Homeless: What Should The Government Do? Essay, Research Paper

How Should We Treat the Homeless?

I think that to treat all homeless people in one certain way would be

hard for me to do because there are many reasons for a person to be homeless,

and some of them should be treated differently from others. I feel that the

runaways and drug addicts don’t deserve as much as the unemployed and war

veteran types. But I feel in my heart that all people with no homes, or lives

for that matter, should get some sort of help to survive and get back on their

feet so that they can become a pro-ductive member of society.

Lars Eighner, a homeless man, wrote a book entitled “Travels with

Lizbeth: Three Years on the Road and on the Streets” in which he describes in

one chapter “the process of scavenging Dumsters for food and other

necessities.” Eighner states that even though he is homeless with not much

money, he still eats and sometimes finds money from scavenging Dumpsters. This

seems like a form of self-reliance for him.

In his story, Eighner tells us what is safe to eat, how to tell if it is

safe, and where to get the food. He states that a lot of people throw away

perfectly good food, and when they do he finds it. Eighner says the food “can

be evaluated with some confidence largely on the basis of appearance.” In my

opinion, I don’t care if the food looks perfect, I wouldn’t eat garbage unless

I was dying from hunger.

But eating is only one problem facing the homeless. Their second

priority should be shelter. Where will they go if it is freezing or something?

Many large cities have homeless shelters, but sometimes they get full and the

last to arrive might not be allowed in due to overcrowding according to fire

laws. I wish that they would let these people sleep on the floor or something

rather than sleep outside and freeze to death. I think that if the government

can’t help these people get back on their feet, then they should build larger

shelters to house all of them. They could even serve more food at the shelters

so the homeless won’t have to eat garbage. I know my city is building a very

large shelter to take in the homeless and I hope other cities follow.

Homeless people have many problems to face. If this country would

organize more programs to help the homeless, we might see some really low-class”

panhandlers” become productive citizens if they choose to. Then the people who

have been helped could help more homeless to get back on their feet. It could

be a chain of homeless helping homeless.