Response to “Someplace Like America”
In the article “Someplace like America” Maharidge study’s the lives of the homeless, Maharidge sets out on a journey to meet homeless people and he gets to know them on a personal level. In Santa Barbara, California on December 5, 1984 a hobo by the name Kenneth Burr was murdered. All the homeless people in that area were called “tree people” and at night the cops were “sweeping” the homeless to make their lives miserable.
There were some homeless people that had so much in value and just lost everything do to the economy and the loss of jobs which made them become completely homeless. The way cops handled the situation by trying to make the homeless feel uncomfortable in my opinion is beyond wrong. Some of the people that were homeless couldn’t help the things that were going on in their lives at the time and I feel that they should not be punished any more than they already are. I can say that things were a lot worse in the 1980’s compared to now after reading this article.
In the 1980’s most people who got laid off from work often lost their homes and were not able to bounce back to find a new job. All suffered depression and mentally gave up which made their lives quickly go down hill. Still today America faces huge problems dealing with the economy and there are more and more Americans becoming homeless each day. There are many people today struggling to survive, most are in need of immediate help. I’m not really sure if the cops are still “sweeping” in some places still today, but if so there should be a stop to it.
When some people lose their jobs and everything they own they are not able to deal with the road that’s ahead of them so they just give up and mentally break down. But there are also some of us who are motivated and can over come almost anything. Even the ones who break down and don’t know what to do with their selves are still considered survivors in my mind.
As a young American I have grown to learn that the world we live in is far from easy, yet we still stand strong and get through what’s needed to survive in this world of overwhelming obstacles. There has been many changes for the worse just in my generation that I know of, which is no where near as bad as most of the generations before me. Life is still hard at times but I’m sure it’s not meant to be easy. Even the homeless never give up on life they always find a way to survive.
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