Sharing: Words Matter

The editors of the website Fusion have made a style choice decision to use Black and White as adjectives only, not nouns, when referring to people.

Good idea?

In a Reply below, suggest another style choice editors should always make that is too often violated. Or simply express your opinion about this one.

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Research Tips

Feedback Required

During this discussion, open a Reply below and keep notes about the usefulness of the advice in this post. Reply also if it hasn’t been useful.

Why this is important

I found Username a source using Google Scholar and the Rowan library.

“I can’t find any sources!”

Username and I were talking last semester about his topic, the hateful anti-gay rhetoric spewed by the Westboro Baptist Church, that passionate, let’s just say obnoxious and vicious group responsible for the God Hates Fags signs they display at funerals for American soldiers, gay or otherwise.

His thesis was that the Church inadvertently creates support for the gay community. The Supreme Court mandated that gay marriage is legal in all 50 states, but there’s been plenty of pushback in many locations and other rights that heterosexuals take for granted are routinely denied the gay community. Outfits like the Westboro group make it harder for regular folks to share a point of view with a group so tasteless. We don’t want to be associated with the “God Hates Fags” group, so we find it impossible to publicly support their cause.

Until we talked, Username had been frustrated looking for sources to support his thesis. No amount of searching for “Westboro Baptist Church” yielded the sort of evidence he was looking for. Which is a good thing, but he didn’t know it yet.

“I’ve been looking in the wrong place!”

  • I suggested to him that the trouble was his search technique. He was looking for direct testimony from somebody that the WBC were creating enemies for their cause.
  • I asked him why. He said he wanted evidence that we all want to associate our opinions with people we admire, and that we avoid being associated with people we despise.
  • I asked him if he could give me an example. He suggested that sometimes the sudden appearance of unexpected people in media presentations have polarizing effects on viewers’ feelings. When Oprah Winfrey endorses a cause, for example, some people automatically embrace the cause to show their solidarity with Oprah, while others resist the cause from a similar impulse.
  • I asked him how this related to the WBC. He said the appearance of the celebrity reflects on the value and credibility of the message. It was clear from our conversation that the personalities involved in expressing an opinion affect our opinions.

“All I had to do was talk about it with someone”

  • Once we had shifted the focus away from the Westboro Baptist Church to the effect of celebrity endorsers, we had a whole new area for research to investigate.
  • A few years back, we noted, not just golf fans, but people in general, wanted to associate with Tiger Woods any way they could, which made him a massively popular product endorser. Now marketers won’t touch him with a 9-iron.

The process Username had been using:

  1. I want to prove my thesis that the Westboro Baptist Church creates support for gay rights.
  2. I search endlessly for “Westboro Baptist Church.”
  3. Nobody has written about the effect of the WBC on public opinion.
  4. Nobody has written about the accidental support the WBC provides for gay marriage.
  5. Since I can’t find any authoritative source that addresses itself directly to my thesis . . .
  6. I despair that there are no sources to prove my thesis, that the WBC creates support for gay rights.

The best (worst) outcome for this process:

  • Somebody would agree with me, which would prove my thesis. FAIL.
  • Somebody would have written about the idea before I did and I would simply echo them to support myself. FAIL.
  • I would “succeed” by parroting someone else’s thesis. FAIL.

What should I do instead?

  1. Think about (better yet, TALK about) my thesis until I start to raise questions that can be researched by searching something other than Westboro Baptist Church.
  2. Follow up that lead I generated for myself by raising the question of celebrity endorsement.

“This stuff actually works!”

Shortly after that conversation, I typed “celebrity endorsement” into Google Scholar and generated this lead on the second page:

The effects of negative information transference in the celebrity endorsement relationship

The source is a journal of retail management. It has nothing to do with the Westboro Baptist Church, but it has everything to do with how far people will go to distance themselves from a product (or perhaps a political or social position) on the basis of negative information about a celebrity who endorses it.

“But I can’t actually get the article I want!”

The actual journal article was not available for free on Google Scholar. The cost to print the article was $32. And I didn’t even know if it would help me. I like Username a lot, but that was a little steep for a source of unknown value. So:

“Oh. That was easy.”

