“The Pandemic Has Made Homelessness More Visible in Many American Cities.” The Economist, The Economist Newspaper, www.economist.com/united-states/2021/08/02/the-pandemic-has-made-homelessness-more-visible-in-many-american-cities?utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&utm_source=google&ppccampaignID=17210591673&ppcadID=&utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwkY2qBhBDEiwAoQXK5ZIYemH8_Qb-tQ8mcsL8tUxLgS7dbIRTaJEueOONqtbpxivrGJ_UpRoCo4AQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds. Accessed 02 Nov. 2023.
According to the author, the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic made homelessness more perceivable to the public in many cities in America. The Department of Housing and Urban Development “estimates that 226,000 Americans were living unsheltered in December 2020, up by 30% since 2015”. A federal moratorium on evictions helped those who had trouble or were behind paying rent. This prevented them from getting evicted while the pandemic was occurring. Before the pandemic occurred, tents were mostly found in city centers up and down the West Coast. Now tents are scattered all over the suburban and leafy neighborhoods of Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle. According to sociologist Karen Snedker, there was a 50% spike that was greater than normal seasonal change would suggest. It was hard to tell if the increased visibility of encampments necessarily meant that overall homelessness rose because states and cities across the country also moved people with covid-19 into hotels to quarantine. As a result of federal stimulus funds states were “swimming in money” but still were not able to reduce homelessness but merrily scratched its surface.
I was shocked reading this article and finding out that no matter how much money America invested in homelessness, it always seemed to never be enough. Now I wonder if there will ever be a world where everyone has somewhere to call a home. I am inclined to believe the author because he used statistics and made the article not necessarily only one-sided.
While the author could have appealed to the reader’s emotions by showing videos of how sleeping rough is hard, they instead choose to rely on facts and statistics which are more appropriate when dealing with questions of the numbers of homeless people.
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