"Helping and Hating the Homeless" by Peter Marin

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Marin argues how society itself contributes to this marginalization due to the fear of breaking the status quo. The author points out that society itself is the primary factor that serves as the catalyst for homeless people to be displaced and labeled as a nuisance. The paper relates that Marin wrote the essay in response to a Santa Barbara court's decision to ban homeless people from sleeping in public places in the town at night.

From the Paper:

"Whatever social attention the homeless people receive from the society is certainly a negative feedback about these "nuisance and vagrants": "Hundreds of them turned out for the meeting and castigate them" It was the power and depth of the emotion revealed: the mindlessness of the fear, the vengefulness of the fury the actual homeless men and women, might not have existed at all." Utter rejection and negligence in the part of the society to solve the problem of homelessness is one of the main reasons why the perception that the homeless are dangerous prevailed in Marin's society, and continues to prevail until today."

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