Sidewalk Persuasive Essay

In determining how to make the sidewalks a better place for everyone, one must consider what it is that renders the sidewalks “better.” What does “better” encompass? Would eliminating homelessness, the “broken windows,” cause people to feel safer on the streets? Alternatively, would eliminating the stigma surrounding the homeless allow people to see the sidewalk workers as beneficial contributors to the sidewalk? With these ideas in mind and with knowledge of New York sidewalks from Mitchell Duneier’s novel, Sidewalk, I can contemplate the actions I would take to make the sidewalks a better place for everyone, if I had necessary, and assumedly unlimited, power to do so. First, in order to decide how to formulate a plan to achieve the objective,

As Duneier’s interview with the dog walker, Carrie, revealed, some citizens, in this case white, middle-class women, feel fear in situations where the unhoused call out to them suggestively. Consequently, in order to make the streets better for this niche of citizens, the number of homeless on the streets would need to decrease significantly. To accomplish this, I plan to provide subsidized housing to those who cannot afford to pay for consistent housing and instead live on the streets or in public venues. Preferably, this housing will be privately funded; so as to avoid the taxation of the same people the system is supposed to aid. However, simply providing the unhoused with homes will not eliminate their need to earn money to survive. These citizens, such as panhandlers, written material vendors, and other sidewalk workers, depend upon their sidewalk earnings to eat, to clothe themselves, to live. Yet, if allowed to continue with their previous occupations, the sidewalks would still be filled with the, now previously, unhoused population. Therefore, in order to decrease the number of unhoused citizens without eliminating their sources of income, I would provide these citizens with alternative options to continue making a living. A key idea in Duneier’s work is the lack of formal education for a majority of the unhoused. As Duneier showed, even educated citizens, like Hakim, worked

In these cases, providing free or low-cost housing will make no difference. Therefore, the other citizens who use the sidewalks must view the unhoused as advantageous to the sidewalks, thus “bettering” the street. Consequently, those citizens, the higher status members of society, must understand the unhoused or, at least, benefit from their presence. In order to bring awareness to the homeless and to the cause of it, I would promote a series of public service announcements and advertisements, depicting the unhoused as people just like the housed, but who prefer not to live in houses. With this, I will be attempting to eliminate the stereotype that all homeless people are lazy, drug-addicted degenerates who refuse to put any effort into making their lives comfortable. Of course, there will be citizens who do not care whether the homeless like being homeless or not. In those circumstances, I will demonstrate the advantages to having people out on the sidewalks. Most importantly, I will present the city with statistics and facts that exhibit situations in which the unhoused prevented or reduced crime, which will prove the worth of having extra “eyes on the street.” Ultimately, the goal is to educate the housed population about the unhoused and their function in order to make the sidewalk been seen as