Helping and Hating the Homeless

The word “homeless” is used to describe many different kinds of people with a variety of problems; the “homeless” includes veterans, the mentally ill, the physically disabled or chronically ill, the elderly on fixed incomes, men, women, and families that have lost their source of income, single parents, runaway children who’ve been abused, alcoholics and drug addicts, immigrants, and traditional tramps, hobos, and transients (Martin, 1999). In “Helping and Hating the Homeless”, Peter Martin claims that although these people all have different backgrounds, histories, and reasons for not having a “home”, they are categorized and stereotyped by society and all looked down upon for being “homeless”. He addresses his readers, those that pass by homeless men and women on the street and those who look down upon the homeless, in order to “attempt to explain at least some of that anger and fear [directed towards the homeless], to clear up some of the confusion, to chip away the indifference”. In order to support his argument, Martin uses many homeless people’s lives as examples for the reasons they became homeless and have stayed homeless, he also incorporates many public policies and homeless shelter’s policies to help describe the homeless life. By doing this, he is able to give his reader’s incite on the homeless, allowing them to have a further understanding of how they live. Due to lack of knowledge and understanding, many stereotypes have been able to affect and impact the way society looks at the homeless and creates homeless policies. By including multiple sources that reflect the views of Martin, this essay will create a better understanding of the homeless and how the stereotypes, although inaccurate, affect the lives of the homeless. Martin states that “the homeless, simply because they are homeless, are strangers, alien-and therefore a threat” (para. 24) in order to help explain the feelings that society has towards the homeless. He then explains how he feels

Cited: Martin, Peter. “Helping and Hating the Homeless.” Border Texts, ed. Randall Bass, Houghton Mifflin, 1999