Homeless encampments or tent cities are shockingly visible representations of poverty and dispossession, and their very visibility challenges the legitimacy of the capitalist economy and the aesthetic landscape of the competitive neoliberal city. For the daily audience of the housed, encountering homelessness in the city presents a number of difficult contrasts and juxtapositions. The close co-existence of improvised housing and capital-intensive projects of gentrification and of “misery in the midst of plenty” can be shocking or disturbing to the supporters and beneficiaries of the status quo (Marcuse 69). As Amster and Cook write, “the homeless exist because our economy exists” (14). One foundational fiction of capitalist society is that …show more content…
Aesthetic control in the city serves a number of purposes. For one, the zero-sum logic of interurban competition incentivizes the purification of urban space and the presentation of ‘cleanliness’ for the purposes of city marketing. As transfer payments decline as a source of revenue for municipal governments, cities are desperately attempting to enhance their international reputation for the purpose of attracting tourism and capital investment. The cleansing of visible poverty from urban space is accomplished through police harassment and displacement of visible poverty and other ‘undesirable’ uses of space(Kennelly 9). The city’s adaptation to market logics also influences the way urban space is produced and presented internally, to its own population. For example, concentrations of homeless people are said to deter visitors and consumers from traveling to and shopping in those parts of the city [BY WHO]. Visible homelessness is also targeted by city authorities because it disrupts attempts to render the city as a landscape (Mitchell 186). Rendering the city as a landscape is a means of presenting the individual with an illusory sense of control and freedom in the complex urban environment where control in fact belongs to the totalizing economy and freedom for some comes at the expense of freedom for others. The illusion of control is in a sense the way citizens are alienated from the constitutive parts and production of the city. Instead of seeing the realities of capital relations, or the activities of labour reproduction required daily to renew the urban workforce, citizens are presented with a stage on which the daily dramas of the “pacified public” can take place (Mitchell 186). On this stage, a certain kind of “legitimate” citizen expects a broad freedom to move through space without resistance or disturbance, such as may come from encountering or being confronted by
Mark Peterson’s 1994 photograph, Image of Homelessness, compares the everyday life of the working class to the forgotten life of the lowest class in society. In the image, the viewer can see a troubled homeless man wrapped in a cocoon of standard manipulated 12in by 12in cardboard boxes and yarn. The yarn is what is keeping the man and box tied to the red bench. This bench has chipped paint and is right in front of a black fence. Underneath the bench is dirt and debris from the dead fall leaves. The center focal point is the homeless man on the bench. He is the focal point because he is the greatest outsider known to man. Behind this man is vibrant life. There is pulsating people crossing the clean street, signs of life from all the advertising on store windows, families walking and blurred cars filled with
According to Streetwise of Street News Services (2010), the first reported instances of homelessness dates as far back as 1640, in some of the larger cities in the original 13 colonies. At this time, there were wars being fought between settlers and Native Americans, and people were left with no shelter in both sides (Street News Service, 2010). Later, the industrial revolution caused more homelessness, industrial accidents left many former hard-working families with a dead provider, or with severe disabilities, and then the economy entered a recession in the same time period (Street News Service, 2010). Wars always left a large number of veterans homeless. Later, in 1927, there was an astronomical flood along the Mississippi River, across multiple state, leaving about 1.3 million people without a home (Street News Service, 2010). Natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, the Asian tsunami in 2004, and the earthquake early this year in Japan are still a major cause of homelessness.
Rose, J. K. (1997, November 8). The city beautiful movement. University of Virginia. Retrieved December 28, 2010, from http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/citybeautiful/city.html
There are many components that contribute to the homelessness in America. Neoliberalism and capitalism are very important contributors to discuss. Under these practices lies multiple factors that not only perpetuate, but also maintain homelessness. In a neoliberal era, there’s a shift of deregulating and privatizing public spheres/programs and move it under the authority of private and individual entities. This includes the lack of support and funding in access to affordable housing, employment, income, public health, and other public assistance. Neoliberalism, poverty, and capitalism has play a key role in sustaining the unequal distribution of wealth and resources among people, which has resulted folks in losing their sense of self.
