Project 2 Script

Hello everyone, thank you for tuning in, my name is Matthew and I am a dual enrollment student at the College of Coastal Georgia. In this podcast, I will be discussing the discrimination of homeless people, more specifically, how big cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta affect homeless people. Why is this topic important? An article from The Guardian states that big cities such as Key West and San Francisco give free bus tickets to homeless people to ship them out, and while this may seem like a good idea, many of them have no place to go in their new destination, leading them to go back to their old shelter in the city they previously resided in, only to find out they are banned from it (The Guardian).

Homeless people are discriminated against in many aspects, one of them being in the job force. In an article by Yale Law School affiliate Sarah Golabek-Goldman, Goldman explains that homeless people that apply for jobs “confront discrimination” as they put the address of a homeless shelter, or if they live on the streets, no address at all. Employers most likely do this because homeless people are stereotyped to have mental disabilities, drug abuse, etc. Another way big cities are affecting the homeless is by building and using anti-homeless architecture. A New York Times article written by Winnie Hu states that cities use metal teeth on garden walls so people cannot sit or sleep on them, while also using large clamps and metal bars on benches. Hu states, "But hostile architecture, in New York and other cities, has increasingly drawn a backlash from critics who say that such measures are unnecessary and disproportionately target vulnerable populations." In other words, many think these cities are targeting homeless people in an inhumane manner, as these benches and walls are the only places they get to sit or sleep on. Due to these many circumstances, being homeless is difficult and hard on your mind and your body, if you or someone you know is experiencing homelessness please visit www.hudexchange.info. Continuing, many think that some big cities handle the homeless situation better than others. Author Steven Brown, the author of "What Cities Can Do to Combat Homelessness" exemplifies this, stating that Houston is a great example of a city who has effectively fought homelessness due to their "The Way Home" plan introduced in 2012. Brown explains, "The goals of The Way Home are to create a system to identify the chronically homeless and match them to appropriate affordable housing, coordinate a service system to support long-term housing stability, and create enough permanent housing to meet the demand." Due to the success of this plan, homelessness in Houston has declined by 60% (Brown).

Unfortunately, not every city can be as successful as Houston when it comes to combating homelessness, especially Los Angeles, and California in general, who have the highest rate of homelessness in the country. Katelyn Newman, an author from usnews.com, says that in California, over 550,000 people were homeless on one night in 2019, an increase of 2.7% from the previous year. Also, Newman states that although homeless populations have declined in the majority of the states in 2019, the increase of California's homeless population caused "a nationwide rise in overall homeless." In conclusion, homelessness is a large issue, and while some cities choose good alternatives to fight it, others choose awful ways that are not effective.