For my topic in my group project, I chose to do Homelessness simply because this is a major issue in society. It is considered an issue due to the rising numbers, and the diversity of individuals who play an important role in it. Homelessness can be caused by many different things such as debt, substance abuse, and/or disabilities and millions suffer from this everyday. Disabled veterans make up a majority of the United States’ population of homeless people, and young adults follow close behind due to substance abuse.
My topic of Homelessness ties into the group’s main topic of Powerlessness because when someone becomes homeless, they have no power over their living conditions, as well as their mental state of mind, and physical appearance. Because they may not have any power or control over their lives, they may see crime as their last option of survival. The homeless are not respected and are mistreated quite often because they are misunderstood by those who are more fortunate. It is assumed that most homeless people are just regular people who dress up because of their desperation for money. By dressing up, these people believe they can take advantage of others and receive free money and/or resources such as food and sometimes even clothes.
During our research, my group and I developed a survey of 67 questions, in which around 20 of these questions related to how people feel about the homeless and their impact on society. The questions that were asked contained answer choices that ranged from agreement or disagreement to yes or no. Once we conducted our survey, we published it and advertised it on social media, such as Instagram, Facebook, and the College of Coastal Georgia app. We used social media as our advertising go-to because we felt it was a good way to have more participants from everywhere instead of just students on our campus. By using social media, our group believed that if we have a more diverse amount of people participate, we can have a more diverse amount of answers for each question. As the popular saying goes, “ The more, the merrier”.
Doing our survey has not only brought us together as a group, but it has also allowed us to explore the different topics we researched, and how it all can tie together while being so diverse. While doing our own independent research, we used scholarly articles because they are most accurate. Our group took four articles for each individual topic and put them together so it could lead up to the main topic.
Our goal was to have at least twenty to thirty people complete the survey. Within the two weeks we had our survey open to the public, we proudly had fourth-one participants, but only thirty-four completed the entire survey. A twenty-four of our participants were female, while the other ten were male. Thirty-nine participants were classified as U.S. citizens and two were not. Although our survey was long and ranged between three different topics, we met our goal as a group. Overall, this research has helped bring our group together and helped us see the importance of each topic.