Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Crime in the Media Fall 2020

The media that I chose to do was Under the bridge: Criminalization of Homelessness documentary. The documentary consists of homeless individuals telling their story on why they are homeless in Indianapolis. In Indianapolis, they have one of the biggest homeless camps and are reported all over the news. They tell stories of how many years per se they have been homeless. For the most part, some of these individuals have been homeless for some three-plus years. Most of the people that are homeless in this documentary are without housing because they have lost their jobs. During this stressful economic time, it is difficult for them to gain employment. Additionally, the individuals who have gone to jail for a certain length of time may lose their job and ultimately end up homeless. A good example is one individual featured in the documentary. This individual was in the army for an extended period and, due to current circumstances, he is now unemployed and therefore homeless. The sad truth is that once individuals are homeless, it is even more difficult to gain employment for reasons such as lack of cleanliness, gaps in employment history, etc. on the part of the individual. Instead, assumptions and judgments are passed and as a result, the individual remains unemployed and homeless. No consideration is given to the individual’s current situation. Ironically, a homeless man named Maurice was an African American male, again, due to his circumstances became homeless and graduated to becoming the mayor of the biggest homeless camps. Before becoming the Mayor, Maurice made several attempts to gain employment, and naturally, he was not successful. Maurice has been homeless for years and now he helps other homeless people and gathers them together. He is more of a go-to for those with similar situations. They are all trying to make a living off the homeless camps. The camps consist of different gender and race to include children as always blacks are the majority. The black community in Indianapolis does not have any opportunity there. For the most part, most of those that are homeless likely need supervision for one reason or another. Some of these individuals include those with disabilities, those with mental illness, etc. Sadly, individuals who happen to fall on bad times are then grouped together and, therefore, considered bad and dangerous.

A homeless person can go missing, and no one would know where they have gone or what has happened because they are forgotten about, or no one cares. The city of Indianapolis isn not helping the situation any better. Instead, the homeless are treated with no respect and are treated like criminals. Depending on where they may sleep for the night, they may or may not get arrested. There are shelters for people in Indianapolis, but they are faith-based. The homeless complain about how it is like jail, and it might be worse than jail. The shelter is called a wheeler and the individuals are required to meet certain requirements to be welcomed. Additionally, they can only sleep there for 10 days. The city does not pay or give the right attention to them to help them get off the streets. Instead, they close camps, forcing them out of the sites, having them move the camps from place to place. The camps are frowned upon, so they attempt to spread the homeless out rather than assist the individuals better their situation. Sadly, the most attention the homeless receive for the city includes being arrested for one reason or another. The city isn’t funding the homeless in any way. The city of Indianapolis is not making matters better for the homeless, only making it worse because they feel that people do not want to see homeless people. How they deal with that, they move homeless out of the places they were living at to keep their streets clean or homeless free. It’s a problem in other places for those who do sleep outside Indianapolis. They were kind of okay with them being able to sleep outside in tents, but they were being pushed away. There are at least 37% of cities that do not let the homeless people camp around city wide. If they do so they get arrested. The loafing around for the homeless had increased to 103% that had been probibited.

The city did not care to help the homeless. Instead, they wanted them out of the area so it could look clean. Indianapolis made matters worse for the homeless. The city is not sensitive to the feelings or situations of both the homeless and those individuals who wanted to lend a helping hand towards the homeless. The city frowned upon helping the homeless. The reason given was that it was dangerous to have children around homeless people even though the children’s parents allowed the situation. The citizens are helping more than the mayor. The city didn’t do enough to help the people, and the homeless have been pushed away. The homeless had to keep finding other camping grounds. Ultimately, especially being a person of color and given our current situation, it was very difficult to watch this documentary. I have empathy for all of those who shared their stories. It is sad to see such treatment of other humans. It is also discouraging to know that the city frowned upon any of the assistance in which wealthier individuals could have been offered to help those who could not help themself. Not everyone wants or enjoys being homeless and unemployed, and as a people, we should, at a minimum try to help when able. If we consider today and our current economic situation, any one of us could be in like Maurice.

References

National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. (2018, October). What is criminalization of homelessness? https://Nlchp.Org. https://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/criminalization-one-pager.pdf

Sawyer, D. (2017). Under The Bridge: The Criminalization of Homelessness. Retrieved October 10, 2020, from https://www.amazon.com/Under-Bridge-Criminalization-Homelessness-Sawyer/dp/B01M23XHLN