“Criminalizing Homelessness” and “The Homeless” provide an academic and anthropological perspective, as the articles define specific terms used in the field and political arena, when discussing homelessness. The brevity of both articles is admirable. Together, the two articles list four major ways homeless is criminalized, provide solutions and give a brief overview of housing policy change in the 70s and 90s.

“Hidden City”, by contrast, provides the “human” perspective, on homelessness, with anecdotes and quotes from NYC’s homeless residents. The back and forth between Markee, Brosnahan and Gibbs was well delivered, reading like a political debate, staged for an audience of one: the reader. By comparison, the remainder of the article was poorly delivered. Frazier fails to cite any credible sources and uses phrases like “more than”, “probably” and “hundreds’ rather than whole integers, when delivering statistical information. Perhaps the most upsetting is Frazier’s habit of putting statistics in terms of the size of football stadiums. This comparison may appeal to some readers but for others, this method fails to address the sad, widespread reality of homelessness.

Question: As of February 2015, what is DeBlasio’s public housing agenda?

The reading Criminalizing Homelessness honestly shocked me. I never knew that homeless people were treated so harshly and viewed as criminals. The fact that they are already left with basically nothing seems bad enough why make their life worse by terrorizing them? Furthermore, wouldn’t committing a crime and going to jail, where they will be fed and given a place to sleep, seem like a better option then living on the streets? On the other hand, it is understandable that a city wants to look presentable and clean especially to those out of town.  Reading The Homeless section the situation seemed better and that the issue was being solved in a way. However, Hidden City proved that wrong by providing that the assistance the homeless are receiving actually isn’t helpful at all. This article showed how much money was being spent by the government to keep the homeless in shelters without actually helping them at all. I was once again shocked that there wasn’t an efficient solution for this problem. Is there a better solution to prevent homelessness and help those who already are homeless, since the government can’t just give them money even though they’re spending much more than needed.

The two passages from Cities, Change & Conflict discuss the ways in which cities criminalize the homeless and also the various reasons why people become homeless. I felt upset while reading the first passage and learning about the laws created to force the homeless to relocate elsewhere and the punishments they receive for trying to survive. These laws and regulations are not solving the problem of homelessness, but are only trying to conceal it. Focusing more on finding the reasons why homelessness is increasing and trying to decrease the number of people living in the streets should be every city’s first priority.

The passage “The Homeless“ mentions that mental health, high rent, low income, and low employment opportunities are all contributing factors that lead to homelessness. Some ways to help those with no homes is to open more shelters, provide jobs, and have counseling available. Lowering the cost of housing is also important. Big cities have high rates of homelessness because of this reason. I think it is unfair that there is a lot of vacant housing that is not being used to help those with no homes. If these issues are not resolved, the homelessness rate will only continue to increase.

Do you think that the homelessness rate in cities will decrease soon or will it continue being a problem in the next decade?

All three of this week’s readings deal with the homelessness problem facing New York City. I was surprised to find that homelessness in the city has reached startlingly high numbers, primarily because it is simply not a topic currently in public discussion. Of course, the astronomical costs of NYC rent is astonishing, and there is even talk of gentrification and its myriad destructive effects (i.e. homelessness), but the numbers and conditions of the New York City homeless is not being properly addressed.

As always, this issue is not being solved or approached effectively due to the misuse of government funds. The fact is that we live in a capitalist society, wherein the livelihood of many is often sacrificed for the profits of a few. This is where many admirable efforts often fail- force of will and moral righteousness can seldom withstand political machines that stand to gain money or support. What are some previous examples of grassroots movements that have overcome political corruption? What incentives can be offered to landlords to make opening vacant properties worthwhile?

It’s hard to argue with the numbers – current strategies for dealing with homelessness are not working. The current tactic of trying to outlaw homelessness resembles the almost cartoon-like strategy of trying to clean your room by cramming all of the clutter in one closet. Of course, this strategy can only work for so long before the closet begins to overflow and eventually burst, which is the same problem New York and other cities are facing. New York has more homeless now than it ever has, and it’s rapidly becoming less practical to try and simply remove them. What’s troubling is that a very clear and simple solution has been staring New Yorkers in the face for quite some time – a massive quantity of vacant rooms. Currently, there are no laws or rules which encourage or incentivize  private landowners to offer their empty rooms to people in desperate need of shelter.
Why is this? It would likely be very easy to use the money currently being spent to relocate and remove the homeless on something like a tax break being offered to property owners who offer genuine help to the homeless.

