Superbowl Sunday is something sports fans across the United States have been looking forward to all season. However, as reported by Travis Waldron of the Huffington Post, the Superbowl 50 has stirred up conflict in the San Francisco Bay Area in terms of the city’s budgeting. As footballs fans sit in front of their televisions at home, on the couch, at the bar, the homeless community in the San Francisco Bay Area struggles to find a new place to call home. With Panthers and Broncos fanatics flooding the streets of Santa Clara and San Francisco to tailgate and watch their teams religiously, the homeless community is being displaced. Due to the Superbowl celebrations, homeless advocates believe that law-enforcement has made efforts to relocate homeless. While there is no actual evidence of these claims, the article homeless community in San Francisco feel targeted.

Jennifer Friedenbach, the executive director of the San Francisco-based Coalition on Homelessness, says “the money San Francisco is spending on Super Bowl City could cover a year of housing subsidies for 500 homeless people.” With San Francisco having “more anti-homeless laws than any other California-city” the fight to alleviate homelessness in the Bay Area is seen as less of a priority to the city than the Superbowl. Those in favor of the Superbowl claim that the celebration will create enough traffic and revenue to cover San Francisco’s costs.

Ultimately, this is not only an issue prioritizing spending also of residents’ attitudes towards homelessness. Being one of the largest issues in San Francisco, homelessness ironically fails to prioritized.

Is the size of the celebration justifiable for the mistreatment of the homeless community? In what event is it appropriate to prioritize the issue of homelessness in the city of San Francisco?  What must be sacrificed to address the issue of homeless in the city? As many football fans lock their eyes on the screen, worrying about the $20 bet they are about to lose, many homeless San Franciscans are desperately searching for the new sidewalk they can call home, until they are forced to relocate once again.

Waldron, Travis. “How Super Bowl 50 Became Ground Zero For The Fight Over Homelessness.” The Huffington Post. N.p., 06 Feb. 2016. Web. 07 Feb. 2016. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/san-francisco-homeless-protests-super-bowl-50_us_56b625c6e4b01d80b2468235>.

Twice a week, I’m a coward. As I sit in class for an hour and twenty minutes, I am humbled by the independent stories of homeless mothers and their children. While many of theses individuals have been inserted into an inevitable trap of poverty, struggling to make it day-to-day with only two dollars in their pockets, others have been blessed with material items.

As soon as that hour and twenty is over, it’s no longer a matter of “Hunger and Homelessness.” At 2:30PM, the setting transitions to “Consumers and Consumption” where I am faced with the overwhelming reality of overconsumption in American culture. The privilege many millennials have come to identify with is borderline disgusting. While cellphones in kindergarten are what is expected by many children of affluent backgrounds, for children born into the cycle of poverty, food is never guaranteed. It’s fascinating seeing the divide between those who buy shoes for the brand name, those whom shoe’s aren’t even an option for. As situations become more emotionally, physically, and financially draining, the expected standard of living consequently decreases.

As sociology major, I have come to understand that this educational route means despising almost anything that I encounter that faintly smells of inequality. Seeing beyond societal, economic, and political issues in hopes of finding a solution requires energy that individuals in society fail to search for.

Homelessness is something that is often overlooked. As of recent, homelessness has become something that I ponder whenever I witness it. Essentially, I have been experiencing the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. Signs such as “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service” in restaurants and “Panhandling Is Illegal” on the window of a business in downtown Redlands, I have become to notice wherever I go. Not that I haven’t seen these signs before, only that they seem to have become noticeably more common. As I sit in the passenger seat riding down highways, I am now quick to spot tarps under bridges and sleeping bags.

It is easy to turn a blind eye to homelessness when one has never experienced it or witnessed it. However, when I see it every time I walk out of the grocery store, it becomes something I try to understand. It is no longer as simple as reaching into my pants in hope of finding shiny circles or apologizing when I only discover a receipt in my pocket. I wonder where they have been and where they are going. I wonder what their story is. I wonder if they think I’m lying when I just spent my last five dollars on tortillas and instant noodles and have nothing in my pockets. I wonder what the lady walking behind me witnessing the whole thing thinks. I always think of how close and how far we are from each other.

Linda Tirado’s “This Is Why Poor People’s Bad Decisions Make Perfect Sense” is what resonates with me in association with homelessness. As I struggle to make it from month to month, Tirado brings my idea of poverty into perspective.

“It is not worth it to me to live a bleak life devoid of small pleasures so that one day I can make a single large purchase….There’s a certain pull to live what bits of life you can while there’s money in your pocket, because no matter how responsible you are you will be broke in three days anyway.”

As I am in a constant financial struggle, I am reminded every time I go to the grocery store that my situation is only temporary.