Not All Homeless People Are Crazy

One of life’s truly rarest treasures is human unselfish charity. The greatest thing in the world is mutual understanding and the endless feeling of appreciation of having a Home. A place that every one of us has to have: where a happy, loving family could be born, where love, support and acceptance, no matter what, always are, and where kindness, warmness, understanding are sincere and never go away. I think those of us who have homes have to count ourselves exceedingly fortunate, because we are blessed. Home--the roof and the walls--protects us from outside pressure, and gives strength and desire to live, which is the important moral base of a psychologically healthy human being. But what about those who don’t have it? Those who we call Homeless? Unfortunately, there is always a dark cloud in a blue sky, and in “Are the Homeless Crazy?” Jonathan Kozol questions the primary cause of homelessness in the United States. Are the homeless people really “paranoids of the street” and “among the most difficult to help?”

When I read, “Are the Homeless Crazy?” I was amazed how clearly and skillfully the writer shows the reality, the conditions, and causes of homelessness through presenting an impressive array of statistics and showing the numbers of homeless children. The author writes: “nearly half the homeless are small children whose average age is six,” and “since 1968 the number of children living in poverty has grown by 3 million” (463). He uses statistics to show the level of Federal support for low-income housing, which “dropped from $30 billion (1980) to 7.5 billion (1988),” the average of rents, the declining welfare benefits for families with children, the loss of traditional jobs in industry, “2 million every year since 198...

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...the attempts of homeless people to overcome the misery and destitution must be heard and evaluated. People need the response from society on their unbearable and intolerable life conditions. Kozol makes very clear for everybody that nothing would be solved until everyone will be understood. Let’s just imagine what if we were in those people’s places, without a place to live, and in total destitution. Are we going to ask for help?

I think people cannot be degraded to the level of crazy beasts; they don’t have to demean themselves and their families to ask and to accept official charity. I strongly believe that they can desperately implore for Dei gratia but not for society to deign to help. It isn’t too much to desire to have a Home. And it is not a crime to have it.

Works Cited

Kozol, Jonathan. “Are the Homeless Crazy.” Yale Review, 1988.