(a).
American "Wandering Doctor" Sun Weidong continues to attract attention. The former "geniuses" and "elites" have fallen into the streets, which makes many people quite embarrassed.
In fact, the problem of homeless Americans has been around for a long time, and it has become more serious in recent years. At the end of 2022, Los Angeles even declared a state of emergency due to the largest number of homeless people in the United States and the continuous surge.
According to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the number of homeless people in the U.S. surged 12% to 65 in 202330,000 people, once again refreshing the historical peak since 2007.
Among homeless people, the proportion of people of color is higher. The largest increase in numbers was in the Latino community, which was 3 more than the previous year90,000 people;The largest increase was in the Asian ethnic group, with a 40% increase from the previous year. African-Americans make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population, but 37 percent of the homeless. More than one in five homeless people are aged 55 and over.
2) Sudden factors such as the economic crisis and the new crown epidemic are the direct causes of the surge in the number of homeless, but the root cause is many systemic problems in American society
The "weak" of economic inequality. According to statistics, the median wealth of white households has tripled since 1989, while the wealth of African-American, Hispanic, and Latino households has barely increased. High levels of economic inequality between ethnic groups have led to lower class mobility, and the growth of labor income has not kept pace with the growth of capital income.
The purchasing power of economically disadvantaged groups such as African-Americans and Latinos has stagnated substantially, increasing the likelihood that the average household will fall into debt crisis. More and more people cannot afford the huge rent, medical insurance and other expenses, and become homeless in the capital market.
According to statistics, nearly 1 in 6 percent of the population of the United States receives more inheritance than the average lifetime income of the bottom 50 percent of the population, and blacks and other non-white groups are the direct victims of this intergenerational transfer of wealth. French economist Thomas Piketty**: By 2030, 10% of the US population will account for about 60% of the national income.
3) "Bag man" with public policy failure. The homeless group often carries bags to scavenge for a living, so they are also known as bag-carrying people. The failure of public policy in the United States is one of the reasons for the increasing number of bag-carrying people.
First, the failure of education policies has made it difficult for homeless people to return to their homes. Unequal educational status leads to unequal access to skills for workers, which ultimately leads to inequality in labor income, and the cycle repeats, which in turn leads to class solidification and hardening of racial boundaries. Children from poor families often do not have access to high-quality education due to high tuition fees and accommodation costs, which puts them at a disadvantage in the future job market. The high cost of education makes it more difficult for those who are already struggling to change their destiny through education.
Second, the lack of health care makes the right to life unsustainable. There are systemic inequalities in the U.S. social security system, with nearly 30 million people without any form of health insurance. Some Americans lose their jobs and can't afford health insurance premiums, have little savings, and fall into financial trouble when they get sick. As of June 2020, the total U.S. healthcare debt was estimated at $140 billion, with low-income earners being the hardest hit by this type of debt. To add insult to injury, the social assistance available to homeless people is limited due to the strict administration of social assistance and the complicated procedures for identifying aid recipients.
Finally, open-air drug markets, rampant theft and lax camping regimes put homeless people under tremendous physical and mental stress. Drugs can be seen everywhere, physical violence is high and frequent, infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis, and AIDS are widely spread, and some homeless people are unable to work normally due to long-term drug abuse or serious mental illness.
iv) the "miserables" of foreign wars. The latest data shows that in 2023, more than 35,000 veterans in the United States are homeless, or 22 out of every 10,000 veterans. Lack of social support after discharge from the military is a major contributor to veterans' homelessness. Of course, the root cause behind this is the frequent foreign wars launched by the United States. The United States** would rather spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on military spending than invest resources to truly solve social problems such as poverty.
In general, the large number of homeless people hides livelihood problems such as housing, employment, and poverty, and at the same time comprehensively reflects the systemic diseases of public services, health care, education and employment, criminal justice policies, and racism in the United States.
5) In recent years, as the number of people has grown, the homeless group has become a bargaining chip in the political election game. The political left is rallying support for homeless people under the slogan of providing them with appropriate housing and reintegration options. The right wing portrays the homeless community as inferior, welfare system parasites, criminals, etc., in order to gain the support of political conservatives. The street crowd has become a draft slogan for politicians, but these performances do not solve the real problem.
Professor Mitchell of Syracuse University points out that in the United States, anti-homelessness laws passed in city after city work in a pernicious way: by redefining acceptable behavior in public spaces, by actually eliminating the spaces where people have to live, these laws only want to eliminate homelessness itself, not the problem.
In December 2022, Biden** unveiled a homelessness response plan with the goal of reducing the number of homeless people by 25% by 2025. Now it seems that this plan has failed, and the problem of the nomadic is difficult to reach under the manipulation of racial capitalism. In this sense, the number of homeless groups on the streets of the United States is likely to increase, and the crisis caused by them will become more and more serious.
Author: Wang Wei (Author's Affiliation: School of Ethnology and Sociology, Minzu University).
Process edit: u027
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