Million Homeless People In California example essay topic

In our current time of economic prosperity in the United States, many people are enjoying greater wealth, higher earnings, and profitable investments. Unemployment rates are reported to be low, and wages high. Yet there is still an extraordinary amount of homeless people living in the United States. In an article entitled "The Criminalization of Homelessness" Celine-Marie Pascale tries to convey how the homeless are being treated unfairly by society. Criminalization might be a little too strong a word to apply to the punishment of homeless people, but Pascale is trying to make a statement about the homeless situation in the United States today. I would like to take a closer look at this article and examine the points she is trying to make.

Pascale begins her article by stating that many U.S. cities are enacting laws which would punish homeless individuals for doing things many 'ordinary' people do all the time. For instance, loitering or sleeping in public (320). She states that the California Homeless and Housing Coalition estimates that there are around a million homeless people in California alone. Eight self governed cities in southern California and at least one city in northern California passed anti-sleeping laws, says Pascale (320). Another law in the city of San Francisco states that it is "illegal to linger for more than 60 seconds within 30 feet of an automatic teller in use" (321). The city of San Francisco spent a lot of time and money to arrest 15 people for begging in 1993 and Pascale alleges that there are several other major cities in the U.S. with similar laws (321).

According to Pascale, Berkeley uses trespassing laws and loitering laws to keep people off the sidewalks and away from places like parks and laundromats. And in Santa Cruz you can be arrested for sitting on a sidewalk, sleeping outside, or even sleeping in a car (321). Pascale asserts that the reason for these laws is to protect the businesses located around these areas. She also says that "no one wants to run a gantlet of panhandlers to get to a boutique or step over people sleeping on the sidewalk to buy a cappuccino" (321).

And for that reason, most business owners think it reflects badly on them if there are homeless people loitering or sleeping in front of their store (321). Pascale points out that, in general, most people believe that it is the individual's fault that they are homeless and has nothing to do with society (322). She also states that these laws are made to benefit the lucky people with houses rather than helping with the problem of homelessness. Pascale concludes her article by citing another law the city of Berkeley is considering; an individual can only carry one shopping bag full of their own personal possessions (322). Pascale used quite a few statistics and cited all of her sources.

The article is, for the most part, fairly credible and there is no doubt as to its validity. Her aim is to persuade people that it isn't right to punish homeless people by establishing a bunch of laws to keep them from bothering the rest of us. One main point of her argument is that we have a problem with homelessness in this country and we are not going in the right direction in trying to fix the problem. Pascale also points out that there are far more homeless people than there are shelters for. The problem is a lot bigger than we can handle. I think she makes her point very well that homeless people are starting to be treated differently than they have in the past.

She gave several examples, but they could have been a little more clear and maybe had some more details. For instance, the group of people that were arrested in Santa Cruz by riot police while they were eating free soup could have been drunk, or maybe they were disturbing the peace. It's hard to believe that riot police would be called out to arrest someone for eating on a public sidewalk, just because they were homeless. If they were arrested just because they were homeless, she should " ve stated that they weren't doing anything against the law before the police were called.

That would have fortified her point that homeless people are not being treated fairly by showing the prejudice against the homeless. I agree with Pascale that homelessness is a problem that we are not dealing with in the right way. There are millions of homeless people in the U.S. right now and that number increases every year. Obviously we need to do something different to help these people. I also believe that, in general, it's easier for society to accept the fact that we have a problem with criminals in the United States than it is to accept the fact that there are millions of homeless people living here. Everyone knows that there are criminals out there, and maybe your next door neighbor is one of them.

But it doesn't seem to bother us as bad as homeless people do, maybe because what we don't know won't hurt us. It might not be plainly clear that there are criminals right under your nose, but homeless people scattered here and there is definitely noticeable and it bothers most people. I disagree with Pascale that the homeless are being "criminalized". I don't believe that being homeless is a crime by any means, it is a tragedy that anyone has to live without a home. But I do believe in the laws that the cities she talks about have established.

Homeless people have the same effect in our culture as litter in a city park. I believe that homelessness is infecting our country like a virus and we need to resort to stronger measures to rectify the problem. If laws will keep these poverty stricken souls away from mainstream society then I'm all for it. But that's not all we need to do.

We could take half of the billions of dollars we lend other countries every year and make sure there are enough shelters for the homeless. We need to fix our own problems before we go and try to fix other countries' problems. Also, impoverished people without a home should have the same opportunities as those with drug or alcohol problems. There should be a shelter they could go to just like there are rehabilitation centers for addicts. That's just one idea to allow the future system to take care of the homeless problem more effectively. There are a couple more problems with the present system.

If a person does work, and is still homeless, that is one thing. But if a person is homeless because they refuse to find work, that's another. It's hard to believe that a portion of the homeless population can't find a job that will at least cover the rent and pay for food. There is always work out there for those who want it. Another problem, in my opinion, is the prison system. Many people who can't seem to handle life's challenges turn to crime just so they can go to prison because prison is an easy way out for them.

You get free housing and free food for as long as you are there. Although this is not the case in many situations, there are some who would find this arrangement appealing. In "The Criminalization of Homelessness", Pascale does a fair job of showing her audience that homeless people are not being treated very well. She informs us of the problem by giving cited statistics and specific examples, but she could have included more details to make her point stronger. Webster's dictionary defines a criminal as someone who is found guilty of a serious offense by violating the law.

Homelessness is far from a serious offense, and it is far from being treated as a serious offense. But she is right that we need to change the way we handle the homeless. In my opinion, Pascale's article was more of an informative essay on the laws of some cities than a serious article about the problem in this nation concerning homelessness.

Bibliography

Begrens, Laurence; Rosen, Leonard J. Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. 7th ed. New York, Longman, 2000.320-322.