I entered the title above into the search engine for Rowan’s Campbell Library. (I didn’t even have to choose between ProfSearch and ProQuest; the generic search engine did all the work for me, since I knew the title.) The immediate result was this:

The effects of negative information transference in the celebrity endorsement relationship

Free access to the full article from ProfSearch. Free because I’m affiliated, as you are, with the Rowan library database and the thousands of journals it subscribes to. This first article, discovered after just minutes of effort, yielded this nugget:

As the pairing of the product and celebrity is continually repeated in advertisements, consumers begin to automatically associate the celebrity with the product she is promoting, setting up the potential for negative information transfer. Transference theory assumes that “the effects of past relationships (positive or negative) will carry over into future relationships” (Bunker and Ball, 2005, p. 510). When a negative celebrity event occurs, consumers gain new insights into the celebrity’s bundle of meanings, which in turn will impact the social relational process into the future (Berk and Andersen, 2000; Bunker and Ball, 2005; Chen and Andersen, 1999). We can predict that when negative meanings become part of the celebrity’s bundle of meanings, consumers will metaphorically transfer the meanings into their perception of the product as well. Thus, the negative celebrity information has the potential to not only affect how consumers feel about the celebrity, but it can also affect their feelings toward the product the celebrity is promoting.

And a second finding that shows the process to operate in reverse as well.

Associative network framing and elemental learning forms the theoretical foundation for much of the research investigating celebrity endorsement effectiveness. Associative learning theory is concerned with the factors that govern association formation when two stimuli are repeatedly presented together (Pearce, 1987). Elemental learning, which is indicative of celebrity/product associations, “treats stimulus patterns as composed of elemental units, each of which enters into the associative structure” (Harris, 2006). In a dual elemental memory pattern, both memory units exhibit equal and similar influence on each other. Thus, Till (1998)theorized that the association link that forms as a result of a celebrity endorsement can work in reverse as well. By repeatedly pairing a celebrity with a product, not only do consumers begin to think about the product when exposed to the celebrity, but they also begin to think about the celebrity when exposed to the product. Therefore, the transference of negative meanings should be expected to work in reverse, allowing negative information concerning a product to affect the perceived meanings consumers have of the celebrity as well.

So, to update that process:

  1. Think about your topic.
  2. Talk about your topic.
  3. Listen carefully for researchable topics not immediately named in your thesis.
  4. Use whatever search engine works best for you
    • Library Database directly
    • Google Scholar
    • Wikipedia articles that yield rich lists of sources you can then retrieve by title
  5. If you run into a pay wall, enter the titles in the Campbell Library database.
  6. Read about the value (both positive and negative) of celebrity endorsement.
  7. Learn about our tendency to dissociate ourselves from unsavory characters (AND their products, AND their social views).
  8. Apply that evidence—from outside your primary topic—to your very specific thesis.
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Got ’em, Need ’em Summaries

Got these:

aeks
chancetoremember
chippy
dunkindonuts
greeneggsandham
kedudnaimad
kingoflizards
nickaledeansallthat
nobinaryneeded
romanhsantiago
starbucks
studentwriter
thecommblackhawk
therealjohnsanchez
therealmoana

Still need these:

torthey
wentzwagon

This is not a major assignment, but I will pay close attention to deadlines early in the semester entirely for your benefit. Establishing the good practice of submitting work on time will avoid the serious problem of coming to the end of the semester without a completed Portfolio. Your drafts don’t have to be extraordinary, but do submit them on time.

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Summaries-starbucks

Seizing Gear from The Homeless

It seems counterintuitive that police officers are being asked to take the homeless people’s belongings away from them, when they want them to be healthy and stable. In Los Angeles, homeless people are now reaching out to lawyers to sue due to their personal belongings being taken. There was an incidence where a woman was hospitalized because her tent and blanket were removed from her. Now in Los Angeles there is a law restricting the amount of things a homeless person can have with them. The mayor in Denver, on the other hand, is holding off the seizing of the homeless until April. Seattle is now in a debate due to the amount of personal items the homeless are losing. In San Francisco they are under a lawsuit for seizing twenty-three people’s items. Lastly, in Honolulu even though it is warmer out and the weather conditions aren’t as difficult to live in, they are still having issues with seizing because the homeless are at risks if they are not able to keep themselves cool.

