Blogger #1

Christian Quintero
Professor Reyes
English A
1 November 2015

Homelessness Article

Homelessness in California has been a growing issue in the United States. So much in fact that the state of California is now in a “State of Emergency” due to the issue of the homeless population in our California cities. The time to help these people is now. Every day we see an individual that is homeless but are afraid to reach out or afraid to approach because of some of the stereotypes that society has placed on the homeless. Some of the stereotypes include that they are alcoholics, criminals, drug abusers, or they are mentally ill. All of these are stereotype threats towards the homeless in the way that they falsely label all of the homeless to be one or more than one of those stereotypes. It creates an unknown fear towards them for the reason that society has made them out to be a certain way. They are people just like you and I but how many times do we walk past a homeless person and not even acknowledge them. Does anybody really deserve to be treated that way?
According to a 2011 count, the homeless population in just the city of Los Angeles was an estimated 26,000. That includes men, woman, teens, senior citizens, veterans, and even some children. Only about two thirds are actually sheltered. That leaves about another 8,000 people that do not have a home and are barely getting enough in life to get by. The city of Los Angeles has declared its state of emergency. Since 2013 the homeless population has grown 12% and seems to not be slowing down anytime soon. Local Los Angeles leaders have committed to contribute $100 Million to shelter and give other basic needs of living to the homeless (Stewart, LA Times). It’s good to see that people are taking action to help the issue instead of going around it and coming up with a way to get rid of them.
In my opinion, I feel that this type of action should have happened sooner when the population of the homeless was not so large. Now that it is at its worst the city of Los Angeles has decided to help minimize the issue. It is ridiculous that roughly 26,000 people are on the streets. They aren’t all criminals or bad people with a bad habit either. The way I look at it is that they have had an unfortunate amount of luck that put them where they are in life. For example, I was grocery shopping with my mother when I was about 14 and we saw this homeless man outside a supermarket. We had decided to help and we bought him some food, water, deodorant, and shampoo. He was so thankful and told us he had been outside the store the whole day and only received about 4 dollars in change. He mentioned he was not asking much but that there was a few generous people helped him out but by far the best thing was the food and supplies we gave him. We talked for a bit and he told my mother he worked for a small insurance company that had went under and as time went on he slowly lost everything. This man wasn’t an alcoholic or a druggy or mentally ill. He was just unlucky in his life. This goes to show that my first thoughts of this intimidating man were completely wrong. He was actually a kind hearted and humble person trying to get by. I have to think that there a lot of stories are just like his and should be considered when seeing a homeless person because the majority of them are not what they are made out to be.