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Homeless People Research Paper

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With the prevalence of media’s image of homeless people, everyday Americans have rationalized homeless people as lazy, unmotivated, and “grouchy” individuals. American television shows targeted to young children such as Sesame Street have incorporated stereotypical dialogue regarding homeless individuals such as “grouch”. Furthermore, politicians see homeless people as dead-end citizens that cannot be changed. Overall, the stereotypes regarding homeless people paint a picture of individuals as being hopeless, lazy, and incompetent members of society. The contributing factors for such stereotypes come from historical events that illustrate the origins of homelessness in America.
The number of homeless people is growing and many Americans are …show more content…

These African American slave workers at the time of 1865 were displaced from their current jobs and quickly became unemployed. Many of the wealthy southern landowners could not afford to pay their slaves a living wage (Williams 21). This caused an influx of African Americans to migrate to the north to seek employment and shelter (Williams 25). However, due to industrial revolution and arguably discrimination many of these African American were unable to find proper shelters and jobs to support their families. Many of such African Americans started to live on the streets and created “ghettos” which are still present today in parts of northern America like Harlem, Brooklyn, and Chicago (Williams 28). The outcome of homeless people due to the abolition of slavery created negativity. Many people saw and treated homeless African Americans as “third-rate citizens”. Soon this type of treatment led to segregation and Jim Crow laws being established (Williams 29). With the image of homeless people, being associated with slavery caused certain media stereotypes to depict and associate homeless people as being African

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Dennis P. Culhane’s “path-breaking” study of turnover rates in shelters in New York City and Philadelphia, which produced an unduplicated count of the actual number of homeless people in city shelter systems over a period of time, revealed that three percent of Philadelphia’s population used the public shelter system between 1990 and 1992, and that three percent of New York’s population received shelter during the same period. The work of Culhane’s and others conclusively demonstrated that homelessness was a much more widespread problem than the government had previously acknowledged. A recent study now estimates that between 700,000 to 800,000 people are homeless each night and that between 2.3 to 3.5 million people are homeless each year.

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Homeless people are viewed as the rats and inferior people in society; often ignored and looked down upon, homeless people have the deficit of not being able to have many of the comforts in life that we may have. This is not only hurting our society morally, but it also helps us economically since there are people that aren’t buying/selling things or working. This is a major issue, since in the meanwhile, we as a society are throwing away things that still have worth or can be used. This is elaborately described in Eighner’s essay “On Dumpster Diving,” where he narrates his life of homelessness, detailing the struggling and analytical life of homelessness. During his narration, he emphasizes the fact that he has been able to survive due to

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According to Aykanian and Lee (2016) individuals who are homeless are often “common targets of policing when their behavior, especially behavior performed in public spaces, is viewed as offensive and deviant” (p. 184). A related point to consider is that some who experience homelessness do engage in criminal activities, but one shall not combine all members in a generalization. Hence, the image of having individuals who are homeless is not ideal for the people in communities, but it does not take into account people who are experiencing

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We’ve all been down on our luck before, but some are dealt a worse hand than others. Usually in these situations no one is to blame, and yet this mode of thinking doesn’t seem to extend to the homeless: a person becomes homeless due to their poor decisions. But why do we blame homeless people for being homeless? Negative stereotypes regarding homelessness are pervasive in our culture. In today’s society, it is too easy to look down upon those who’ve lost their houses and livelihoods.

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The issue of homelessness in America has been evident since the early 1600’s. Across the country men, women and children spend their nights on the streets not knowing when or if they will ever find a permanent home. States and federal officials or city councils have tried to alleviate or at least reduce the number of homeless over the last several decades at a city, state or national level but it continues to be an ongoing problem. There is a multitude of factors that account for the growing homeless population that affects each state in the country differently. Though there are many contributing factors that contribute to the amount of people living on the street at any given night in the U.S.

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