Response Essay #1
In the Pulitzer prize-winning novel Evicted, sociologist Matthew Desmond follows eight families as he exposes how the lack of affordable housing perpetuates a state of poverty. He even goes so far as to assert that it is eviction that is a cause of poverty, not the other way around (Desmond 229). While this latter argument is as engrossing and it is striking, analyzing it with justice is simply not possible within the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, it is these two factors—inescapable poverty and eviction—that engender an unrelenting condition of financial, emotional, and communal instability, effectively hindering any chance of upward mobility.
Most would agree that financial instability is one of the main causes if
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One of the most prominent concerns of Evicted is the issue of inescapable financial instability as it relates to eviction. In the very first few pages of the book, Desmond reveals that the majority of poor renting families in America spend over 50% of their income on housing, with an even more astonishing one in four spending over 70% of their income on it (4). When families are spending the majority of their already meager income on housing alone, it is no surprise that they have little money left for savings or self-betterment programs such as a college education. Compounded with this is the fact that some welfare systems are constructed in a way that discourages long-term financial responsibility. For example, Supplemental Security Income, a program that provides monthly stipends for low-income elderly or disabled individuals, is revoked if individuals have too much money in their bank account (217). For …show more content…
For some individuals, this instability takes the form of drug or alcohol abuse. Whether it’s Lamar smoking marijuana with his son and his friends or more extreme examples such as Ned and Pam’s crack addiction and then subsequent incarceration, substance abuse is not uncommon in a system of poverty (23, 49). Desmond reasons this sort of behavior, writing “The distance between grinding poverty and even stable poverty could be so vast that those at the bottom had little hope of climbing out even if they pinched every penny. So they chose not to. Instead, they tried to survive in color, to season the suffering with pleasure” (219). While some individuals mask their emotions with self-medication, the rest suffer through the full emotional strain of poverty or eviction. Desmond reports that half of all recently evicted mothers exhibit several symptoms of clinical depression (298). Furthermore, he reveals that suicides associated with evictions or foreclosures doubled between 2005 and 2010 when housing costs were on the
More often than not, the homeless are viewed as weak and helpless. They are seen in movies as street beggars, and are vehicles of pity and remorse to touch the hearts of the viewers. Moreover, the media trains its audiences to believe that homelessness comes from the fault of the person. They are “bums, alcoholics, and drug addicts, caught in a hopeless downward spiral because of their individual pathological behavior” (427). In reality, it is the perpetuating cycle of wealth that keeps them in at a standstill in their struggles. The media only condones this very same cycle because it trains the masses to believe that people are poor due to their bad decisions. This overall census that the poor are addicts and alcoholics only makes it easier to drag their image further through the mud, going as far as calling them “crazy.” This is highlighted in shows such as Cops, or Law & Order. With the idea that these people are bad news it is easy to “buy into the dominant ideology construction that views poverty as a problem of individuals” (428). Although some of the issues of the poor are highlighted through episodic framing, for the most part the lower class is a faceless group who bring no real value to the
Arlene Beale is a single mother of two whose eviction problems never seem to end. Arleen is under-employed, most likely from lack of education and does not receive any financial assistance from her children's father. Looking at Arleen’s case from a Liberation Health perspective, we must realize that the problems of individuals and their families cannot be understood in isolation from the economic, political, cultural, and historical conditions which give rise to them, as mentioned by Berklin-Martinez (2014). Family and individual crisis are the products of current social, economic, and political crisis and must be looked at from a lens of the world.
Gundersen, C., Weinreb, L., Wehler, C., & Hosmer, D. (2003). Homelessness And Food Insecurity. Journal of Housing Economics, 12(3), 250-272.
The tenement was the biggest hindrance to achieving the American myth of rags to riches. It becomes impossible for one to rise up in the social structure when it can be considered a miracle to live passed the age of five. Children under the age of five living in tenements had a death rate of 139.83 compared to the city’s overall death rate of 26.67. Even if one did live past the age of five it was highly probable he’d become a criminal, since virtually all of them originate from the tenements. They are forced to steal and murder, they’ll do anything to survive, Riis appropriately calls it the “survival of the unfittest”. (Pg.
Homelessness is primarily a poverty issue. The persistence of poverty in the United States reflects more than just an aggregation of individual failings. Structural factors, such as the way we understand and define poverty, the inherent features of our economic system that produce income inequality, social inequities and our policy responses to these problems shape current trends. Economic changes have had the strongest association with trends in overall rates, regardless of how poverty is measured. Poverty rate is high amongst minority groups, children and female-headed households (Iceland, 2003). According to professor Iceland’s research, rates of extreme poverty are higher among children and African-Americans and lower for whites, Asians and the elderly. Among families with children, married couples were less likely to be poor (6.9 %) than single parent male (17.5%) and single parent female (35.3%).
