There’s No Place Like Home. What if I don’t have one?

What is your first reaction when seeing a homeless individual asking for money or other items for their daily survival? Do you help them or give them something or do you ignore them and wish they would get a job? Lets change the perspective now to homeless youth, does your attitude change or do you still feel the same? I remember one evening going to work downtown and seeing a young homeless individual who stopped me outside of a corner store. He mentioned that he was not asking for much but he really just wanted two cans of coke and a bag of haribo sweets that were located near the checkout of the convenient store. I remember thinking to myself “here I am going to work because I am blessed to make some money and this poor gentleman is down on his luck, you have to go buy it for him.” I bought what he wanted and I was on my way to work, I also couldn’t help but to think, is really homeless, does he have some sort of an addiction or did he do this to himself? I am in partial accordance with Gaetz and O’Grady’s claims that poverty is able to be escaped through hard work and dedication. They blame much of homelessness on government assistance and they believe that if something is always given to you, it creates that “why work” notion (Gaetz & O’Grady, 1999, pg 246). However I believe that there is definitely a mixture of both self inflicted homeless and difficult circumstances that create homelessness. Sometimes in life those have to deal with the cards their dealt and it is more difficult on some than it is others especially youth. Gaetz and O’Grady raise a wonderful point when saying that certain social characteristics create difficulty when it comes to working and therefore resulting in homelessness. The fact that they state that history of abuse, age one left home, education level, and addictions or mental health allows one to think that it is difficult to get “regular jobs” when considering these factors (Gaetz & O’Grady, 1999, pg 246). Does this mean homeless youth are lazy and rather not get regular jobs? I believe it is quite possible considering the alternatives to regular jobs that youth are taking part in. Many result in means of illegal activity or quasi-legal activity as a means of earning money. The mere fact that some may resort to panhandling or squeegeeing proves the laziness of a young homeless generation (Gaetz & O’Grady, 1999, pg 248). My position may seem bias however if an individual really wants to escape homeless one will stop at nothing. There are highly effective employment training programs that are effective when it comes to improving employability of marginalized youth by providing them with the supports necessary (Gaetz & O’Grady, 1999, pg 250). Why are they not taking advantage of this? Much has to do with social exclusion in my personal opinions. When individuals are socially excluded from the norm it almost creates a segregation and want to not be part of the group who excludes certain individuals (Gaetz & O’Grady, 1999, pg 251). Social exclusion also creates groups bound by similarities such as homelessness which also makes getting out of the situation much more difficult. Although some are victims of circumstance, the employment training programs do prove to have some relevance and effectiveness despite lack of extensive research, This may very well support the neoliberal approach or viewpoint that some homeless youth could may very well be “lazy.”(Gaetz & O’Grady, 1999, pg 259)