Homelessness: A People Not a Problem 

Many people see homelessness as a problem, something that needs to be solved. Others see homeless people themselves as the problem. They might see them as aggressive drug addicts with mental health issues and might use these stereotypes to dehumanize them. The reality is that homelessness is largely caused by economic crises and high housing prices. People are most commonly put on the streets not by their own failings but because of something outside of their control. It is important for our society to recognize this population not as a problem but as a marginalized people group. In the past there has been a lot of prejudice against homeless people. Additionally, today we know that, contrary to popular belief, homelessness is caused mainly by high housing prices and is exacerbated by systemic racism. Identifying the true cause of homelessness helps us to see these people in a new light.

While homelessness is often cited as this new disease that afflicts our nation, there is actually evidence that homelessness has been a problem for a long time. Back in the day, people called the homeless “tramps” and “hobos”. DePastino says that there has always been homelessness, he says, “It would take a Wall Street crash in September 1873 and five subsequent years of bankruptcies, wage cuts, layoffs, strikes, and mass unemployment—the first international ‘great depression’—to thrust the tramp army to the fore of public consciousness,” (DePastino, 2005, pg. 4). When there is a recession like the one in 1873, it forces people into homelessness. Though homelessness is not new it got a lot worse during the gilded age when job security was low and reliance on a steady paycheck was high (DePastino, 2005, pg. 5). Back in the 1800s, people’s opinions of those homeless were somehow even worse than they are today. “On July 12 , 1877 , the Chicago Tribune advised ‘putting a little strychnine or arsenic in the meat and other supplies furnished to tramps’ as ‘a warning to other tramps to keep out of the neighborhood.’” (DePastino, 2005, pg. 4) Clearly there is some antagonism towards these homeless people. They experienced stigma similar to that of racism. They have been a very marginalized group throughout history. They have been called names. Francis Wayland, the dean of Yale Law school said in a paper he delivered before the American Social Science Association, “As we utter the word Tramp there arises straightway before us the spectacle of a, shiftless, sauntering or swaggering, ill-conditioned, irreclaimable, incorrigible, cowardly, utterly depraved savage.” (Wayland, 1877, qtd. In DePastino, 2005, pg. 4). Opinions of those homeless were very negative. The rise of homelessness was a side effect of the industrialized society that was forming in mid 1800s America. When there were times of economic uncertainty many people were forced onto the streets. This truth is true even today.

Homelessness has not gone away in recent years. In 2020 more than half a million people were experiencing homelessness in the United States. Nearly 160,000 of them were children and nearly 38,000 were veterans (Walters, 2019, qtd. in Kincaid, 2020, pg. 2). That is a lot of homeless people forced to live outdoors and in homeless shelters. According to Carolyn Darley, speaker advocate for the National Coalition for the Homeless, “affordable housing or the lack of it is the number one cause of homelessness” (Darley, 2019, qtd. In Kincaid, 2020, pg. 5) This is opposed to several common stereotypes that claim homelessness is primarily due to laziness or drug abuse. Drug abuse happens to the housed too, not just the homeless. Homeless people experience a lot of prejudice. People assume that people are homeless because of addiction, mental health issues, or other things. This is often used as an excuse to dehumanize them. Nan Roman (2019), president and CEO of National Alliance to End Homelessness says that homelessness is a complicated problem which is being caused by the gap between rental costs and the low-income people earn and is made worse by racism in systems such as the criminal justice system, child welfare, and health systems (qtd. in, Kincaid, 2020, pg. 9). This is why people get put on the streets and stay on the streets. They don’t have enough money to afford the high rent costs prevalent today. In support for the idea that racism contributes to homelessness there is a quote from Nan Roman, “African Americans, Native Americans, and increasingly Hispanic and Latinx people are disproportionately homeless” (Roman, 2019, qtd. in Kincaid, 2020, pg. 10). Luckily there is work being done to end homelessness and to make the homeless experience better. Homeless shelters take in some of the homeless, giving them a place to sleep for the night. Food banks and soup kitchens attempt to feed the poor and homeless, making their struggles a little easier to bear. These resources help take care of the needs of the homeless and there are more programs being proposed all the time. The question is, are we doing enough to help this marginalized people group?

There is no denying that the homeless are a marginalized group of people. They have often experienced stigma as well as many unfavorable stereotypes. Collectively they are treated as outcasts from society. Historically they have been just as marginalized if not more. Homelessness is often made worse by times of economic downturn and rising housing prices. While there is work being done to help the unhoused, the question is: are we doing enough for this vulnerable population?

References

DePastino, T. (2005). Citizen hobo how a century of homelessness shaped America (1st ed.). University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226143804

Kincaid, P. (2020). Homelessness (1st ed.). Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated.