The real problem with how society deals with the homeless, I believe, is the social system itself. America has always been a place where society in general believed that we put ourselves in our own predicaments. So instead of helping the homeless, we have a school of thought that believes that the reason that people are homeless is their own behavior. As “Hidden City” explains that there is one philosophy that believes that homelessness is  caused by the attitude and the lack of character of the homeless, while others believe that the true problem is a lack of affordable places to live and a lack jobs with wages that support that rent. The bottom line is that we need to stop just thinking about personal choice being the only cause of homelessness and consider other factors such as: the presence of mental illness, a lack of family ties, the gap between the cost of living and the lack of jobs to meet those needs, just plain bad luck or just a combination of these things (Kleniewski 233). And as society’s thoughts on homelessness and its causes change, perhaps it would be easier to create policies that attack the causes of homelessness and not the individuals who are homeless.

Question: If we change society’s view of the causes of homelessness, would it be easier to enact policies that try to aid those who are homeless instead of enacting policies that try to hide the appearance of homelessness in every day urban life?