Umar Ibn Al-Khattab once stated, “If poverty was a man, I would have slain him.” There is a huge disparity in the way income is distributed in the United States. Due to this homelessness and poverty has become a huge problem. By criminalizing homelessness, like the law in Tucson that is “against sitting or lying on the sidewalks” and attempting to privatize sidewalks, these laws just aggravate rather than improve the homeless situation. The homeless situation cannot be ignored or sent away by using a one-way bus ticket. Instead the cities should address the homeless situation by implementing long lasting strategies, for instance in Miami, Florida, there is a one percent sales tax on restaurant meals that is given to homeless trust fund. Also, some of the poor and homeless have spent time in jail, once they leave the prison they have harder time to rejoin society and acquire a job. However, if cities spend more time and effort on rehabilitating, schooling, and employing the homeless then perhaps the homeless problem will be placated. By criminalizing homelessness, cities will only invert the issue.

Why aren’t our tax dollars spent on improving the community issues?

In “Criminalizing Homelessness”, the article discusses how some cities characterize homelessness as a crime and treat it the way any other crime should be dealt with-through laws, while other cities attempt to prevent homelessness through more positive approaches like establishing shelters, providing soup kitchens…etc. In many cities, like NYC both approaches to homelessness have been deployed. While NYC does offer soup kitchens and free clinics, they also have established laws that criminalize homelessness. For example, on many subways, there are clear signs posted urging subway riders not to provide money to beggars. Some cities take harsher approaches to homelessness like in Long Beach, California where “officials pick up homeless people under vagrancy laws, drive them out of town and then leave them there; they also offer homeless people one-way bus tickets to other locations.” These policies view homelessness as a choice, when those who are homeless do not choose to be. Most of the homeless population in NYC and elsewhere suffer from mental disorders like schizophrenia that do not allow them to hold down a job or live a normal life.

Question-What has been the most successful method implemented by any city to diminish and/or prevent homelessness to date?

I have passed countless buildings on the way to school each day, that had boarded up windows and doors. It never occurred to me that these buildings weren’t boarded up because they were unlivable, but because the private owners were waiting for prices to rise in order to sell/rent the apartments. It is absolutely absurd that corporations and people could be that greedy; depriving thousands of New Yorkers of a place to call home, as Picture the Homeless has shown. I don’t know much about economics and how much saving a couple dozen apartments could profit an owner, but this practice needs to be fixed. In a way, the city is losing money because it is making shelters for the homeless and providing other such services. If owners of these boarded-up apartments would just have a little bit of compassion, it would benefit the entire city for sure. It’s not like opening up affordable housing is a complete loss (again, I am no economic guru). The rent from these newly opened spaces would provide a steady income, and the city could direct the funds used for homeless benefits to provide for other services to further improve the city.

Questions: Should there be an incentive for owners to open up their boarded up housing? If so, what possible incentives could be provided?

For me, it would only be appropriate to begin my response by asking a pending question, what’s keeping cities from creating more programs that could benefit those who are currently unable to pay for a home. Just like expressed in the reading, “communities have the choice of turning the homeless into criminals or attempting to address homelessness as a community problem”, why can’t we do the latter, if it only takes charging 1% tax on restaurant meals to raise $6 million a year to provide supportive services for the homeless. Little changes like that can be made to have a greater impact in the end. I think one major factor that can perhaps change the way things are being dealt with is by changing out way of thinking about the problem. As I was reading the part that describes the way officials are criminalizing these people, I had to stop and think—what if the legislators or the officials, the people that propose and enforce the different “types of approaches”, put themselves in the shoes of those that have nothing, but that are willing to escape their misery? Would things be different then? Would our mentality as a society be altered at all? But, again, the problem is a lot more complex than that…

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?