In fiscal year 2006, the HUD, Department of Housing and Urban Development, was presented a budget by the Bush Administration consisting of $528.5 billion for homeless programs (Romeo 1). The problem of homelessness and extreme poverty is not a new occurrence; but in past years more extreme measures have been taken to combat the issue as more people become homeless. Expensive social programs and housing developments for the homeless have been created to help battle the increasing issue. Homelessness is an expensive problem that will never end; furthermore, the condition of homeless people in America is affected by the type of education they receive, the state of the economy, and the amount of funds that are available to house and feed them.
The Homeless in America I never imagined that I would be homeless. " Although I have read this statement over and over again, the facts behind it remain astonishing. The facts are that there are millions of homeless people in America today. Many of these people had no choice but to become homeless. Economic problems such as being laid off work, or the rise in the cost of housing, have led people to live on the streets.
Statistically, over 670,000 Americans are homeless with a growing number. 48 million people go to bed hungry every night. Although we do provide shelters and opportunities in America, millions of people are homeless worldwide. Even on a more minor level there are still hundreds homeless within hometowns. Everyday we encounter the homeless whether by seeing them holding their personal signs at stoplights, confronts with beggars, or viewing them from afar under bridges. In her essay titled “On Compassion”, writer Barbara Ascher uses rhetorical techniques detailing some of her personal homeless experiences within the city life, Asher does effectively use logos, pathos,
There are too many connecting issues that have caused homelessness to escalate from a lifestyle that was really only lived by middle aged individuals with a substance abuse problem, to a condition that is endured everyday by a diverse number of people. The 2013 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress reveals that 36 percent of the homeless population consisted of individuals in families--over half of which were children--17.8 percent was made up by the chronically homeless, and an estimated 10 percent was comprised of veterans.
Elliott’s ambition for writing this article is to expose the world to the horrific conditions of homeless people in America’s largest cities. Invisible Child is successful in bringing awareness to this issue due to its strategic implementations of thought provoking situations and its application of emotional content. The audience of this article would most likely include ordinary people who are conscious of the difficulties of those in their neighborhood and surrounding areas.
The Image of Homelessness, captured by Mark Peterson in 1994, shows two perspectives of how people live their lives. In the center of the photograph you see a short, black, rounded fence, no higher than the old, brown bench placed in front of it. On the bench is a temporary shelter made of cardboard boxes, tied down with strings. To the right of the fence is a thin, sick looking tree with trash and dead leaves surrounding the base of the tree. In the bottom left corner of the photo is a box placed under the bench and reads: “Handle with Care,” which is ironic as the living conditions show a complete lack of care. Above the fence, stretching across the top of the photo, the sun shines on the blurred Burger King
“Homeless is more than being without a home. It is tied into education needs, food, security; health issues both mental and physical, employment issues, etc. Don’t forget the whole picture.” (“Boxed In” 2005 pg. 108)
It’s shown satirically on television, made fun of in music, and joked about in day-to-day activities: being homeless. I don’t understand what’s so funny about being homeless. The struggle to stay alive in an uninviting climate with nothing but the clothes on your back, doesn’t seem very fun. Yet in the media, being homeless is still treated like a joke. In the essay “Homeless” by Anna Quindlen, the reader is shown what it truly means to be without a home. My view on the struggles that homeless people have to endure is very similar to that of Quindlen’s in her essay, which perfectly captured the reality of what it is like to be without a home, and what it truly means to be homeless; while simultaneously demonstrating to me the negative effect
Of the many problems affecting urban communities, both locally and abroad, there is one issue in particular, that has been victimizing the impoverished within urban communities for nearly a century; that would be the problem of gentrification. Gentrification is a word used to describe the process by which urban communities are coerced into adopting improvements respective to housing, businesses, and general presentation. Usually hidden behind less abrasive, or less stigmatized terms such as; “urban renewal” or “community revitalization” what the process of gentrification attempts to do, is remove all undesirable elements from a particular community or neighborhood, in favor of commercial and residential enhancements designed to improve both the function and aesthetic appeal of that particular community. The purpose of this paper is to make the reader aware about the significance of process of gentrification and its underlying impact over the community and the community participation.
every aspect and institution in a society work as one to create a function; these institutions are said to be
Camping is a fun activity for friends and family, that’s the time where they share their memories, and also make new ones. On the other hand, camping is when people are trying to stay off the rain, and wild animals form attacking them. That’s when camping is a time their lives depends on it. The article “Camping for their lives” by Scott Bransford talk about small and big cities that is over populated with homeless citizens. The article talks about what is happening in the scene, and what they have to face each and everyday order to survive.