Homelessness around the world
Homelessness around the world
The film I chose to watch for this media blog is called “Professor Green: Hidden and Homeless” the documentary took place in Manchester, the UK in 2016. Paul Mandersonor, who is also known as Professor Green, followed young homeless adults around to uncover the truth behind a young adult who has no place to call home. Within the United Kingdom, Manchester has seen a large rise in homelessness amongst people under the age of twenty-five. As discussed in class in the United States, there are over a half million people who go homeless on a single night. As, sixty-five percent of the homeless are in the shelters there are around 200,000 homeless people who are unsheltered on the streets, in cars, in abandoned buildings, etc. Almost half of the homeless at forty-seven percent are living in the state of California. other around 200, The breakdown of the traditional family structure is one of the main causes of youth homelessness. As discussed in class, there can be many reasons why somebody could end up homeless for example, mental illness, substance abuse problems, histories of incarceration, low income, and lack of social connections could play a huge factor.
In the documentary, he interviewed a 20-year-old man named Luke, who has been living on the streets for five years on and off. Luke has been in and out of prison for five years and when he is not locked up, he is living in the streets. While locked up, Luke has been assaulted by his cellmate for example, he was cut by a knife, suffocated with a pillow, and raped. In class, we discussed how the homeless are punished because they are homeless. When they get out of prison, they have nowhere to go or income coming in. Edelman (2017) discusses how they punish the homeless for being poor. “The people locked up have always been disproportionately poor and of color and for the most part, their incarceration has ensured that they would stay poor for the rest of their lives (p.159).” The above quote shows how the system works against the poorer communities across the world. Our current systems are against the poorer community since it is extremely difficult to secure a job after being convicted of a crime. This promotes repeat offenders since many end up homeless after their first offense.
The documentary begins when Luke started getting into trouble at the age of 14 and started hanging out with 30-year-olds. That soon led him to try hard drugs with the help of peer pressure from his older friends so that he wanted to seem cool. As soon as he got hooked onto the drugs he began running away from home because he wanted to stay with his “second family”. At the age of 15, he officially ran away from home and began living with a drug dealer which led him to sell drugs himself. As his life is about to take another turn, Luke’s, housemate was arrested for selling hardcore drugs which left Luke on the streets. While on the streets, he faced prostitution, crime, and drugs. Drugs are a problem in the city as 80-90% of the city’s homeless are addicted to “spice”. This is a synthetic of cannabis that is cheap and legal. Living on the streets in Manchester does not mean you are counted as a homeless person. You have to be lying down to sleep to be a part of the unofficial statistics. However, in the United States, there are crime-free ordinances that push homeless people out of the city. Edelman (2017) documents, “Over the last decade, citywide bans on camping in public space have increased by 69 percent, on loitering, loafing, and vagrancy by 88 percent and on living in vehicles by 143 percent. No sleeping, no sitting, no eating in public spaces add these together and it’s clear that many cities just want homeless people to go away.” (p.149). Many proponents argue that the local government provides homeless shelters and food lines for the less fortunate. The counterpoint to this argument is that many of these government programs are overrun and thus only partly effective in making a difference. Local laws of banning sleeping outside and the banning of sleeping in your vehicle causes a stigma towards these specific communities, causing them to choose jail time instead of homelessness.
There are 38,500 homeless people are living in shelters and roaming around in Manchester. However, Luke was lucky enough to receive one of the shelter’s beds, as he is put into a six-month placement to help turn his life around and conquer his addiction. If caught bringing any drugs into the placement could resolve in getting kicked out. Luke could not realize a day without spice and, therefore, he left and hit the closest supermarket. Mandersoneer (2017) said in the documentary, “He went from being quite humble you know, nice person to just being an idiot” with just taking spice.”. Luke, as soon as he was kicked out of the shelter for having drugs and ended back in the street in a repeating cycle.
I chose this documentary because I think it is important to acknowledge and understand that homelessness is not just a United States problem, it’s a universal problem. This documentary shines a light on homelessness that is not counted as “homelessness” and are considered hidden. As it is focusing on people who are under the age of twenty-five. Before this documentary, I did not understand the severity of the problem across the world and the number of homeless people around my age.
References
Edelman, P. B. (2017). Not a crime to be poor: the criminalization of poverty in America. The New Press.
Green, Professor, (2016). director. Professor Green: Hidden and Homeless,www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9HohQTwi6A.