Bums: A Short Story

Homelessness is a social crisis that has stayed with us throughout our history. There was an increase in the number of homeless people in the 1980s due to housing and social service cuts increasing. In Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg’s, “Righteous Dopefiend,” being homeless is just one of the many problems that encompass their day to day reality. The two anthropologists assimilate themselves in the homeless community and observe the hardships that come from living on the streets and drug addiction. A better understanding is attained through their ethnographic research and details of the homeless’ lives can be used to further our knowledge and help in solving society’s problems. This ethnography shows

Many people today face oppression, leaving them hurt and filled with misery. They’d often think, “Why? Why me?” In this text, Guin states, ‘"I will be good," it says. "Please let me out. I will be good!" They never answer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, "eh-haa, eh-haa," and it speaks less and less often.”’ Within this so-called “perfect” environment the people of Omelas live in, there’s a menacing aroma. The citizen’s joyous lifestyle’s feed from the suffering of one feeble-minded child hidden in a cellar, bruised and terrified. The child assumes that it’s done wrong, because if it didn’t,

Chapter 1, “Intimate Apartheid”, introduces one to the group of homeless people living on Edgewater Blvd. It dives into the racialized micro-geography of homeless encampments and how segregation plays a key role within the lumpen. However, the authors do reveal moments where the racial hierarchy is trumped by the “moral economy” of street life.

A suburban life is a paradise full of shopping, colorful gardens, and well-groomed homes. Despite all these benefits, a suburban life is an isolated life. People living in suburbs are rarely exposed to miseries in society. One of these conflicts is homelessness. When living in an environment surrounded by homes, individuals often have difficulty imagining not being able to sleep in a warm bed, eat a proper meal or even receive necessary medical attention. This grim situation is depicted in the writings of Jeannette Walls. In the autobiography The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls accurately portrays homelessness by explaining its causes, its impact upon daily life, and its effect on victimized families.

The setting of a rundown house in a poor neighborhood gives the impression of their struggle to survive as African Americans. The shabbiness of the exterior suggests their low social status. “A relatively recent addition to the house and running its full width, the porch lacks congruence. It is a sturdy porch with a flat roof. One or two chairs of dubious value sit at one end where the kitchen window opens on to the porch. An old fashioned ice box stands silent guard at the opposite end” (Wilson, setting description). While the newly added porch may represent an attempt to

20; Levi, Rosenthal & Bailey 2013, 241). In the case of the Edgewater homeless, this photo ethnography urges the reader to move beyond base simplistic assumptions and stigma surrounding the community and move towards a greater understand of how large coercive constraints interact with intimate behaviour, and how this contributes to, and continue to contribute to, the Edgewater homeless circumstances and suffering (Bourgois & Schonberg 2009, p.20). Bourgois and Schonberg (2009, pp. 20, 318) state that the Edgewater Boulevard is home to the social pariahs who have hit rock bottom, fleeing and expelled from family, the labour force and government services, and all the while blaming themselves for their fate. It is the gray zone that justifies this self-condemnation and where interpersonal violence and betrayal can fester, playing out between loved ones or themselves (Bourgois & Schonberg 2009, p. 318). Bourgois and Schonberg (2009, p. 318) state that it is this everyday spectacle of gray zone behaviour that obscures impact of long-term social forces and legitimizes purposefully hostile or dysfunctional government policies towards the poor.

of this can be seen from the very first page of her book. Here, she begins to tell the story of traveling back to her old neighborhood, only to find it to be “a distinctly poorer one” than it was in her childhood days (1). To recreate the image for her readers, she presents them with a picture of what she compares to be likened to “a third-world country” She explains that “some of the stores had “rusted iron bars across their windows” while other businesses had been closed down and nailed up. She tells of several houses in the area having “boarded-up windows” and “graffiti, broken glass, and trash” strewn about, even though it appeared people were still living there. By painting a picture for her audience the author is able to virtually take them to the very road she once

When passing through a poor neighborhood, have you ever thought, “this place is dangerous.” even though you just see what’s on the surface? The dirty buildings, run down stores, and unkempt roads persuade us to perceive that neighborhood in a negative light, but you might do this unconsciously because ever since we were young, socioeconomic status is what separates the “good”, from the “bad”. Sandra Cisneros’, House on Mango Street, shows us how harmful having a previous notion of a place or person can be. In the novel, we meet Esperanza Cordero, a girl whose parents never strived above the working class. Because of their low income, they are forced to move into neglected homes on the verge of crumbling, their final stop being Mango

Savannah Georgia (GA) is home to a beautiful historic downtown area. The city of Savannah’s population is 145,674 people as of 2015 (US Census, 2016). On the periphery are abandoned or rundown residential areas. These areas are surrounded by various residential streets and businesses. Regrettably, Savannah has many homeless people living within these areas. Often they remain hidden in the woods just off the interstate where they live in tents. This area has been dubbed “Tent City” by the local population, and local news outlets. Savannah’s homeless citizens are the primary subjects of the vulnerable population. The purpose of this paper is to indicate the homeless as a vulnerable population

The homeless and addicts have been stratified to the bottom of the social ladder. They are thought to be deviants therefore as a society we are taught to ignore and despise them and disregard their needs. Bourgeois and Schonberg’s 10-year study, Righteous Dopefiend, follows the lives of heroin addicted homeless folk living on Edgewater Boulevard. The Edgewater homeless recognize that those with economic capital have a responsibility in caring for their needs thus they embrace their worthiness in society. As a result of this they label themselves as “righteous dopefiends” (2009, p. 5). Bourgeois and Schonberg show how structural violence has affected the Edgewater homeless, such as self-blame, lack of access to quality medical care and what

violent and vulgar as we catch them consistently using foul language. They live in a slum that is decaying, crumbling and full of garbage, not by choice, but forced by humans. The aliens are ostracized and barred from most businesses and those humans who live in near proximity to the aliens want more distance. They are the enemy. We are also introduced to the ‘Nigerians’ who barter with the Prawns for weaponry in exchange for cat food. The Nigerians have a “witch doctor” who advises them to eat the aliens, which they do. We also learn

Not every homeless person is to blame for the condition that they are in. It was a clear, sunny, and cold morning during my second visit to Woodruff Park on Saturday. To my surprise, the same couple was sitting by the same exact bench as the last morning. Firstly, I was confused by how this couple looked wretched, but both the man and the woman were smoking cigarettes. The couple was alone, so I decided to approach them. Moreover, I introduced myself and told the homeless couple the purpose of this interview. Without any doubt in my mind, I wanted to comprehend what made the homeless couple suffer in this condition. After asking the homeless couple why they have been on the streets, Andre quickly claimed that they cannot find a home that is

“ Umm we kinda forgot to bring a dollar to get in.” I answered back

The story’s first paragraph starts with family existing by a man, his wife, their grandmother, and their son. They live in the suburb, in a city, in South Africa under the apartheid system. The separation between blacks and whites are huge, and every family in the suburb is secured in any possible way. No one from the outside is allowed in. Even though the husband keeps telling his wife that “these people were not allowed into the suburb except as reliable housemaids and gardeners, so there was nothing to fear” (Gordimer 12), the family keeps developing their safety equipment, in case something could happened. The irony is that the family has no idea what is happening outside the fence. They call them “these people” (Gordimer 12) as if they don’t even know that they look like. Gradually