The Obvious Answer To Homelessness Rhetorical Analysis

1560 Words7 Pages

Kalen Kinzell
Professor Fornelli
English 110
22 February 2023
“The Obvious Answer to Homelessness”
Homelessness is one of the biggest problems in society and will only keep getting worse unless something is done about it. Author and writer Jerusalem Demsas wrote, “The Obvious Answer to Homelessness,” in December of 2022. She argues that the most obvious and underlying answer to homelessness is housing scarcity and a shortage of affordable housing. She begins her essay with rhetorical questions and reputable facts and goes into using an analogy to help readers understand her claim and argument. Demsas successfully uses emotional appeals to win over readers at the beginning of the article while also establishing her credibility and trustworthiness …show more content…

One of these sources includes, “the University of Washington professor Gregg Colburn,” and, “the data scientist Clayton Page Aldern” (Demsas 2022). By including this source in her essay, Demsas can support her argument and make it more credible by showing that she has done her homework to provide reliable facts and statistics. Demsas proves that she is trustworthy and credible and shows her knowledge of the topic in her writing. Demsas, an authoritative and knowledgeable writer, is respected by managers from several different writing companies and has written over 20 different stories for several companies, including, “The Obvious Answer to Homelessness.” The author’s tone is knowledgeable, trusting, and optimistic, persuading her audience that housing scarcity has caused homelessness. Demsas uses sources, examples, and appeal to ethos to help make her claim and support her …show more content…

She effectively educated her readers about homelessness at the beginning of her essay and informed them of the ‘obvious answer,’ but she lost her persuasiveness in the conclusion, when she most needed to make her point. Although readers can see that there are homeless people all around the world, her lack of a compelling counterargument and her eventual turn to rage and irritation cause the reader to rethink the issue. She discussed people’s errors, homeless shelters, and failed policies. Demsas’ initial argument—that a lack of cheap housing is the most evident cause of homelessness—could have been made more forcefully and effectively argued in the conclusion. Millions of people around the world have been affected by homelessness, and this amount will keep rising unless it is