Dny final

DNY FINALHOMELESSNESS IN NEW YORK CITYBy, Melanie Ricks

THE COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS Once I completely went through their website, I

realize how big of an issue homelessness is in New York City. I always knew there were a lot of people living on the streets, but the actually numbers were way higher than I ever expected them to be.

After reading the whole site, I was shocked that they’re aren’t more places within the city for the homeless people to go at night.

Although there are many programs to help the homeless, there’s not nearly enough programs that help homeless people.

Funds for the homeless to find jobs, get food, and have shelter t live in should not be cut. The homeless are people too and they need our help.

THEY N

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People like this need our help. When passing a homeless person on the street, isn’t it impossible not to feel bad? The number of homeless people in NYC is constantly increasing because we tend to ignore the problem. Instead of helping the homeless, we tend to look down upon them because of their situation. We always assume that the homeless are on the street because of something they screwed up with in their lives. But sometimes, they have no choice.

HOMELESS STATISTICS

Total number of homeless people in municipal shelters: 39,542

Number of homeless families: 9,864

Number of homeless children: 15,657

Number of homeless adults in families: 14,111

Number of homeless single adults: 9,774

Number of homeless single men: 7,033

Number of homeless single women: 2,741

for more graphs and statistics, please visit:

http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/pages/basic-facts-about-homelessness-new-york-city-data-and-charts

According to the Coalition of the homeless: All as of February 28th, 2011

THE COALITION DOES AMAZING THINGS FOR THE HOMELESS The coalition has been helping the homeless

population of New York City for the past 25 years.

They help men, women and children of all ages throughout New York City. Food, shelter, education and in some cases money are given to the people that reach out to them.

Through housing, job training, emergency food, crisis intervention, and youth programs, they help men, women and children caught in poverty. The coalition also has many ways for people to donate money.

HELP TH

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MELESS!!!!!!

One of the groups provides up to 1,000 emergency meals to homeless and desperately poor individuals and families every night of the year. Another group helps adults that are in need of money for rent; they will pay the rent for the people who need it most.Education throughout America is so expensive; it is a shock to me that people would not only educate, but truly assist people in getting a degree to help better them.The program that I find very interesting is the first step job training program. I like that woman are able to be helped get a job. 

TELL THEM

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O I AM

Eliot Liebow does an amazing job of informing people about how homelessness REALLY effects people living on the streets on New York City. Liebow lets all readers know that homelessness is a SERIOUS problem in this great city. While there are a lot of programs that help the homeless, MOST people don’t even take a second glance at the homeless. A lot of people do not care about the homeless in New York City; they are too busy judging them.

TELL THEM WHO I AM Throughout the preface, Liebow

describes how he got so interested in the homeless people. He goes on to tell us that people should be more accepting of homeless people.

It also describes how women have to live in the streets of New York City in homeless shelters. Liebow lets us know the hardships of the homeless people throughout the city.

Average people should show some compassion towards them. Many people do not understand what these people have to go through. Liebow acknowledges that most people in New York City would rather turn a blind eye to this problem. I don’t think that refugee centers and homes should be closed at any time during the year. People need places to live and if these centers are closed, they are forced to live on the streets of the city.

The people have to live there, the workers, and the volunteers are all not in places where they want to be.

Although workers and volunteers give up their time and other possible needs to help these people, I’m sure that many of them would rather be doing other things.

The people who live there are grateful for a place to stay but obviously they don’t want to be homeless.

They would give up that lifestyle for practically anything just to get off the street.  

The numbers of homeless people are “reducing” in New York City.

This may be practically true; however, homeless people are just less visible within the city so it appears that there are less people.

Many of the “invisible homeless people” in New York City are just trying to get themselves off the street; they are trying to make a better life for themselves.

I believe that the purpose of Liebow’s research is to show people about the problems of homelessness in the city.

He lets us know that it is much more serious than it appears to be.

In homeless shelter, life isn’t easy for anyone.