The Street Level Solution

It seems counterintuitive that we assume putting homeless people in homes will solve all problems. However, if people are living on the streets long enough and all of a sudden they are put in a home, it may not be easy for them to adapt well. Socializing with other people may also be an issue because they were probably alone most of the time. Many people become depressed due to traumatic brain injuries. In the Street Level Solution article, James O’Connell states, “For many it was a head injury prior to the time they became homeless. They became erratic. They’d have mood swings, bouts of explosive behavior. They couldn’t hold onto their jobs. Drinking made them feel better. They’d end up on the streets.” For these types of people, the best solution is usually support with mental health problems and being placed in a communal residence. This can be extremely beneficial to the homeless because a lot of support is provided, helping these people to get up and active again.

Trump Shelters?

It seems counterintuitive that since Donald Trump has become our new President, no changes that were made benefitted the homeless. If Trump goes through with the penny plan it could greatly affect the housing for the homeless in a negative way. The penny plan would cut one percent of government spending each year which would give them less money to pay for housing or shelters. Many places around the country are expected homelessness to get worst and are already starting to prepare for that.

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Summaries- Chippy

Common Ground

It seems counterintuitive that a wealthy city like New York could also be the home of tons of homeless people sleeping out on the streets. That is when Rosanne Haggarty decided to make a difference in the world by creating a nonprofit organization called Common Ground. She fixed up the old Times Square Hotel to provide a home for all the homeless and services, such as job training and healthcare. She was able to successfully house many homeless people, but there were still so many out living on the streets who didn’t know about her program. She needed a way to get them inside so she called Becky Kanis, a former special operations commander for help.

They decided to head out onto the streets and find out exactly why the homeless were still living on the streets and not in the hotel. They interviewed the people on the streets and ranked them 0-8, eight being that they were going to die on the streets soon. They called this the vulnerability index, which allowed Kanis and her team to figure out who needed the most help. They would proceed to help these people first and work their way down the index.

Rosanne Haggarty has dedicated her life to making sure these homeless people are off the streets and have a place to live, even though it takes years to get some of them inside. Overall, she has been able to get the level of chronically homeless people in Times Square down to zero and now she is being called up from other cities to start the Common Ground program across the country. She is also working with Kanis to try and address another big issue, which is the lack of affordable housing. Common Ground has made a huge impact in the homeless community by providing homes for over 7,500 people and it still continues to grow.

Housing First

It seems counterintuitive that having homeless people living on the streets is actually more expensive than trying to get them back on their feet. That is when the psychologist from New York University, Sam Tsemberis, decided to take action and come up with a plan to get the people off of the streets. His plan was to not make the chronically homeless sign any forms or pass any tests to be able to live in a home, considering the fact that most of them were alcoholics, traumatized, or had some sort of brain damage. Instead his plan would offer them a place to live, free counseling, and therapy.

Sam called his group Pathways to Housing, which provided apartments to 242 chronically homeless people with no questions asked as part of a large test. After five years 88 percent of the people still lived in their apartments and the cost for them to live in the home was less than it would have been if they were out on the street. There needed to be someone to plan, build, and manage the buildings or the homeless. That is when Matt Minkevitch and Kerry Bate, who have both worked with the homeless in Utah for many years, decided to get Lloyd Pendleton involved, who was an executive manager for the LDS chruch Welfare Department. He was able to receive donations from the church and grants from the government in which he used to make sure all chronic homeless people were placed in homes. These people now placed in a real home were able to become a whole new person and have a second chance at their lives. Salt Lake City was able to destroy chronic homelessness and hopefully other countries across the world could too with the help of programs like these.

Make Homelessness History

It seems counterintuitive that there are still so many people living out on the streets without homes, especially those with mental disabilities and life threatening diseases. An organization called Common Ground, along with twenty other organizations that focus on homelessness are trying to put an end to it. They have significantly reduced the amount of homeless people in many popular cities such as New York, Denver, and Wichita are some examples. In Los Angeles, the homeless capital, providing homeless people with homes is 40 percent cheaper than it is to leave them out on the streets. The group called Pathways to Housing made this point clear with their approach called “Housing First”which showed that all people really needed was a place to live, rather than being told they had to become drug and alcohol free first.

