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.