TELL THEM WHO I AM Liebow lets us know that all the

families that he has written about are very different. The lives of these families were so different because of the ways that they were forced to live. I never associated homeless people with having families or jobs. These jobs are dead end and cannot not support even support one person. The people that have to work these jobs that are homeless are normally the people that have to support their children. The most important thing to the women in this novel is their children. Homeless families tend to have a stronger bond ten many families throughout New York. A lot of the time, the mothers and fathers of these families stay very close to their children because that is all they have in this world. Some people use the people around them as their family to make them feel important and loved. Many of these people feel uncomfortable around a lot of people so they stay close to the people that they call family.

the way homeless people are viewed by the servers and how the homeless people view them can be cruel. Not only are the servers sometimes really afraid of the homeless people, but sometimes the homeless people feel intimidated by the servers. A lot of the people at the shelters thought of the homeless people to be a little annoying; they looked down upon the homeless people. Some of the homeless that realized this only began to felt worse about themselves while others became even angrier than they were. The attitudes of many of the servers were very negative towards the people. Especially towards the people that wanted a choice of food or drink. Many of the servers couldn’t figure out how these people had the “nerve” to ask for anything extra considering the situation that they were all in.

TELL THEM WHO I AM It is impossible for many homeless people in NYC to get

out of poverty. No employer in this city is going to hire someone that is dressed in rags; they won’t even bother to give those people a chance. A lot of the people are on the street because of something they did wrong in their lifetime. Many of these people screwed up their own lives. But people SHOULD get second chances. It’s totally unfair that these people are doomed to live their lives this way. homeless people already have to suffer enough because they are shunned by the main society. Society wants to keeo the homeless in their place. If homeless people were TRULY meant to be off the street, they would be. there would be a way for these people to get jobs. The homeless people that do actually have jobs are such low income jobs that the money is barely enough food to supply them for a week. If the person has children, they have to work two or three of these bottom level jobs just to make enough money to eat and for basic clothing. there is NO money in their budget for housing at this point. these people are forced to live in homeless shelters or on the streets.

COMPASSION FOR THE HOMELESS One day, I was sitting in Popeye’s with my boyfriend and we

just began to eat. The people around us were loud and rude. A man dressed in rags and old dirty clothes came into the store and immediately walked straight to the garbage can and began dig through it. He picked out a few scrapes of food and sat at a table and ate. The people in the store laughed and were disgusted by his actions. I watched the man’s expressions and I could tell he felt very bad. He turned around and asked my boyfriend and I for a piece of our food. I gave him my meal and my boyfriend put a $20 on the side of the food. We stood up and left. The man ran out of the store after us and told us that we left our money in the food. We told him it was for him; the joy that overcame his face brought my eyes to tears as we walked away. The man was so grateful; he thanked us many times. It made me realize how blessed I really am and how little it takes to make a person’s day. The homeless people really do appreciate the little things they get in life. And people don’t really understand how much these people need our help. The smallest contribution can help.

SERVICE EXPERIENCE

Handing out food to people at the grand central food program made me feel sad. The whole time I watched people stand in line to get food. It hurt me when I saw the first child in line. She little boy stood close to his mother with such a tired look in his face. Most of the people said thank you after receiving their food. Many of them were grateful just to feel the warmth of the soup they received. It was upsetting to see how many people were in line, but seeing the children hurt most of all. The homeless people need our help now more than EVER!

MY PHOTO ESSAY http://www.youtube.com/user/yayitsmelzxox3

3?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/Di6bBzvcbqM

My photo essay shows the hardship that many people have to go through throughout the city. the people that really need our help are often unable to let us know how much they need us because they are constantly being ignored.

No loitering. Who is this sign really for? People who have jobs and families don’t tend to loiter in many places. Could this possibly be a sign that is directed to homeless people?

MY WORDLE http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3235654/Un

titled

My wordle describes how families that are homeless try to survive. Although mothers with their children are living on the streets, people rarely help them. When we think of homeless people, we think of an older man or woman sitting on a street corner. This is not a typical homeless case. Many homeless New Yorkers are children and are in desperate need because their parents cannot afford to support them. Even the parents that stay by their children still are not able to give their children everything they need.

