#4. Outcasts

Ch. 6 questions:
READING CLOSELY AND THINKING CRITICALLY:

1. According to Kozol, what are the prevailing attitudes toward the homeless?
They are seen to be dirty, disease carrying, unwanted people.  Even the people that help them, or that want to help them, won't touch them. They are the unwanted. They might as well be rodents. This is such an unfortunate perception of human beings.
2. To what extent are government officials and the general public part of the problem of homelessness?
Whenever they make measures to "solve" the problem of the homeless, they don't actually solve anything. They mostly just relocate the people that they think of as the problem.
3. In paragraph 38, Kozol says that we are afraid of homeless children. What are we afraid of?
These children were born in such lowly circumstances to begin with that we assume that they share the diseases of the homeless that we are so opposed to. Next, they don't have the benefit of a wholesome childhood so we don't know what kind of adults they're going turn out to be. There are those who grow up in homes that have a stable income and place of residence that can turn out to be felons. On another note, we don't enjoy feeling sorry for others when we feel we can't do anything about their situation. Homeless children fit right in that category. We would feel especially bad when children are doing the suffering.
4. Are any examples particularly moving? Which ones? Why do they affect you the way they do?
The stories about people dying (or being killed) without anyone taking any action to prevent tragedy or to help the person out. First off, who in their right mind would just set another human being on fire, or stab them, just because that person was sitting there? Then, why wouldn't those who witnessed it have acted on what they saw? If that were to happen to anyone I know I would hope and pray that anyone observing would at least call the police so the appropriate action could be taken. The thought of people treating the those without a home as sub-human goes against all the hope in humanity that I have.
5. Has your perception of the homeless changed as a result of reading “Untouchables”? Explain.
In a way my perception has changed. I had never really pondered my opinion on the homeless. I am from a smaller city so if there are homeless people there, I'm not really aware of them. My main encounters with them have been when I have visited Salt Lake. After reading the article, I am mostly just more aware of what has happens, and what still happens, and I hope that people would change their thinking so that we could avoid these tragedies.

PS. STOP THAT, MOUSE!!! (That's for you, Ed)