Helping the homeless requires various steps starting from outreach programs that aim to reach homeless people on the streets and get them into emergency shelters. While in emergency shelters, each individual’s needs is assessed and any urgent medical attention delivered.
From the shelters, it is the aim to get the homeless into more permanent hostel accommodation before attempting to rehabilitate them into society. The process is a long one, and there are challenges throughout, but it is possible to help the homeless become members of normal society once again.
Outreach
Outreach literally means reaching out to the homeless. This can start by providing food, blankets, and other essentials for those that are forced to live on the streets, sleep on benches, and take shelter in shop doorways. This also usually includes the process of attempting to bring the homeless into emergency shelters.
Emergency Shelters
Emergency shelters are meant to be a short term solution, and they should act as a stop gap between the streets and more permanent hostel accommodation.
Medical assistance can be provided in emergency shelters while the shelter will assess the needs of each individual and apply for benefits that will provide a means to offer a more permanent solution to the homeless problem.
Hostels
Hostels are more permanent than emergency shelters and are usually used for a period of between six and twelve months.
While in hostels, the homeless go through various stages of rehabilitation that are designed to help them combat the problems that led to their becoming homeless in the first place. These problems can include poverty as well as dependence on drugs or alcohol but every individual usually has their own unique problems that need to be addressed.
Rehabilitation
Rehabilitating the homeless back into society is a challenging task. Homeless people have no fixed address which means that they are unable to get a bank account, hold down employment, or serve as useful members of the society.
Given the chance and the appropriate levels of support, however, complete rehabilitation is a possibility and is certainly the ultimate goal in any homeless program.
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