University, T. T. (2011). Deprivation and it's Discontents. Retrieved October 24, 2011, from indianapublicmedia.org: http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/deprivation-discontents/
The conflict theory established by Karl Marx, suggested that a society is in a place of continuous conflict due to the competition of limited shared resources among members of its community members. It entails that social peace and order is achieved by domination and power, instead of the public agreement and group solidarity. According to the conflict perspective, individuals with wealth and power try to hold on to it, simply by oppressing the poor and vulnerable Homelessness can be understood through the conflict theory (Champion, 2010). This simply holds that capitalism and greed can be seen as some of the causes of homelessness. Families who lack social, economic and human capital will face problems securing and maintaining housing and
McNamara, Robert Hartmann. "Homelessness." Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Social Issues. Ed. Michael Shally-Jensen. Vol. 3: Family and Society. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011. 1024-1031. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 2 May 2014. .
This paper will examine a subgroup of the homeless population, homeless families. It will explore the multiple causes of family homelessness and the consequences homelessness has on family life. The three main reasons for the abundance of dispossessed families within America are the following: 1) the lack of affordable housing, 2) low wages in the job-market, and 3) insufficient federal aid. In today’s society, these causes are the main contributors towards the heartbreaking condition of family homelessness, which often leads to family breakups, health issues, and educational obstacles. This paper will also give possible solutions to family homelessness and improvement plans for the future.
Mental illness is a condition that interrupts a person’s thought process, mood, emotion and ability to relate to others as well as daily functioning (Halter, 2014). Approximately 20-25% of adult homeless population suffers from some form of mental illness. Mental disorders prevent people from carrying out activities of daily living, such as self-care, household management, interpersonal relationships and maintaining a job.
The economic component of the homelessness situation can be broken down into two interrelated parts: housing affordability and a low income rate. The economic recession that followed the financial crisis of 2007 left many individuals unemployed during a time that saw a spike in the price of housing. So not only did the cost of living increase, the rate of income also decreased accordingly. Unsurprisingly, during these same years homelessness rose from 24.2 percent in 2007 to 29.4 percent in 2009 (citation).
He attempts to appeal to the emotional side of a person by showing the struggling times the homeless face. When he interviewed a homeless a woman who did not graduate from high school, he says “ashamed of a learning disability that got in the way of her reading” (p.395). This line appeals to the emotional side of the reader because it shows how this woman did not pass because she had a disability and because of it the world had shut her off forcing her into a tent city. Scott Bransford later in his article refers to these tent cities as the Hoovervilles and slums. This allows the connection with the environment to compare the historical past of America to give a better sense of understanding to add a connection with the Great Depression. The slums reference also allows a connection to be made by how the American society resembles a struggling nation rather than the stable nation it portrays to
In a society of drug use and poverty, you are in turn more susceptible to outside stressors and larger consequences faced when dealing with a problem. This is exactly what happens to Ree and her family as they fear for losing their house directly as a result of the drugs that have become so commonplace among her extended family and her father. This also makes it much harder to ask questions and receive information from others as the drug business has put a major emphasis on the code of secrecy and loyalty. Ree becomes a pain for everyone as she embodies the outside threat of law enforcement and poking her nose into what she does not need to know. Even before the task of finding her father with fear of homelessness, her family was vulnerable in many other ways as a result of their social class. As Brett Williams explains in “Body and Soul: Profits from Poverty”, poverty can have major environmental and health consequences. He talks about the poor who live near the very polluted Anacostia River in Washington D.C. and how they are at a risk of toxins and health concerns that often go untreated as they lack the money or amenities to receive proper treatment. Ree’s family lives in a very similar situation. The entire community is riddled with beat down shacks and dogs roaming the wilderness. Ree’s mother is also rendered immobile from their home as she is very sick and most
Hopper, Kim. “Housing the Homeless.” Social Policy 28.3 (1998): 64+. Academic OneFile. Web. 29 Oct. 2013.
Presently, one of the main causes of homelessness in American is the lack of affordable housing. New York researchers claim that affordable housing is the answer to homelessness. Researcher, Mary Beth Shinn, states, ?homelessness is first and foremost a housing problem not a psychological one? (qtd. in Franklin 15.) Nearly all the families in their study became stably housed regardless of substance abuse, mental illness, physical illness or incarceration. This study indicates that homelessness is not a permanent condition. People do get themselves out of the problem when an intervention occurs to provide them with access to the housing market (NYU 2.) Without permanent housing, people are unable to keep jobs and are more likely to become ill. Permanent housing provides stability that enables them to find and retain employment with health benefits.