Cities Where Homelessness Can Be A Crime

Throughout this paper I will be discussing the issue of homelessness and how it is steadily becoming a more serious problem as time progresses. I will discuss issues that surround homelessness such as the NIMBY, not in my backyard, issue and how it is causing the homeless to not receive the help that they need. This is an issue that needs to change, but due to NIMBYism, it is very difficult create such change.

Homelessness is a growing epidemic across the country. This terrible misfortune has led to many unsuspecting people leading impoverished lifestyles, and facing the horrific and heart-wrenching tragedy of abandonment. The purpose of this essay is to not only persuade the readers to get involved in ending homelessness on local and national efforts, but to embrace new and creative ways of helping to end this rapidly growing problem, by taking action to end this catastrophic situation. Also, I will demonstrate the causes and effects of the homeless resorting to violence, by using comparison and contrast to examine the views and standpoints on helping the forgotten, so that we might end this calamity once and for all. In an increasingly

As the author moved from locale to locale she identified a variety of recurring hardships faced by the working poor. The chief concern for many was housing. Finding and maintaining economical housing was the principal source of disruption in their lives. For many of the working poor it’s not uncommon to spend more than 50% of income on housing. These leaves a scarce amount of money left over for anything else and creates a situation where the person is always worried about losing their shelter. In a nutshell, it’s Ehrenreich’s conviction that wages are too low and rents are too high. She does speak with many individuals who simply cannot afford the high rental rates and are forced to live with family, friends, or in some

Homelessness is one of the oldest problems that exist, fast forward almost 40 years since it’s been recognized as one and still there has been no avail to finding a real solution. The definition of homelessness under the McKinney-Vento Homelessness Assistance Act is defined as an individual: “who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; and a person who has a nighttime residence that is supervised publicly or privately operated shelter, and c) an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized, or a private or public place not designed for, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.”

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that housing is a fundamental component to a decent standard of living, yet few city governments--even in the most developed economies--have proven themselves capable of ensuring such a basic right to their constituents (United Nations, General Assembly). Ranked 49th among the 50 U.S. states for its number of housing units per capita, California has notoriously struggled with chronic shortages in its urban housing market. With 118,142 homeless people recorded in 2016, California holds almost 22% of the nation’s homeless population (Fact Sheet: Homelessness in California 1).

Upon reading the title to the reading “Camping for Their Lives” by Scott Bransford, A lot of images come to mind as they do for many people. Whether it be family outings, military experience or just plain adventure. Scott Bransford takes a good long look at camping in a different way. The author’s topic is about tent cities and their homeless populations. He argues the struggles that they have with little or no help from the government and highlights a location in Central Valley California. The author structures the article well starting off with an example of a married couple that does not have enough money to sign a lease or take out a mortgage. He then goes into the day to day life and difficulties that are accustomed with living as a homeless person. He mentions statistics and the government’s temporary remedies to deal with the homeless population and the complications when imposing restrictions. The author goes into depth about the lack of jobs within the areas but does not go deep into the addictions, the crime networks that operate out of the areas nor the filth associated with enabling these tent cities to pop up.

The number of homeless citizens continues to grow throughout the country as well as the number of police officers being pushed to work the cities. Homeless seek refuge in places like shelters while the police correspondingly are trying to help clear the streets of the homeless. Many times shelters are maxed out with the amount of homeless utilizing these facilities and therefore are left trying to seek other options, whereas the police are forced to try and get the homeless out of sight out of mind on the public. As the police push for the homeless to find somewhere new to live each day the

Adoption of laws and policies that punish homeless people rather than addressing the problems that cause homelessness is an ineffective approach. Penalizing people for engaging in innocent behavior – such as sleeping in public, sitting on the sidewalk, or begging – will not reduce the occurrence of these activities or keep homeless people out of public spaces when they have no other place to sleep or sit or no other means of living. With insufficient resources for shelter and services for homeless people, enforce punishment for unavoidable activities is not only pointless, it is inhumane (Brown,1999, July/August). Relying on law enforcement officials and jails to address homelessness and related issues, such as mental illness and substance abuse, that are more appropriately handled by service providers, causes problems and widespread frustrations within the criminal justice system. Police officers are not adequately trained to respond to the situations that arise, the criminal justice system does not provide the necessary treatment

Homelessness has been a consistent concern since the colonization of the United States and the separation from England. However, despite the desire for new beginnings once arriving in the States, old circumstances remained and an adoption of previous solutions was implemented. The term used for those homeless has transitioned throughout the decades; however, the beginning expression used was vagrants (Levinson & Ross, 2007). This term was given due to the connotation of being “…wanderers without a home, but also likely to participate in criminal activity” (Levinson & Ross, p. 1, 2007). Though this terminology is not as prevalent today, the negative association between homelessness and crime still exists.

Homeless people are already in such a bad state due to having no shelter, but the head of the Western Regional Advocacy Project revealed that homeless people suffer from harassment and punishment for only existing in public. This is brutal towards the people who are already suffering through so much and arresting them for an action they cannot control is absurd. Another report that was provided by the

A place of safety and security is something that many of us take for granted, until we are confronted in our own neighborhood by someone holding up a sign pleading for help. Homelessness is a problem that has been afflicting hundreds of thousands of people around the world for ages. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, on a single night in 2016, 549,928 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States. That means that there were at least 500,000 individuals suffering without a place to lay their heads at night. In this report I will be discussing the causes of homelessness, who is affected, how it affects people, and homeless mistreatment.

Many social problems have been around for ages. It was not until society developed social consciousness that many of these problems became a matter of public policy. The matters of homelessness and domestic abuse are probably the two most prominent social issues within today’s society that have become not only become main stream topics, but also matters of public policy. In John Gresham’s “Somewhere for Everyone”, the author discusses the topic of homelessness from the aspect of someone growing up in small town America during the 60’s and 70’s.

Communities often make more of an effort to chase out or hide the homeless rather than take steps that might eliminate the causes of homelessness. Laws usually include prohibiting loitering in public areas such as parks and train stations. Police officers sometimes take aggressive actions against homeless individuals to enforce homeless regulations (“Dealing With” 8-9). Communities that try to regulate the homeless have a negative impact on public support for rehabilitation programs. Laws that target the homeless support the view that it is not homelessness that is the problem but the people who are affected by it. Money that could be used to fund homeless agencies is instead used to bring homeless citizens to

stink. We give abuse rather than compassion, beatings rather than sympathy and avoiding eye contacts rather than addressing an issue with more vigorous action. It is clear that change must come from within ourselves but the real question is, Are we willing to

From their study, these researchers were able to determine that in “16% of the episodes of incarceration, the inmates were homeless” (pg.840). Their findings also discovered that nuisance offenses like camping without a permit, indecent exposure, and so on were committed by homeless jail inmates than any other inmates (McNiel, Binder, and Robinson, 2005). Although it is evident of the link between being homeless and committing crimes, it is easy to tell that these crimes are not committed out of malice. These individuals are being incarcerated for crimes of