This week I came across an article where there was a fight between a homeless man and a city worker in Salinas. It is mentioned that a city crew was attempting to clear homeless tents away from a public sidewalk after their 15 day notice had expired. The chaos happened after a city official told a homeless man “to put his possessions in a large dumpster like container”. The amount of disrespect that this homeless man received was enough to infuriate him and he sprinted toward the city worker’s truck in an attempt to kick it. This situation only brings up one of the most recent point that was brought up in our class discussions which is stripping away people’s humanity.
The way in which society goes about resolving the issue of homelessness in certain places around the world is very disturbing. Salinas city workers instead of helping these people find a better place to stay, suggest that they might as well throw all of their belongings in a dumpster. The state of Florida banns homeless people from sleeping in sidewalks having places. Throughout the last decade, society has made sure that homelessness people are looked at in any way except human. In this case, the city argues that because the homeless population has greatly increased, the encampments have become a public hazard. So many negative things are said about people in the streets that we often forget that even they still have rights, yet no one seems to advocate for them.