Homeless people across the country are excluded from the workforce when the prospective employer finds their address or the lack of it. Above all, the belief that homeless people have substance addiction, criminal records and a lack of desire to earn a living prevails in our society. This is more or less the definition of being homeless. The lack of an address can be a major obstacle to finding work.
Many don't have a mailing address they can use for job applications, nor do they have the address of a post office box, church, or mission. Irregular addresses in job applications discourage employers. Don't be fooled; many employers would never consider a homeless person for a job opening. They have the same misconceptions about them as everyone else.
To overcome this problem, some lie on requests or look for a friend at home to give them an address, but this presents its own problems. If they discover this lie, most employers aren't very understanding. Many people become addicted to drugs and not just because they are left homeless. Addictions prevent them from looking for work and being hired.
However, the perception that all homeless people are drug addicted offenders is arguably a greater barrier to their employment than actual drug addiction. There's no doubt that addiction causes many people to remain homeless, but it's by no means the only reason why all homeless people are homeless or why they don't work. Many employers assume that homeless people are addicted. Not all homeless people are addicted to drugs, but most believe so, including employers.
Most people think this is the main reason why homeless people can't get jobs, and it may be true for many chronically homeless people. There's no doubt that addiction causes many people to remain homeless, but it's by no means the reason why all homeless people are homeless or why they don't work. Having been almost there in 1991, due to medical problems, and having worked with many other people in the same situation for years, I must say that for the vast majority of homeless people, the assumption that they are lazy is totally wrong and their elected officials know this in this city. However, only 13 of those arrested were homeless; the remaining 63 arrests were people doing business in the Elm Street establishments that created those crimes and not the homeless population.
To better support employers and employees, a study found that homeless youth require strong partnerships between employers and agencies that provide services to young people. Being homeless in a city with a low homeless population is easier than being homeless in a city with a large number of people. JB — In many larger cities, these types of programs have extremely long waiting lists and sometimes prioritize people struggling with drug addiction before healthy, clean people who are simply unlucky, contributing to the cycle of drug abuse and homelessness. Employment is just one component of the broader set of strategies to end homelessness through collaboration and coordination in several sectors.
Kylyssa Shay was homeless for more than a year in her youth, leading her to become a homeless activist. That strange and smelly drifter who shouts nonsense at bystanders or hits his head against a building is disabled because of his mental illness. Of that large number, 248 of them urgently need services on a daily basis and 150 of them are teenagers here in Manchester who are homeless just because they came out of the closet and their parents have shied away from their responsibility to care for them because of it. In Toronto, Eva's Phoenix Print Shop is a social enterprise that offers a job training program for homeless and at-risk youth.
You hear people say that homeless people are simply lazy, but can you imagine someone saying to themselves, “I don't want to work”?. Homeless people can't find a place to live until they get a job, but they can't get a job until they have a place to live. . .
