One of life’s
truly rarest treasures is human unselfish charity. The greatest thing in
the world is mutual understanding and the endless feeling of appreciation
of having a Home. A place that every one of us has to have: where a happy,
loving family could be born, where love, support and acceptance, no matter
what, always are, and where kindness, warmness, understanding are sincere
and never go away. I think those of us who have homes have to count ourselves
exceedingly fortunate, because we are blessed. Home--the roof and the walls--protects
us from outside pressure, and gives strength and desire to live, which is
the important moral base of a psychologically healthy human being.
But what about those who don’t have it? Those who we call Homeless? Unfortunately,
there is always a dark cloud in a blue sky, and in “Are the Homeless Crazy?”
Jonathan Kozol questions the primary cause of homelessness in the United
States. Are the homeless people really “paranoids of the street” and “among
the most difficult to help?”
When I read, “Are the Homeless Crazy?”
I was amazed how clearly and skillfully the writer shows the reality, the
conditions, and causes of homelessness through presenting an impressive array
of statistics and showing the numbers of homeless children. The author writes:
“nearly half the homeless are small children whose average age is six,” and
“since 1968 the number of children living in poverty has grown by 3 million”
(463). He uses statistics to show the level of Federal support for low-income
housing, which “dropped from $30 billion (1980) to 7.5 billion (1988),” the
average of rents, the declining welfare benefits for families with children,
the loss of traditional jobs in industry, “2 million every year since 1980”,
the deinstitutionalizing fact of decreasing numbers of psychiatric institutions
from “677,000 and by 1984 to 151,000” (463). All facts listed in Kozol’s
essay lead us to understanding of how insignificant and reduced the governmental
help and politics in decreasing homelessness. Isn’t it shocking and painful
to observe the situation like this? I think it is.
According
to Kozol, we immediately start thinking of so many issues, political and
social causes of kicking people out from their houses. We also start analyzing
and evaluating our own involvement with the problem. And there are a couple
of questions which actually came to my mind when reading “Are the Homeless
Crazy?” like: are we passionately witnessing the real life? What are we doing
to help to solve the problem? Why are we choosing to escape or turn from
cruel reality for other people instead of helping to face it and fight it.
I understood,that we must admit the fact that homelessness is growing even
more and we need to find the ways to overcome it.
People
are homeless, but they are not mindless or heartless. They choose to run,
to hide from being wounded by the world, because there is no understanding,
no help. How far can they go if they are not supported by anyone in the entire
world, if no one cares about the real causes for them being destitute and
no where to go? Why it is a commonly accepted rule not to pay attention and
pretend that there is no such problem as homelessness?
Kozol
emphasizes the behavior of the President of the United States as an exponent
for the national society’s attitude towards homelessness. He shows how the
president of the country denies the reality as it is, covering the homelessness,
by saying-. “Now you’re hearing all kinds of horror stories” (466). We can
see that the person who leads the country and actually builds the people’s
opinion doesn’t want to hear “that anyone is cold or hungry or unhoused”
(466). The writer shows us again and again that society is dehumanized and
careless to the tears of other people. He raises his expectations by speaking
of homelessness and leading us to understand the situation or circumstances
under which people become homeless. He frames that they are pushed to be
at such a “sheer presence” by us: “the reports do not tell us that we have
made these people” (464). Through “Are the Homeless Crazy?” we feel and hear
the cynic and sarcastic argumentative tone, which I think, is the most approvable
at this case. The article makes us, people, supposed human beings, to follow
the question: What are the moral and social qualities we must to develop
in ourselves to understand and solve the issue? How much evidence do we need
more to do that, when it is already access to it?
The writer
addresses his analysis of homelessness to everyone of us by using through
his narration the third-person point of view-style, what basically helps
to illustrate and characterize the whole generation--intended audience--us:
“Many journalists and politicians...” -- society’s face, the media institute
who expresses our interests and views, the main reflective and “truthful’
source of all events in Global arena; “a frequently cited set of figures...
they note... “, “they point... “, “in our rush...”
In fact,
he argues over the idea that medical institutions deliberately deceive by
deflecting diagnosis and stigmatizing healthy people “Immobilized by pain”
or “traumatized by fear,” as paranoids, and mentally ill with “apparent presence
of hallucinations.” It raises a huge national uncertainty of how easy
we can become homeless ourselves, just because our medical institutions have
only “competent” people to make diagnoses for us, basing on our life conditions
of course. Plus, I would say, such a close-eyes politics “shortens” long
enough chain of society’s problems and doesn’t sound at all as a consolation
for our mutually-improved government and its system.
Through
my own experience I would be willing to personally ask every one in our community:
Does anyone ever pay attention, when coming out of freeways, going to down
town, walking on Santa Monica pier or Venice beach, sitting in Griffith Park
and having barbeques, to the people standing with the hand written signs:
“Homeless” “No Food” “No Money” “Need Job” “Have kids! Please Help!!!” They
are full of fear, weariness, spite, self-dissatisfaction and disappointment,
sometimes with broken hands or legs, without any hope waiting in the line
to be heard and understood, or to be simply helped. It makes me feel mournful
and almost like crying. As Kozol said, “That the despair of homeless people
bears no intimate connection to the privileged existence we enjoy-- when,
for example, we rent or purchase one of those restored town houses that once
provided shelter for people now huddled in the street” (464). It declares
that there is nothing humane left in our present society. We forgot the meaning
of real understanding and gratuitous help.
Kozol
passionately appeals to all people to understand and evaluate the homelessness
as a social federal stain. Describing society’s refutation to help, even
unsubstantially, the writer makes his point on homeless who can fight for
the community support by gathering together: “If 3 million homeless
people did the same and all at the same time, we might be forced to listen”
(465). He shows that the attempts of homeless people to overcome the
misery and destitution must be heard and evaluated. People need the
response from society on their unbearable and intolerable life conditions.
Kozol makes very clear for everybody that nothing would be solved until everyone
will be understood. Let’s just imagine what if we were in those people’s
places, without a place to live, and in total destitution. Are we going
to ask for help?
I think
people cannot be degraded to the level of crazy beasts; they don’t have to
demean themselves and their families to ask and to accept official charity.
I strongly believe that they can desperately implore for Dei gratia but not
for society to deign to help. It isn’t too much to desire to have a
Home. And it is not a crime to have it.
Works Cited
Kozol, Jonathan. “Are the Homeless Crazy.” Yale
Review, 1988.