Today when reading through current articles relating to homelessness, I cam e across one that offered some interesting insight and points of view that I had no previously considered. The article was entitled “Criminalizing Homelessness” by Jerry Gordon and was published on the Daily Camera site.  The overarching theme of this editorial was the need to move away from the current tendency that our society has adopted of differentiating between “the good homeless versus the bad homeless”, using this as a basis to help some but not others.

I thought that this idea paralleled well with the background research that I had done on my internship site, which states that they offer services for all “worthy poor”. However, distinguishing between those who are worthy and not worthy poor seems to be difficult, if not entirely impossible. It seems as though each person could have their own definitions and standards of what qualifies as “worthy” of help and what does not.

The article by Gordon also spoke of the alienation of homeless individuals that takes place in our nation today. It is undeniable from the texts that we have read in class that there does exist a separation between mainstream society and the homeless. The creation of this “otherness” of those living on the streets has increased the fear that the general public has of the homeless, based on assumptions and negative generalizations. Because of this increased fear and anxiety when around those living on the streets, their presence is being made illegal in more and more public spaces all the time. They are pushed from one city to another to another, constantly being forced to pack up and leave, with the general message of the public being that homeless are not welcome or wanted. Gordon discusses the current national trend of criminalizing the lives of homeless people entirely by making any and all their activities illegal. In conclusion to this tendency, he states that this approach is “a social policy failure”.

http://www.dailycamera.com/guest-opinions/ci_25346344/criminalizing-homelessness?source=most_emailed