Homelessness Website Analysis

Homelessness has been a problem for as long as I can remember. I remember seeing people on street corners when we would travel to larger cities and wondering why they looked so sad when they lived in such an amazing place. Growing up in a small town sheltered me in that sort of way, but it also helped me open my eyes to the growing problem as I got older. I could see the pain that came with extreme poverty, the cries of help in just one look, and the gratitude that came when another person did a small act of kindness. As I’ve gotten even older, homelessness has decreased. However, even though the problem is decreasing, it still exists. It exists through the absence of solid information and how we can begin working to solve the problem.

According to GreenDoors.org, there are approximately 643,067 people

are experiencing homelessness. Homelessness creates a gap in society and creates problems within it. This problem between society and the homeless community roots from miscommunication and lack thereof. More often than not, people are prejudiced against the homeless community. These people give them dirty looks and ignore the people in need. There are also the people who believe homelessness does not exist. They believe that those who are truly homeless are just trying to get money out of kind people. Yes, there are those kind of people who use the homeless trend to get money. However, there are those in society who do not know much about real homelessness in the sense that they have seen the homeless on the streets, but have not heard their stories. The homeless are similar to children: they should be seen, not heard; and sometimes they should not even been seen.
There are many statistics on homelessness to look at on the internet, but nothing on how to begin solving the problem or what is at stake: society as a whole and even the economy. Homelessness seems to be ignored until someone who is opposed to helping get those who are homeless off the streets speaks out against it. The lack of help from private organizations, or even the government does not help the issue either. Once the issue is fully addressed, we can begin to solve the problem. However, this takes analysis of different texts.
This text comes from NationalHomelessness.org and it attempts to explain the causes of homelessness.

It is easily accessible and fairly easy to navigate. However, this website is very plain, does not give the proper information, and has hardly anything on it. The article needs more to it than what it already has. It also does not have a copyright date. The year it was copyrighted is available, but not the date itself. Not only is it uninformative, it is problematic in format. The colors of the website are black, white, and there are a few words in red. It is very boring to look at and needs some updating.

The article focuses mainly on what can cause homelessness rather than what society can do to help change it. The one thing about the text that stands out most is how incredibly wordy it is. There are so many words to it and not enough graphs or other images to portray the problem or give insight. Most people would rather take a quick look at a graph or image than read an entire article. Despite being wordy, there is not much information included in the text. The majority of people in today’s society do not want to read something long, nor do they have the

time.
The text makes many assumptions about the reader. It assumes the reader only wants to know the basic facts of homelessness and what could potentially cause it. This creates a communication barrier between society and the homeless community by speculating that all homeless people are where they are because of the reasons stated in the article. This type of thinking can be dangerous to the ending homelessness cause. The article does not provide any information on government assistance for the homeless. This causes the reader to assume that the government does not care for those who are homeless, which is, generally, not the case.
The article also infers that the reader does not care about how to contribute to the end of homelessness, or that the reader already knows how. What the author of the text does not realize is that people are not going to contribute to something if they do not know how they can help solve the problem. Providing a shelter or a charity by state that the general public can turn to will get more people involved. This makes the reader assume that there is no way to help in their home state. The website has a “donate now” button, but no one will unless they are told what is at stake. Many people are blind to what can happen between society and the homeless community; just as some are blind to the homeless community as a whole.
The type of writing and thought process put into this article can be very dangerous to the homeless community and those trying to end homelessness. By being uninformative, the article contributes nothing to the goal it is trying to reach. Until it is perfected and has accurate information, it will not be useful to the fight against homelessness. It will continue to contribute to the stigma that homeless people are lazy and do not attempt to get a job like society expects them to. The authors and admins of the website have a bit of revision to do so they can achieve the message they are trying to portray.