Common Ground has discovered that among the homeless there are many subgroups such as veterans, mentally ill, above sixty years old, and those who can’t find housing with their pets. People all across the country are coming to help get rid of homelessness forever. This program helped the chronic homeless from so many cities get into homes and to be seen as real human beings, rather than people who didn’t have a life for themselves and who lived on the street.

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Summaries-therealjohnsanchez

Seizing Gear from the Homeless

It seems counter intuitive that police officers would take from those that have the least. Denver’s mayor announced that the police will no longer confiscate the camping supplies that the homeless use to stay warm. The camping gear is taking due to laws that prohibit camping  and sleeping in public. These laws turn the homeless into criminals. More cities are doing this despite some courts ruling that the laws are unconstitutional. In LA, lawyers sued the city for the destruction of the property of 4 homeless people. The judge forced the city to stop seizing the property of homeless people. LA passed a law forcing the homeless to take down their tents during 6am to 9pm. In April, police can continue taking the camping supplies of the homeless. Groups in Denver and San Francisco have filed a lawsuit saying that sweeping the city for homeless people is unconstitutional. There has been ongoing debate about the sweeps in Seattle also. Some sweeps have been stopped by civil rights monitors. In Honolulu, 60 percent of the homeless have lost IDs, 40 percent have lost tents, and 21 percent have lost medicine in sweeps. Honolulu wants to move the homeless out of public view to an island that was formerly a garbage dump and a WWII internment camp.

Denver Isn’t the Only City Seizing Homeless People’s Gear

The Street Level Solution

It seems counter intuitive that head injuries are a major cause of homelessness. It has been found that many of the homeless have had a head injury that has made it difficult to work a steady job. Groups like Common Ground have been solving homelessness on the ground level. The group put homeless people in housing. The homeless also need help for mental health, addictions, and socializing. Once they have a house, the homeless are in a better position to become a productive member of society.

Trump Hasn’t Said Much About Homelessness

It seems counter intuitive that Trump focuses on the poor but ignores the homeless. Homelessness has been decreases thanks to support from the government but that may change due to tax cuts. It’s unclear how much money will be cut but programs for the homeless are at risk of losing funding. Funding cuts means there will be less affordable housing and more homeless people on the streets. Trump also promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act that has been used to give the homeless health care. If the ACA is repealed, it won’t go into effect for another year or two. Without it, the homeless won’t even get the most basic health care. When the government cuts support to these programs, the homeless problem grows much worse.

Trump Hasn’t Said Much About Homelessness—and That’s Making a Lot of People Nervous

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Summaries – Nobinaryneeded

Seizing Gear from the Homeless

It seems counterintuitive that the “land of the free and the home of the brave” is becoming somewhat of an issue when it comes to serving or helping the homeless. It seems that homelessness has become somewhat of an epidemic in America. They are supposed to be free and able to have their basic human rights, though the police in cities still maintain the ability to confiscate their belongings, stripping them of their freedom.

The mayor of Denver, Colorado, Michael B. Hancock, announced that city police are forbidden from taking sleeping bags, blankets, tents, etc. from homeless people. Before that though, it was legal to take their belongings. The law that was used to enforce this was a ban on public camping though homeless people are not campers, they’re people who have nowhere else to sleep. Denver is one of the cities that is allowing the homeless to stay warm during the frigid temperatures of winter.

Other cities have different laws regarding homelessness and their possessions. The Los Angeles City Council allows homeless people to have items that will fit in a 60-gallon container, and they’re allowed to have their tents up in between certain hours of the night. Seattle still enforces the laws, just not as strongly, with some sweeps being cancelled. In San Francisco there is currently a lawsuit out on the subject, and in Honolulu, Hawaii the homeless is still being stripped of their belongings.

While some cities are on board with allowing homeless people to keep their belongings to keep them warm, or in Hawaii’s case cool, there is still a long was too go in protect the homeless.

