Being homeless is a much more difficult situation to get out of than I previously thought. Often times, you hear someone dismiss a homeless person’s possible causes for their situation, and they proclaim it could be solved by “going out and getting a job”. What I have not heard discussed often is how many of these people actually do have jobs and how those jobs barely keep them off the streets or from going hungry. Society turns to the easy route of blaming others for their misfortunes before trying to fully understand the circumstances. Minimum wage is in fact impossible to live off of, and was proved through Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed, where she tested out a life of poverty. In this book, what I noticed most is that one minimum wage job is not enough to live, but sometimes getting two (or even three) jobs is impossible. When working at Wal-Mart, she had no control over her hours, and that lack of continuity in a schedule makes it next to impossible to hold a job elsewhere. Rent cannot be made on checks like that, and cohabitation was a main point in her article Too Poor to Make the News. Overcrowding was discussed, and how we do not have firm numbers regarding this issue because “no one likes to acknowledge it to census-takers, journalists, or anyone else who might be remotely connected to the authorities” (1). It does not get accurately reported because people do not want to risk getting evicted, being left with nowhere to go. What I realized this week is the less fortunate do not get the credit or reputation they deserve, since many of them are hard workers who give their all to try and make ends meet. The economy makes it so hard for low-wage workers to secure housing.
- Ehrenreich, Barbara. “Too Poor to Make the News.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 June 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/opinion/14ehrenreich.html?_r=0.
2. Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed. Metropolitan, 2001.