds that the State of New Mexico and the City of
Albuquerque currently have.

In what way do you think homelessness impacts our nation the most?

Agreed person

19

20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

9
5
2

Problem

Figure 2 Survey question and number of people respond to it.

Do you think homeless people became homeless is completely of their fault?

19

20
18
16
14
12
Number of people voted 10
8
6

4
2
0

Yes

Figure 3 Survey question and number of people respond to it.

No

Do you have negative feeling toward homeless people?

19

20
18
16

14

14
12
Number of people voted

10
8
6

4
2
0

Yes

No

Sometimes

Figure 4 Survey question and number of people respond to it.

CONCLUSION
From the statistics and data we obtained, we can see that the cost of homelessness has on
the social services, justice system, and health services are extremely expensive. Homelessness
put people at a high risk for serious health problem, willing to commit crimes in order to survive,
as well as isolate them from the community. The results also give a better view toward
homelessness as a national issue, it affects us from many different aspect such as our economy
because it is in our economic interests to use funds to deal with the issue, social security because
nearly one third of the criminal cases are involved to homeless population, and childrens health
and education.
In New Mexico, there are thousands of homeless people are still on the street and they
still have to deal with their problems every single day. Supportive housing, training young
homeless adults, and helping people who have addictions and mental illnesses are several helpful
ways to end homelessness. Moreover, we should work together to solve this problem and help
the homeless people in many ways. We can help them with very small actions such as bringing

comfort to them, donating food and helpful materials, helping homeless vets, giving homeless
people a voice, or getting the government involved. By the way we act, we can make them feel
much better and supported to rebuild their lives.
In my opinions, before we can even think about the influence of homelessness to us or
how to help ending homelessness, we need to understand and accept that homeless people are
carrying the weight of the label, the shame associated with being a homeless person, and none of
them want to be homeless. By choosing to say someone is experiencing homelessness rather than
labeling them a homeless person has the power to make it different. Every day, there is 44,000
homeless people around us who can be amazing mothers, fathers, leaders, innovators, happier,
healthier. I really believe the language we use, the attitude we have, the judgments we make,
have a potential power to bring those people home and to change the world that we are living.

Works Cited
Barney Melekian. Police and the Homelessness. Rep. Santa Monica Police Department, n.d.
Web.
Culhane, D. P. (2008). The Cost of Homelessness: A Perspective from the United States.
European Journal of Homelessness, 97-114.
Corinth, Kevin. The Economics of Homelessness. Rep. University of Chicago, n.d. Web.
De Marcus, Ashley, "How Homelessness Affects Children & Their Education" (2005).
University of Tennessee Honors Thesis Projects.
New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness. 2015 Albuquerque Point in Time Count Report.
Rep. Web.

Reeves, Janet Page. "Commentary: The Nexus of Poverty, Hunger, and Homelessness in New
Mexico." Social Justice 38 (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
SAMHSA. Current Statistics on the Prevalence and Characteristics of People Experiencing
Homelessness in the United States. Rep. N.p. Print.
Spellman, Brooke, Jil Khaddui, Brian Sokol, and Josh Leopold. Costs Associated With FirstTime Homelessness for Families and Individuals. Rep. N.p.: n.p., 2010. Web.
Turnbull, Jeffrey, Wendy Muckle, and Christina Masters. "Homelessness and Health." Canadian
Medical Association or Its Licensors (n.d.): n. pag. Web.

Reflection
Since the first time I came to New Mexico, I have been seeing so many homeless people
on the street every day when I am going to school or hanging out with my friends, most of them
have similar health problem such as mental illness, drug abuse, physical disability, emotional and
behavior problem. I was then doing some research about homelessness in New Mexico to see
what causes them to live on the street. And then I found out that homelessness is a huge issue not
only in New Mexico in particular, but also in America in general. The government has been
trying to solve this problem for many decades, but it isnt getting any better; otherwise, the
homeless population is even increasing. As I was digging deeply into this problem, I was
shocked for knowing the costs that homelessness brings to this country is unimaginable, I found
out that homelessness does not only cost the national economy and taxpayer, homelessness also
affects the nation in many other aspects such as social security, community health, and children
who are the future of the nation. Therefore, I decide to choose homelessness as a topic for my
report and I also want people to see the effects that homelessness brings to the society where we
live in and how the government takes care of this problem.
There are definitely two SLOs that I believe I have achieved in this report that are
Analyze Rhetorical Situation and Compose Documents. This is the first time I do the
analytical report in which I have to search for both primary sources and secondary sources, so I
get some struggles in targeting people or organizations that I can get information from. It takes
me more than a day to think about what I am going to do in order to overcome those struggles.
Then, I decide to bring up those difficulties to my professor Breanne and ask for advices. She
gives me several good ideas which help me a lot in researching for primary sources. In the
report, I do the survey to 38 people and interview two agents from New Mexico Coalition to End

Homelessness (NMCEH) and Albuquerque Police Department, which gives me so many

experiences about collecting data and interviewing people. I conceive that this is a fortune to
have chances to interview and talk to those people. In the conversation with the worker of
NMCEH, she provides so much information and statistic of homelessness that could help me in
doing my research paper as well as help me gaining the awareness of homelessness as a national
issue. In the interview with Huan Dang, an APD officer, he showed me how homelessness
impacts social security as well as how it involved in criminal rate.
One more thing that gives me a hard time is how to put together all the data and statistics
that I collected from doing researches and to make them understandable to my audiences. In
order to solve that, I go CAPS for help as well as look over many samples of the analytical report
that I found on the internet. I have learned a lot from doing these things. I learn how to make my
result more sense and to make the report look more professional. Finally, the draft of my report is
basically completed and just waiting to be revised.

Interview
*NMCEH:
- What are some statistics that show the influence of homelessness to the state economy?

- In what ways does homelessness cost the government and taxpayers?

* APD: (Officer Huan Dang)

- Do many homeless people involve in criminal actions?

- How does homelessness impact the social security?

Survey
In what way do you think homelessness impacts our nation the most?
o Economy and taxpayers
o National security
o Community health
o Education
o Employment
o Others
Do you think homeless people became homeless is completely because of their fault?
o -Yes
o -No
Do you have negative feeling toward homeless people?
o -Yes
o -No
o -Sometimes
In what do you think would be a good idea to help homeless people?

o Donate food and money.

o Treat their health problems.
o Increase the number of supportive housing.
o Train their skills and ability to help them find a job.
o Help homeless children to afford school.
What the most health problem do you see homeless people struggle with?
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

Mental illness
Drug abuse
Physical disability
Bronchitis and pneumonia
Wound and skin infections
Problems caused by being outdoors
Emotional and behavior problems