The Street-Level Solution

It seems counterintuitive that a lot of people like to claim they know a lot but when it comes to the homeless, they know nothing. We don’t know as much about homeless people as we think we do. There are many factors that go into being homeless while most people in the US think it’s because the people are lazy, though that is not true. We need to understand more about how the homeless are homeless and what they need in order to survive.

There are two kinds of homelessness: the chronically homeless and the episodically homeless. Understanding the difference between the two can lead to understanding what each individual needs in terms of care and/or housing. There are also other factors that play into this, such as homeless people sharing one thing in common: head trauma. This is more into the reason they are homeless, having suffered a head injury and became erratic and unable to keep a job, thus losing their job and then their home. These people would fall into the chronically homeless, rather than episodically homeless.

Homeless people though are able to get their lives together. With programs such as Common Ground, who give homeless people homes in their buildings, the people can start to do a lot better with getting back on their feet. It is possible to rise up from a previous hell, which some people don’t believe is possible for homeless people, though if we get more educated on the subject, it can be a surprise of what can come with the facts.

Trump Shelters?

It seems counterintuitive that one of the wealthiest men in the world won’t spare a cent to help some of the poorest people in the country. Newly elected president Donald Trump has stuck a nerve with the homeless, keeping quiet about what he is planning to do about their situation. During Barack Obama’s presidency veteran homelessness dropped 47% and chronic homelessness dropped by more than 20%, with the numbers continuing to decline. Trumps plans to make tax cuts are going to hurt this considering most of the funding for homeless shelters come out of the cities government spending.

Half of federal funds are spending on housing and emergency shelters. According to the president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Diane Yental, if Trump’s plan gets approved, there could be “devastating effects.”

On top of that, the Republican plan to repeal Obamacare could lead to the end of Medicaid, which was used to support those in homeless shelters. Luckily if this gets passed it won’t go into effect for another one or two years, but after that the results would be awful, states not having the funds for basic care, let alone extra care. Trump’s new policies will affect many, many homeless people in the future, should his plans go through.

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Summaries- chancetoremember

 

1.It is counterintuitive to think that homeless individuals are harmed by police officers, but unfortunately that is the case in many places.  Most would think that these officers have been ordered to help the needy in any way that they can, but on the contrary officers have been seizing items from the homeless that they need in order to survive in these cold winters.  This issue got so bad in Denver that the mayor had to order police officers to stop taking away the possessions of the homeless because other wise these people would not be able to survive.

There have been cases in some cities, such as Los Angeles, where individuals have been hospitalized after having their belongings taken away.  One woman was diagnosed with pneumonia after having her tent and blanket taken away during the winter.  State governments have made it even harder for the homeless to survive by taking away the little that they have.  All across the country there are city wide searches for the homeless where the few possessions they have are taken away. 

2.  It is counterintuitive to think that homelessness is not an issue in the United States.  Since Donald Trump became the newly elected President he has made many changes, but none of these changes have had any benefit to the homeless.  Trump talks about getting rid of things such as Obamacare, which provides healthcare to the lower class citizens of the United States.  He also has talked about instituting something called the “penny plan” which would take away one percent of government spending to pay for tax cuts.  These tax cuts would not touch Social Security and Medicare, but would seriously affect education, the environment, health issues, and housing programs.

Today many individuals depend on the government’s housing programs to sustain a place to live.  There is a very large amount of homeless people in the United States, and if these budget cuts affect the housing programs poverty is going to get much worse.  Many states fear that there will be a large increase in the amount of homeless individuals and are trying to prepare for it as much as possible.  A lot of those in charge of helping to end poverty feel that the government should take more interest in the issue and trying to provide solutions to the problem.

3.  It is counterintuitive to think that there are not people out in the world trying to help the homeless.  There are those such as the creators of the 100,000 Homes Campaign who want to help people get out of poverty and into good living conditions.  Institutions like 100,000 Homes set out to provide housing for the homeless free of cost.  This truly is a great idea, but the only drawback is that it is hard to actually get the homeless to come to these places.  Most of the homeless have drug or alcohol problems, mental illness, or HIV/AIDS.  There are also many war veterans in poverty who need help.  The institutions that are created to help these individuals are often not easily obtainable for those in poverty so they go unnoticed and not known about.

