Documentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XooTjBs4qxI

Meshell Baldoni

22 May 2013

Ms. McKoy

English II

Work Cited

"Bring America Home Blog." Bring America Home Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.

"Attacks on Homeless Soaring - USATODAY.com." Attacks on Homeless Soaring - USATODAY.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.

Green, Amy. "Attacks on the Homeless Rise, With Youths Mostly to Blame." The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Feb. 2008. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.

"Why Are People Homeless?" National Coalition for the Homeless. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2013.

"Violence and Hatred Risky for Homeless." Bring America Home Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2013.

"A Step in the Right Direction: Amending State Police Monitoring Laws to Include Hate Crimes Against the Homeless." RI Coalition for the Homeless Resources Homeless Legal Clinic Hate Crimes Against the Homeless. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2013.

Baldoni, Meshell. “Preventing The Homeless from Death” Survey. 14 February 2013

"Epidemic: Teens Beat Homeless." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 27 May 2013.

"THE WAR AGAINST THE HOMELESS." THE WAR AGAINST THE HOMELESS. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 May 2013.

"LARGEST NUMBER OF HATE CRIMES ARE AGAINST HOMELESS." Prison Activist Resource Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 May 2013.

Hate Crimes Against Homeless Outnumber All Other Hate Crimes Combined
by Edward Campbell

1,074 bias motivated attacks against the homeless reported between 1999 and 2010 including 43 murders, 291 murders in the past decade according to statistics compiled by the organization.

Hate Crimes against the homeless documented in this years report included, “dosing with gasoline and setting aflame; rape in exchange for shelter; spay painting and stomping upon while sleeping; and, repeated incidence of gang initiations involving stabbings and beatings,” 1 in 3 resulting in death in this drastically under reported field of criminology.

Although hate crimes against the homeless were reported in 47 states, California and Florida were the most deadly places for the homeless to live in 2010 with more than 100 violent attacks upon the homeless in each; 213 were reported in California, 117 in Florida.

The FBI does not officially recognize violent crimes against the homeless as legitimate hate crime and local police departments were blamed for nearly 6% of all hate crimes against homeless men and women.

The Coalition also noted that as many communities across the united states increase their pressure on the homeless: 'There is a documented relationship between increased police action and the increasing numbers of hate crimes/violent acts against homeless people...One possible explanation for this is the message that criminalizing homelessness sends to the general public: “Homeless people do not matter and are not worthy of living in our city.”

This message is blatant in the attitudes many cities have toward homeless people and can be used as an internal justification for attacking someone who is homeless.'

The most common victim of a hate crime against the homeless was reported to be a middle aged man between 40-60 years of age, the most common perpetrators were young men 78% under 25 nearly half under the age of 20. 85% of the total number of victims were male.

In Redding California three teenage boys beat a homeless man to death with metal pipes and makeshift bats. In Colorado Springs, Colorado a 19 year old man beat a homeless man to death with a skateboard and latter bragged to his friends “I just killed a bum.” In Cleveland, Ohio, a serial killer raped and killed 11 homeless women. In North Little Rock, Arkansas a homeless man was shot by a high powered hunting rife from a car wind, the police have no suspects or leads in the case. In Seattle, Washington a homeless woman in a wheelchair was repeatedly raped as “payment” for a place to sleep. “I can rape you and get away with it…You’re homeless? No one cares about you,” the perpetrator reportedly claimed. To mention only a few of the incidents related in the report.

"LARGEST NUMBER OF HATE CRIMES ARE AGAINST HOMELESS." Prison Activist Resource Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 May 2013.

Meshell Baldoni

English II

13 May 2013

Ms. McKoy

Prevent the Homeless from Death
(Argumentative Speech)

            Did you know that the homeless are getting attacked? Their deaths have been increasing. Referring to National Coalition for the homeless 2,815 homeless people have been killed within the years 2000 and 2007. When living and going into debt and losing things, people become very unstable and, sometimes people become homeless. There are many reason people supposedly attack them, but most reasons are bias. Throughout this essay, I want to inform the readers on why the government should start doing more to prevent the homeless from death. The government can prevent the homeless from death by making the topic more known to the public.

            Bias attacks on the homeless are not really known based off of my results on my surveys. A way to inform people and get the topic out there is by making organizations to support the topic. New articles are ways to tell citizens that bias attacks are occurring and need to be stopped. If the topic was more known in our world, bias attacks would be less likely to occur. Based off of Desert News, “Florida recently passed legislation to include the homeless population in its hate crimes law, and this led to a dramatic decrease of these crimes committed against the homeless in the state”. Therefore, if one state was to drop a tremendous amount of crimes among homeless because of the passed legislation, it should be passed among all states. It should be passed among all states so that the crimes committed against the homeless can be put to a stop. Florida was one of the top states with the most amounts of bias attacks on the homeless based off of National Coalition for the Homeless.

            A way to reduce attacks on the homeless, based off of the Desert News, can be having the “Homeless status” which should be included in the federal hate crimes statistics statute. This can have the federal government as well as citizens realize how many attacks are occurring. Another way to reduce attacks on homeless that came from Desert News is “The U.S. Department of Justice should issue a public statement acknowledging that hate crimes and/or violence against people experiencing homelessness is a serious national problem”. This way can help prevent the homeless to know what they are at risk of. Also, this can help people think twice before they decide to attack a homeless person. All these ways are very helpful to reduce the amounts of bias attacks against the homeless. Based off of The New York Times website; Advocates for the homeless blame a society that they say shuns the homeless through laws that criminalize sleeping in parks, camping and begging. We need to stop putting the blame on people for the way our world is today. There is not a certain group we should target so therefore, the homeless should not be blamed. 

