Over-Population

During one year’s time over 1.35 million children are homeless and on any one given day 200,000 children are homeless. The reasons differ but one of the main reasons is the overpopulation of children by parents who do not want them or lose them to the state for other reasons. These children did not ask to be brought into this world; therefore they should not have to go through part of their life with no parents to raise them. This could be prevented if the proper assistance was given to people who have children that don’t want them. Many times adults and teens have a “one night stand” and it ends up with them having a life altering choice to make. In 1996 there were 1,221,585 recorded abortions in America alone; if you combine that with the number of homeless children in any given year that is more than 2.5 million children that somebody lost for one reason or another. The country needs a plan to help keep these numbers under control. There are many families that are homeless which puts children out on the streets. These children have a tough time because they are more likely to get sick and need medical attention. The problem is that the parents have no money and no way of helping their children get medical help.

The question is “How do we get these outrageous numbers under control?” There are several factors that can help lower these numbers drastically but they require attention and awareness. First, we would need to develop better ways for low-income people and teenagers to obtain contraceptives. Now one might stop me to ask why I would say teenagers when they should not be having sex at all, but the truth is that it will happen whether anyone wants to believe it or not and if you spend all of your time trying to make it stop it will just make them want to hide it. When they hide what they are doing it makes it harder for them to carry things like contraceptives or for females to take birth control. Parents need to be aware that it may happen and although they don’t condone it they should not force their children to make the decision to have to hide it from them. With that being said there should be better accessibility for contraceptives and birth control. It needs to be available in areas where these people can get to. Things like bars, night clubs, and convenience stores’ handing out free contraceptives doesn’t seem like a bad idea if it could cut the number of abortions and homeless children in half every year. Or maybe more public health departments should go into low income areas so that the people don’t have a difficult time getting there.

Another factor that contributes to overpopulation of homeless children is bad parents. There are many parents that don’t care for their children properly which results in the state taking the child(ren) away. Then there are many parents who commit crimes that put them in jail, which results in the child having to be taken by the state, if there is no immediate family willing to take care of the child. So how can we lower the numbers that are created by these types of parents? We need to raise awareness about the different types of help that they can obtain through non-profit organizations and government funded programs. Many people don’t realize that they have options to help them raise their children. There are many organizations that are willing to help get people back onto their feet and start a new life. When these parents are incarcerated they should give them a special opportunity to take parenting classes and to meet with different organizations that can help them get their life back on track and their children back. Another way to help people would be to have a mandatory display of pamphlets and phone numbers in all hospitals so that new parents can see that they are options to help them out if they are in need.

With all of these ideas in mind it would seems like all we would have to do is implement the plans and watch things get better by the day, but the reality is that many people don’t want help and many people are scared to ask for help or to let people know about their personal business. Then there is the group of people who take advantage of the help that is available and try to suck every free thing out of it that they can. To help avoid these things there should be several steps along the way that help ensure that the right people receive help and that no single person is taking more than they should be allotted. Even though many people will still try and probably get away with it, there will be a substantial amount of people that won’t want to chance getting into trouble. To help make each step happen this entire program should be overseen by the government throughout the country and each state should have its own branch that oversees each county. This way the whole process is being run at the same standards