Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Eradicating Criminalizing Homelessness through Mediated Public Discourse

In a report published by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, issues of how the homeless populations around the country are being criminalized as opposed to offering them a solution and giving them the means and education necessary to prevent homelessness to begin with are addressed. Early on in the article it is stated that, “The following report will document that people experiencing homelessness are subject to basic violations of their civil rights through the unconstitutional application of laws, arbitrary police practices and discriminatory public regulations” (6). This is an issue that is often just removed from sight rather than actually seeking a solution that benefits both the homeless communities and the rest of society who are concerned with how they are affected by these outcast members of their community. The organizations that created this report are in agreement that this is not an effective way to handle the issue, stating that, “We believe that working toward ending the causes of homelessness and not simply removing homeless people from view is cost effective, as well as just, and if presented to the general public in moral and economic terms would be widely supported” (7). 

The White Paper “Illegal to Be Homeless: The Criminalization of Homelessness in the United States” acts explanatory in nature, detailing how and why homelessness is criminalized, while simultaneously functioning as a citizen’s genre by defending the homeless citizens of a community and offering a solution to end the “causes of homelessness” in a cost effective and just way. This public genre works surprisingly as mediated discourse in the way that it tackles this issue head on and offers real solutions to a problem that is often ignored out of convenience. It also complicates the notion of publicly mediated discourse by raising questions for the public to ponder and to persuade them to take action. 

By raising questions for the audience to take into account and act upon, this text creates a unique rhetorical situation to tackle this serious problem of civil and human rights. In her article “Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts,” Fahnestock says, “With a significant change in rhetorical situation comes a change in genre” (Fahnestock 278). The organizations responsible for authoring this report change the rhetorical situation of issues of homelessness by uniquely pointing out how these citizens are being criminalized rather than being offered help to remove them from their negative living situations. By raising questions and thoroughly explaining what criminalizing the homeless means, a new citizen’s genre is created. Several questions are raised including, “Is society, willing to accept an economic system that not only tolerates but exacerbates homelessness?” and “Removing homeless people from public spaces in the name of improving the ‘quality of life’ of our cities begs the question - whose ‘quality of life’ are we improving and at what social and economic costs?” (79, 38). 

While this report of criminalizing homelessness is not strictly a scientific piece, its dealing with human rights and civil rights issues relates back to the Killingsworth/Palmer article on how scientific journalistic writing focuses on human interest. These scientific journalists use this focus on human interest to their benefit because, “It portrays what scientists often disparagingly call the ‘popular image of science,’ preferring applied research and engineering to theoretical concerns, and wavering between reverence and mistrust in its portrayal of the esoteric knowledge of scientists” (Killingsworth, Palmer 141). Killingsworth and Palmer’s discourse exemplifies how “Illegal to Be Homeless: The Criminalization of Homelessness in the United States” complicates the notion of publicly mediated discourse because rather than this report becoming a ‘popular image’ it becomes the opposite. Governmental agencies who are largely responsible for criminalizing homelessness don’t want to shed light on this issue and attempt to solve the issue with solutions like the ones offered in this text, but rather cover up the issue. 

The way in which issues of criminalizing homelessness are ignored is because for many members of society, making these populations disappear without actually creating solutions still removes the issue from their site. This is what creates the human rights issues though, because, “The passage of laws that target behaviors associated with the state of being homeless, such as sleeping, bathing, sitting, cooking, lying down, urinating, or storing personal belongings in public spaces are unconstitutional because collectively, they target people based on their housing status, not for behaviors that, in and of themselves are criminal” (12). 

Homelessness continues to be a problem because of increasing housing costs while incomes remain the same, lack of education and other necessary resources, and the way in which poverty has become institutionalized, making a career out of the economic situations of these individuals. The organizations responsible for this article also address concerns for why these human rights issues are not widely addressed, pointing out that, “The average individual in this country is unaware of the causes of homelessness, the conditions in which homeless people are forced to live, as well as solutions to this most desperate form of poverty” (53). This report’s explanatory nature on how and why homelessness is criminalized creates a citizen’s genre that protects homeless populations and offers real solutions to eradicating homelessness in the US; however, whether these types of reports are widely shared and read by the public to create a mediated discourse in which the issue can be adequately tackled is still in question. 



Fahnestock, Jeanne. “Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific
Facts.” Written Communication 3.3 (Jul. 1986): 275-96. JSTOR.

Killingsworth, M. Jimmie, and Jacqueline S. Palmer. “Transformations of Scientific Discourse in the News Media.” In Ecospeak: Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois U P, 1992. 133-60. Print.

No comments:

Post a Comment