On The Homeless Summary

In the literature I found, some of the articles talk about how people view the homeless and panhandlers. In The Stigma of Homelessness, Phelan et al. finds that a poor man described as homeless is viewed more harshly than a described as domiciled (332). It is viewed more negatively that a man is homeless than just poor. Although people sometimes view the homeless negatively Tompsett et al. found in this article Homelessness in the United States “ most other Americans remain concerned about homelessness and may be supportive of policy changes and structurally targeted interventions,” (60). In the articles I saw a connection to how people view the homeless and if they were willing to support policies that help them. A common view is that exposure

In the article Are the Homeless to Blame? Lee and Lewis feel that excuse is very important on how people see homeless people but they did see that other demographic like party affiliation played a part on how people say the homeless (536). Other articles say that ideology was influencing how people viewed the homeless. People that conservative or in the republican party are more likely to think that homelessness is caused by individuals. In the article Humanizing the Homeless Knecht and Martinez conducted their research by giving a pre and post survey to volunteers in a one day event to help the homeless (521). The researchers say improvement in the ways the volunteers viewed the homeless.There was not much of change on how the volunteers viewed policies, the researchers felt that it is difficult to change ideology (Knecht and Martinez 531). In the article Public Beliefs About the Causes of Homelessness also noticed that there was a relationship between politically conservative and leaning towards individualistic views and politically liberal had stronger view that outside forces were at fault of homelessness ( Lee, Jones and Lewis