AWAKEN; IT’S TIME TO GROW UP  I had never known so much about myself. I was watching these

people through a lens that was all too real. Reality can be so cruel and unforgiving. The anger that had stricken his heart wrapped around his whole body. His negative drive bounced off everything around him. I felt the coldness in his heart when he approached me for food. His face was pale and almost lifeless; there was barely any emotion in his stare. I had never felt such coldness in my life. The hair on his face was irregular, like someone ripped out half of his beard. His old wool hat had two large holes in them; holes large enough to make me wonder if there was a purpose to even wearing the hat. His jacket was heavy and he wore beat down jeans. He wore miss matched sneakers. Those stood out so much. I gazed at his feet for a few minutes, wondering if it even bothered him that his shoes were two totally different colors. He sat alone. He wanted to be alone. He craved to be alone. He did not want my petty company or the company of others. He made sure that other people did not have the opportunity to hurt his soul that was already in such great despair. He sat at the longest table. Why would someone who craves to be alone sitting at a table that is automatically so inviting to others?

AWAKEN

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   I thought to myself. “If I wanted to be alone, I would not sit at this table. This table attracts people to it.” However, I stood at the front of my line to hand out food to the other people. The other people thanked me and gave me a smile or a nod of the head…OR SOME EMOTION. I just could not get that guy out of my head. He seemed so backwards to me. Was it the time he spent on the streets? Had someone hurt him? Had everyone he knew just abandon him? Whatever it was, it must have been bad to mess him up so bad. I told a friend I was doing service with that the dark man gave me the chills. She had worked at the site last semester so she knew the story behind a lot of the regulars. She told me that he ran away from home as a teenager because he did not want to go to college like his siblings. He wanted to live a carefree life with his girlfriend that left him once she realized he had no chance of becoming anything in society. After she left him, he gave up on life. He gave up on anything and everything that meant something to him. For him, there was no point in trying anymore. I looked at the man from a distance and I saw that the passion had left his soul. All that was left was a hard shell that was ready to die.

AWAKEN; IT’S TIME TO GROW UP (CONTINUED…) As I walked home that day, I realized that the issues I

had in my life were not worth leaving my family. Although living with them aggravates me at times because of the careless things they do, it’s still better to tough it out. I have come to realize that life without family means nothing. There is nothing to wake up for and start the day with. I sat and tried to think of all of the reasons for possibly leaving the people that love you most and I honestly could not think of one. When I was fourteen years old I had these ideas of running away from home to escape all of my problems. But now I realize that, with these problems, comes love, honor and respect. Family are the people that will get you through day by day when all else has given up on you. The coldness in the man’s soul came from the loss of all that had once had great love for him. His family did not even try to search for him once he left. That probably hurt most of all. He probably ran away as a cry for attention… and he didn’t get an ounce of it.

AWAKEN

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Learning how to cope with everything at home is one of the hardest things to do in life but it is defiantly worth it. The happiness and love that a family brings to one’s life cannot be replaced by anything. And once it is gone, all feeling of love and acceptance leaves. And one feels… alone.

FINAL THOUGHTS Throughout this course

I learned about the homeless problem that we have in New York city. I never knew that so many people were in desperate need for our help.

Many of the videos and articles on the home site still remain in my mind. The different opinions of homelessness are fascinating.

The video that I really remember is The Real New York City – Insight to Homelessness

The video lets us know what the real issues are of homelessness are in New York City. There are many homeless people throughout the city and many of them are women and children. There are also many families that are living on the street together; there are also many families are torn apart because of the poverty. The woman in the video describes her lifestyle. She is homeless and she realizes that no one ever does anything to help the homeless people. There is very little help available in NYC. The homeless people have to search for the help they need because it is not in the public eye.

This course has opened my eyes to the many people that cannot support themselves within the city. It gave me a greater appreciation for all the blessings in my life. Being able to go to school, go home to a loving family and nice house, to be able to pursue my dreams is truly a blessing that I will never take for granted. This course made me face the fact that not everyone is able to follow what is in their heart because of their circumstances. Whenever I see an opportunity, I will always give my time or money to support these people. I used to feed into the stereotype that all homeless people live on the streets trying to get drunk and harass people for money. But many of the homeless people on the street are not like this. A lot of them have families to support. Many of the homeless people have jobs but they are so low paying that they cannot afford a home.