            Homelessness is a huge thing in our world being as it is very easy to become homeless. It only takes the loss of one job for some families to fall. We as a country need to help our citizens with what they need. They have already lost everything, why do they have to worry about being attacked? Many people in our mankind are very hateful and can careless about others. We need to solve ways to help reduce the amount of these attacks so this can be one less worry for the homeless. Based on the Desert News, another way to reduce these attacks can be “Federal, state, and local governments should assure adequate affordable housing and services to bring an end to homelessness and thus create safe alternatives to living in homeless situations.” The National Coalition for the Homeless shows statistics which state that within the last ten years, the numbers of attacks against the homeless have been dramatically increasing.

            The homeless population has taken a dramatic fall all because of careless people in this world. Based off of The National Coalition for the Homeless, their have been more bias attacks on the homeless than terriorist attacks and plane crashes together.  Reasons why people seem to attack the homeless stated from the National Coalition for the Homeless is because they believe that they are a waste of our population. There are heartless people in this world and you are always going to have people who do not care but if we increase the consequence for what they may recieve if they attack attack a homeless person the numbers of attacks may decrease. There is a huge homeless population in our country and it is very easy for some us of to become homeless. Reasons why people become homeless are because they do not have much money and they do not really spend their money as wisely as they should.  Another reason based off of the “National Coalition for the Homeless” is that foreclosures also are a cause for being homeless as well as, economic troubles. Homeless is something every family worries about at one point. Many parents are unable to buy items that other children get. Our world revolves around money and who has more of it. Homeless people feel like they’re lower ranked than others when really everyone should be treated equally.

            The government needs to do a better job at preventing these attacks because as of today the numbers are still increasing.  Stated by Erik Luna from the Cato Institute, the plight of America’s homeless is truly heartbreaking and has only become worse in recent years as a result of the nation’s financial crisis and the rise of home foreclosures and evictions. Based off the National Coalition for the Homeless website; it stated that they try to protect the rights of people experiencing homelessness. This report states horrific hate crimes that have happened to the homeless people. On the NCFTH it said “hate crimes occur when perpetrators target victims because of their perceived membership in a certain group or just because they were homeless”. There are many ways the government can prevent these attacks and it is time for them to take action.

           

Work Cited

"Crimes Against America’s Homeless: Is the Violence Growing?" Cato Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 May 2013.

"Why Are People Homeless?" National Coalition for the Homeless. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2013.

"Violence and Hatred Risky for Homeless." Bring America Home Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2013.

"Hate Crimes against the Homeless Remain a Problem." DeseretNews.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 May 2013.

Green, Amy. "Attacks on the Homeless Rise, With Youths Mostly to Blame." The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Feb. 2008. Web. 24 May 2013.

Help The Homeless (Animoto Video)

Meshell Baldoni

10 April 2013

Ms. McKoy

English II

Academic Summary

            Written by Shailee Diwanji from the American University Washington College of Law is an article that states how violence among the homeless has increased tremendously in the past several years. Throughout the article it gives great details on how and by whom the homeless are attacked. She claims that more needs to be done to prevent these homeless people from these attacks. The article tells how there are around five states that have passed legislations designation violence against the homeless as a hate crime. Diwanji developed this claim by stating facts throughout her article on how legislation is a step in the right direction to help the homeless from getting attacked. Diwanji also explores this topic very briefly by facts and her opinions on these hate crimes such as there should be more done to protect them. Lastly, the author states in her article on how people who attack the homeless take it as a sport. She claims that the worst parts of the attacks are that homeless people have no way to protect themselves.  Diwanji’s purpose in this article is to state that hate crimes against homeless have been increasing and more needs to be done to prevent the homeless from these attacks.  In order for us to prevent the homeless from the attacks we must take action in creating legislations such as five other states have.

“Life is Hard”

I ask myself why I live like this, so bad.

I walk the streets looking so sad.

I wish I knew how I got here,

I live my life with such fear.

I go day to day trying to protect my life,

It’s hard having people attack us with a knife.

I live outside with nothing,

Trying my hardest to keep on loving.

The weather is like ice,

But a jacket is such a large price.

I weep, weep, weep,

Thinking of how scared I am to go to sleep.

Every day I hold up a sign asking for help,

At the end of the day I begin to yelp.

Sometimes I feel sorry for myself,

When I realize no one should blame thyself.

There have been many hate crimes for people like me,

I guess to others killing the homeless is easy.

I am no harm,

But I must be to people who carry firearms.

How I got like this is unknown,

But one day I will not be so alone.

I have hopes that one day u can be safe,

And not live in a place that is so unsafe.

Life is hard,

But it is worth trying instead if living in a yard.

One day I will look back,

And remember all the smacks.

I will no longer starve,

I will begin to have a life that I can carve.

I promise to everyone that I will try,

I will learn to spread my wings and fly.
I am sorry for the people, who hate people like me,

But you will all soon see.

I am thankful for those who help me so dearly,

There are many that care and many that don’t clearly.

Becoming homeless is a horrible to live,

But one day I will soon be able to give.

Life is hard,

Mine will soon become cured.

Never give up on your dreams,

I will one day be a queen.