Discrimination Of Homeless People

Walking down the streets of large cities it is common to see men, women, and sometimes even whole families laying beside buildings. Some people may ignore them and keep walking, some feel frightened, and some see the homeless as a human being and treat them like one. These people tend to be dirty, smelly, or they have a sad look that has overtaken their faces because of their struggle to survive. The people sleeping outside of buildings are homeless. Being homeless means not having anywhere to call home, although it also can mean living in a place that was never intended to house humans, such as a bus stop or a highway underpass. It is tempting to wedge the homeless together under a single label but there are an abundance of contrasting causes

In a recent survey, 66.6% of the homeless said that they have felt discriminated against by law enforcement. Law enforcement officers have verbally and physically abused the homeless because of their living situation. In the article “Virtually All Homeless People Experience Discrimination” reported that a homeless woman’s testimony stated ”she was told by a DC police officer not to lie down on the bench to sleep, she could only sit up to sleep”(Keyes 1). A large part of the law enforcement see the homeless as troublemakers, delinquents, and anything negative. There has been a tremendous amount cases of officers spitting on the homeless, beating them, and arresting them for petty reasoning. Instead of the officers bothering the non harmful individuals, they should be arresting the real criminals that are terrorizing the city. When the homeless commit crimes they are usually non-violent crimes.These crimes can be anywhere from sleeping, eating, and panhandling,begging in the street. Making it illegal to execute mandatory daily activities in public when homeless people have no where else to go makes it impractical for homeless people to steer clear from disobeying the

To demonstrate, in the article”Virtually All Homeless People Experience Discrimination”, Keyes revealed that,”one respondent noted that they had been told they couldn’t enter a coffee shop “due to my attire, push cart, my extra bags” (Keyes 1). All people who are in need of aid are able to obtain employment and training under the Workforce Investment Act, WIA. 70.4 percent of the homeless reported that they have felt discriminated against by private businesses. An extensive amount of homeless are homeless cannot find jobs because they are handicapped or have unstable minds. Many of the homeless who are not currently working are making a very large effort in trying to find any job out there and available, but they are constantly being discriminated against by the work force. In fact, in the book The Homeless Opposing Viewpoints backs up the fact the homeless want jobs by stating,”Since 2000, they have seen a doubling amount of homeless applicants still scrabbling to maintain jobs”(The Homeless