With learning about the issues with free housing and poverty, separate institutions were created to help the homeless with whatever type of issue they had.  Whether it was that they needed medical attention for AIDS or counseling for mental illness, different types of housing was created for each specific situation.  This campaign that created all of these institutions called “Common Ground” got donations from the wealthiest people in the areas where poverty was the highest to help their cause and contribute to it.  Money was raised and their housing became known about.  People actually started coming to the housing sites and getting the help that they needed.  This showed that people coming together for one good cause can truly make a difference.

Smith, Laura, Marc Brünke/Creative Commons, Edwin Rios, Scott Carrier, Julia Lurie, Russ Choma, and Pema Levy. “Denver Is Hardly the Only City Seizing Homeless People’s Gear.” Mother Jones. Mother Jones, 16 Dec. 2016. Web. 25 Jan. 2017.

Bornstein, David N/A. “A Plan to Make Homelessness History.” The Opinion Pages. Opinionator, 20 Dec. 2010. Web. 25 Dec. 2017.

Rios, Edwin D. “Trump Hasn’t Said Much about Homelessness-and That’s Making a Lot of People Nervous.” Mother Jones. Mother Jones, 8 Dec. 2016. Web. 25 Jan. 2017.

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Summaries—studentwriter

Common Ground

It seems counterintuitive that the homeless would reject a free living situation if one was given to them with open arms, however, we see now how that exact situation happened to Haggerty while she tried to reduce the number of homeless people living on the street. Roseanne Haggerty ran a nonprofit organization called common ground that sought out to fix the homeless population in New York City through renovating a former hotel with places to sleep that gave food and shelter to the homeless.

This system seemed foolproof and her team went into the project with optimism, to their dismay there were still many people who remained homeless in spite of the institution that was just built with them in mind. The problem was perplexing so they needed a way to assess the situation. The method began with a way to quantify the homeless’s conditions through a vulnerability index.

Those lower on the scale were pursued and asked a series of questions pertaining to the amount of help they were wishing to receive.  It was thought before this process the homeless would all be rushing to solve their predicament and help was given in response in a first come first serve basis. This idea was lacking human connection and decency which is the primary tool in keeping the homeless off the street according to Haggerty. The new method was enacted and proceeded to help hundreds.

Housing First 

It seems counterintuitive that a homeless person would not participate in the”linear residential treatment” program which allows upward mobility to the homeless population, but would rather run out of resources until they began to start living in dire straits. This problem was tackled by Tsemberis who understood the best way in solving the homeless problem in Salt Lake city was developing a personal relationship with these people and offering assistance to their condition.

This idea was slightly different than the previous because instead of forcing the homeless in question to change their entire lifestyle or seeing if they were deserving enough to live with the rest of society, this approach focused on the idea of a fresh start. It proposed that if treating the homeless like they were welcomed into society and gave them their time in fitting the norms and rules. With some time in between transitions the idea was that they would have a better response in moving in that direction.

This plan was seen as counter productive to the government who historically are not on board with permitting activities already deemed illegal. To fix the perception of this process which might be viewed as lacking order the organization gained support from the Church opening the idea up to even the most conservative thinkers. With this new support from the government Pathways to Housing was able to able to get rid of most of the homeless population in Salt Lake City.

Make Homelessness History

It seems counterintuitive to antagonize the people who need the assistance and positive interaction in this country as a way to provide a solution to the problem they are faced with. The “War on Homelessness” portrays the fake notion that homelessness comes from deviant behavior and the fault of their condition is their pure responsibility.

The best way of eradicating the homeless epidemic is understanding the problem at the roots and treating human beings as such in order to make positive change. When people have been suffering they often get stuck in a mindset that their life cannot get any better and perceive outreach and another hurdle they will have to overcome.

There is research to back the plan of taking the homeless out of their condition first and providing a safe environment will reduce the amount of relapse into toxic behaviors although it is evident that this process takes time and will not be immediate. Some may feel as if the money from the government to help these people may be flowing in the wrong direction perpetuating the assumption that the homeless will waste resources. The movement to treat the homeless as a friend in trouble gives hope to the situation and will ultimately benefit society as a whole as more uplifting changes are made in the right direction.

