Why negative stereotypes have been created for the homeless? Many people in society are afraid to acknowledge the homeless. The homeless represent and bring out fear in many people’s everyday lives and it becomes very convenient to place the homeless in a stereotype to understand and make sense of their place in society. Stereotyping the homeless only brings the issues of how to treat and improve the homeless condition, understanding the often complex problem related to homelessness, further away from the Masses. A stigma is created clouding the issue.
Governmentality can also be about how a person and their self governance can effect them. Self governance seems to be the reason that the people of the Edgewater homeless community are living this way. The main problems lie within themselves; not being able to take accountability for their own actions seems to be a common factor among each of the lumpen people observed by Bourgois and Schonberg. The ways of life of these people are different than those of what society considers normal in an almost endless number of ways. Bourgois and Schonberg observe what they initially believe to be homosexual relationships in the Edgewater community.
Even I cannot get a good health care here, how about the homeless? Can’t believe that, there are too much homeless here. When you walk through the downtown of many cities in California, like San Francisco you can see homeless people everywhere. Usually they sit on the street and begging for changes from people. The only thing they have might be just a piece of blanket or a weak dirty dog.
My best educated guess as to how society may feel is that the homeless are categorized into a state of being: dirty, unkempt, ragged, alcoholics able wash themselves, unable to clean their teeth, and that they live on streets; and my opinions are perhaps validated by the comments of others. To further explain, society views homeless people as being unkempt, that their ability to keep themselves groomed and presentable has neglected them. Also we see them living on the street in which many may feel sorry or remorse towards them because many look young and we tend to ask ourselves they should be capable of finding a job. Although in contrast, society does not see or truly understand what it feels like to live a life of poverty or most importantly does not take into consideration the harmful effects it has on the homeless. Poverty attacks your own self-worth or self-esteem and your personal belief system about who you are and questions your value to society.
(Baumohl, 2001) Some people felt like homelessness was caused by heavy drinking, drug abuse, and mental problems. Because of the new policies the government made, these people were not allowed to be housed in hospitals and jails. “Homelessness was described mainly as a problem in the rehabilitation and control of troubled and troublesome people who were not only houseless but barred from their traditional institutional shelters and estranged from family and friends who might take them in”. (Baumohl, p.
Siara Reyes 12/29/13 Homelessness Homelessness describes the condition of people without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are most often unable to acquire and maintain regular, safe, secure, and adequate housing, or lack "fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence." The legal definition of "homeless" varies from country to country, or among different entities or institutions in the same country or region. The term homeless may also include people whose primary night-time residence is in a homeless shelter, a warming center, a domestic violence shelter, cardboard boxes or other ad hoc housing situations. American Government homeless enumeration studies also include persons who sleep in a public or private place
Mayor Schell knew that being in a homeless facility was only short-term fix. His goal was to have those individuals take advantage of services that were being offered to them such as employment services and transitional housing (Norton, 2010). • Be more proactive in preventing homelessness. There could be over 1,300 people that would be homeless on any night in Seattle and 700 of those are families. The lack of affordable housing is one of the main reasons for the increasing numbers of homeless people in Seattle.
More people are becoming homeless but more services are not being provided for them. Shelters are forced to turn people away because of overcrowding or lack of resources. Unfortunately the laws make it hard for those who are turned away. Many laws across the country are in place that prohibit sleeping in public places, or that allow the homeless to be removed from certain locations. These laws make the necessities of being homeless criminal.
Research, shelters, law enforcement, health care, programs, jails and countless labor hours are focused on the problem. The HUD director in an interview stated that cost less money to actually house a person than to continue to support them while they are homeless. (Donovan, 2012) What are the causes of homelessness? The causes of homelessness are lack of affordable housing, unemployment, poverty, mental illness, substance abuse, domestic violence, and teen displacement to name a few. One of the leading causes across the board is lack of affordable housing.
According to the Homeless Resource Network (2007) some of the current reasons for homelessness are loss of jobs, declines in public assistance, post traumatic stress disorder (many veterans are homeless because of this), domestic violence, drug and alcohol problems, mental illness, and lack of affordable housing. Some people struggle with a few of these issues, some struggle with a combination or some even struggle with all of them. Let’s look into some of these issues further. The National Coalition for the Homeless published a fact sheet in August 2007 stating that lack of employment opportunities and a decline in public assistance are major contributors of homelessness. Declining wages have put affordable housing out of reach for many.