Myths About The Homeless, By Meridith Bolster

The idea of stereotypes is, in essence, overgeneralization. This can be seen in society by the homeless population. For example in the article “Myths about the homeless” we see just how people easily overlook and misunderstand the homeless population. They are often overgeneralized due to misconceptions. They are often called “the invisible population” because many people overlook them, and they fail to understand their situation. This leads to common misconceptions and stereotyping which simply isn’t true. The author, Meridith Bolster, writes “When you listen to the stories of the homeless, you soon realize that any one of us could become homeless in this society”(Bolster). This evidence shows that we often feel better about ourselves, and

we generalize others by casting them aside as either lazy or irresponsible. However, the truth is that anyone can become homeless as the world is cruel, but we still think that it can't happen to us because we’re better than that.

If you look at the facts, the truth is, not every homeless person was careless, yet rather the dice of life gave them a poor role leaving them in the situation they are now in. It’s not just a specific group of people that this can happen to, but anyone can experience this, and are often wrongly lumped into the category of lazy or careless which isn’t always true. Moreover the author writes that “Homeless people are more likely to be victims of crimes than to become criminals”(Bolster). We often overlook character and judge people off of appearance, social standing, or in this case especially wealth. We might automatically assume that this individual is homeless so therefore they must be a criminal. Again going back to "the invisible population”, we overlook the facts and look to the myths. People construct false assumptions, but the truth is that the homeless are often innocent souls who had a few wrong turns in life. They may in fact be more likely to become targets of criminals in view of the fact that they are overlooked, nobody cares about them thus unrightfully subjecting them to a vulnerable

position. In conclusion, the whole idea of the stereotype is overgeneralization. We overlook people because of our biases in social standing, yet they're often untrue. Innocent people who did nothing wrong are lumped into a category of supposed careless individuals because they didn’t succeed. People fail to look at the facts and only the myths creating false stereotypes. In the end, that's the whole idea, people fall into wrong or untrue, collective ideas based on their position not their character in life. Society automatically categorizes people by taking a shot in the dark rather than opening their eyes to see the truth, that is the evil truth of stereotyping.