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Summaries—GreenEggsandHam

Seizing Gear From the Homeless

It is counterintuitive that cities confiscate belongings from the homeless that keep them safe and warm in the winter. This decade alone, a 70 percent increase in laws banning overnight camping have enabled cities to endanger the homeless by seizing their property and thwarting their efforts to reclaim them. The death from exposure of one Los Angeles whose blanket was seized has sparked a backlash from activist groups in cities from Seattle to Honolulu. No jurisdiction should make it alright for people to die in the cold.

Seattle’s homeless population been under extreme fire from the city. The city decided that the best way to deal with the overpopulation of homeless individuals is to have “sweeps” of homeless camps. City workers come in and confiscate  everything on sight, leaving homeless with nothing left. however, homeless rights activists have put the city under fire. Calling out civil rights violations due to protocol not being totally followed, they dialed it down a bit. However, no seizing of property should be under jurisdiction, as it severely endangers the homeless.

Sweeps are also very common in San Francisco and Honolulu. In San Franscisco, city workers seized everything from beds to stove. San Francisco city workers did a sixth month raid, they only preserving 23 seized belongings. in Honolulu it gets no better, as homeless individuals reported losing medics,identification, and heir tents during sweeps. In cities all across America, city workers are performing homeless sweeps. This civil rights violation needs to end, or more people will die.

 

The Street Level Solution

P1. It seems counterintuitive that housing the homeless doesn’t fix the homeless problem. People become homeless for many different reasons, not just simply that they can’t afford a home. Many become homeless, due to head trauma that affects how they think and act. Anyone can receive a severe bump on the head, that creates the illness that many homeless have. These people don’t just simply need a house, they need to be put in an environment that will help them. They need to have their mental problems addressed, and fixed.If their mental problems just geth thrown to the side, and they are just given housing, many will end up right back on the street.

P3. Often, the best solution for these homeless people, with mental issues, is to be put in a community environment. There they can receive the help and support they need to overcome their issue. Many join community gardens and many take different classes. At a common ground site in New York, 188 formerly homeless people found jobs due to a community like atmosphere. Sometimes, all a homeless person needs  is shelter, but to think that the only problem is simply not having a home only feeds into the problem.

Trump Hasn’t Said much about Homelessness

P1. It seems counterintuitive that Donald Trump hasn’t said much about homelessness. He a ran his campaign largely on helping the inner city.However a large problem in the inner city is the  large amount of homeless people. He has indicated that  he wants  to cut federal programs that help the homelessness. Doing this however,  would make the inner cities worse.

P2.Homelessness has been on the steady decline as of late.This is due to the federal spending put towards housing and programs to help the homeless.Trump’s “penny plan” will yield results to the 1980 cuts. Due to those cuts in 1980, homelessness hit a crisis. Cutting homelessness programming, would actually go back on his claim of  helping the inner cities. Trump proposed cuts would only create problems, not solve them.

P3. Trump along with HUD head, Ben Carson claimed they will do anything to help the inner cities thrive again. However cutting back social programs to keep the homeless off the street is the worst possible thing to do. This will create crime and drugs, and make the cities works. Sadly it  looks like they will go through with these cuts, so many homeless shelters are preparing for the worst. Hopefully, President Trump realizes the truth of the inner city problems.

Works Cited

Smith, Laura, Marc Brünke/Creative Commons, Edwin Rios, Scott Carrier, Julia Lurie, Russ Choma, and Pema Levy. “Denver Is Hardly the Only City Seizing Homeless People’s Gear.” Mother Jones. Mother Jones, 16 Dec. 2016. Web. 25 Jan. 2017.

Bornstein, David N/A. “A Plan to Make Homelessness History.” The Opinion Pages. Opinionator, 20 Dec. 2010. Web. 25 Dec. 2017.

Rios, Edwin D. “Trump Hasn’t Said Much about Homelessness-and That’s Making a Lot of People Nervous.” Mother Jones. Mother Jones, 8 Dec. 2016. Web. 25 Jan. 2017.

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