University Seminar 101

All the hospital bills for the homeless are being burdened on the people who have jobs. However, just because these people have jobs, does not mean they can afford huge hospital bills, caused from their own care plus making up for the homeless people’s care. Also, imagine if all the money spent on bums and homeless people went to schools in the cities and communities. The money being spent on homeless people seems like it is getting thrown away. Statistics show that in cities the homeless cost: Atlanta $2,116.44, Boston $2,593.59, Chicago $1,802.54, Los Angeles $2,297.08, New York $1,986.84, Phoenix $2,126.44, San Francisco $3,557.20, Seattle $2,965.18 per person per day. All these costs are from supportive housing, jails, prisons, shelters, mental hospitals, and hospitals (The Lewin Group 1-5). Those listed are only the big cities, too. Think about if we added up every community in the United States; that would add up to millions upon millions of dollars. These dollars could be used for other, more important things.

The solution to homelessness does not have a straightforward right or wrong answer; it is a very complicated situation. Is it morally right for homeless people to be treated in the Emergency room at no charge, when working families with insufficient healthcare can’t afford to be treated without a hefty bill to accompany them? “Murray Barr used more health care dollars than almost anyone in the state of Nevada,” (Gladwell 4). If a homeless person needs medical attention, he should receive it, and if a financially unstable family needs medical attention, they should receive it too. At what point do certain homeless individuals start to abuse the help they are given?
“The patient sometimes stayed at the hospital for days, because living on the streets in a state of almost constant intoxication was a reliable way of getting sick,” (Gladwell 2). For some, it must have been nice to stay in a warm room with food and accommodations that they would not have otherwise, but at what price? To get sick so often just to have a nice warm bed? It is not right for someone to intentionally get sick just so that he knows he will be taken care of for a while. Homeless people do not have to pay for their doctors’ visits, but that does not mean that they should abuse their rights to receive the care they need when they need it. “There is no end to the issues. We run up big lab fees, and the nurses want to quit, because they see the same guys come in over and over, and all we are doing is making them capable of walking down the block,” (Gladwell 4).

Gladwell points out the majority of the homeless seen are the chronically homeless creating a social problem. This problem is not just a problem for those living on the streets, it is a problem for everyone in the USA. “$ 3.92 billion [for] Neighborhood Stabilization Program offers opportunities for communities to help at risk and homeless families” (America’s Road Home). This is a huge chunk of money going to help with the issue of the homeless. This money comes from a “mixture of federal and local funds” (Gladwell 5). In other words money that is coming from taxes and everyone’s pockets is being poured into helping the homeless. This money is helping to manage the problem in the US, but is it ending it? Why spend so much money on something that is not working to end a problem? Not only that, but homelessness leads to other problems, health bills that cannot be paid for and everyday citizens are paying for through taxes.
These taxes could be taken care of and not weigh so heavily in every citizen’s pocket book if there was a reformed health care system.Why should a homeless person get free treatment over a child whose mother cannot afford health care? This is when the ethics get into the medical system and social issues arise. Should health care be given to the people for free? Should there be a difference in the person’s economic status that determines the bill paid for health care? These questions are very prevalent issues and Gladwell shows that the problems that unpaid health care bills have been creating problems that have simply been managed so that way hospitals can stay open, but the problem has not been fixed. This and homelessness are just two examples given by Gladwell to show that the social norms and acceptances are creating a flawed society and political system to simply manage problems instead of fixing them.

Jason De Jong
US 101
2/3/09
This seems like a common reoccurrence in some big city hospitals. Homeless people use the little money they get to buy booze, over consume and end up on a gurney with a tube shoved down their throat. The worst part about this tragic happening is that the hospitals that take in these homeless people, in fact, do not see a dime for their efforts. These people don’t have insurance, nor the proper finances to pay for these “visits” to the hospital and when family is contacted, in most cases, no one wants to be involved.
The reason these people become the way they are is an endless dispute. Each of them probably has a different excuse or reason, some legitimate, others just a far-fetched tale to get a few bucks out of you. The most common reason for their homelessness is that they are alcoholics and that they are just chronically homeless. It is this small group that gives a bad name to the rest of the homeless people in the United States. Eighty percent of homeless are in and out of shelters really quickly. In Philadelphia, the most common length of time that someone is homeless is one day. And the second most common is two days. The last ten percent were the chronically homeless that would stay in shelters for up to a year (Gladwell 4). It is these chronically homeless people that usually frequent the hospital for free.
A study of hospital admissions of homeless people in Hawaii revealed that 1,751 adults were responsible for 564 hospitalizations and $4 million in admission cost. Their rate of psychiatric hospitalization was over 100 times their non-homeless cohort. The researchers conducting the study estimate that the excess cost for treating these homeless individuals was $3.5 million or about $2,000 (National).
These statistics that I found through my outside resources show that the free medical attention is in a way prodding the chronically homeless to stay that way in that if a homeless man or woman gets sick from just plain living on the streets, drugs, alcohol, or any other reason, and they get help for free, why try to get into a life that you have to pay for hospitalization or pay for any type of medical attention? In most bigger city’s, a homeless person can also usually find a homeless shelter of some sort and probably a soup kitchen or food of some kind without much effort. It is the easy life for some, but the easy way out of things, as we all know, can turn out to be the bad way out in the end.

One of the most inspiring aspects of our nation is our desire to improve the lives of those living in the United States. The goals to provide senior citizens with reliable health care, provide every child with a decent education, and the money spent on researching the cure for cancer are just a few of the many organizations dedicated to helping those in need. With all the time and money put into these organizations, why is it such a stretch to extend this help to the chronically homeless? Like men, women, and children battling cancer or those struggling with alcohol and drug addiction in rehabilitation centers, the chronically homeless are also fighting the unending battle of addiction and illness. These people are sick and need help. Numerous homeless people become this way because of unfortunate circumstances like losing a job, disabilities,
having a mental illness, or being brought up in dysfunctional families. Even though many homeless people are “bums” and would rather waste their lives on alcohol than get help, it is unfair to characterize all homeless people (especially the chronically homeless) as
“lazy drunks”. As a nation dedicated to helping those in need, to turn our back on these people is cruel and prejudice. The chronically homeless need support in order to get back on their feet. Obviously not all of these people will be able to live normally because in order to help a person they must be willing to be helped or in the mind set that they need help. However, to turn our back on a person in need is heartless and against one of the many principles the United States stands for.

The National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients (NSHAPC) estimates 66 percent of the homeless cases in America are related to problems with alcohol, drugs, and mental illnesses, and only 30 percent of all the homeless in America have been homeless for more than 2 years.
The government keeps giving this 66 percent financial breaks and putting them back on the streets. Only to further their problems even more and the government and tax-payers cover their medical bills again. These particular few homeless people with alcohol/drug and mental illness problems need to be helped in some sort of manner. Why keep giving these select few more chances if they are just going to repeat their mistakes and not contribute to society in a positive way? They should be capped of at a certain point with government aid and put into a rehabilitation center of some kind to attain the help required. If these chronically homeless people were taken off of the street and helped, the cost for keeping these addicts/mental people around would be significantly decreased.
Some solutions have been put into effect however. Free housing in hopes of a new start as in Gladwell’s essay has been a start, but not effective for all the homeless. These U.S. citizens that cannot contribute to society on their own should be guided in the right direction toward success.

According to the article Healthcare Use by Homeless Persons: Implications for Public Policy. Editorial). By Sara Rosenbaum and Ann Zuvekas, “If clinicians, policymakers, and health services researchers want to understand the root causes
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of underutilization of health services by vulnerable populations, they need look no further than the organization and delivery of health services itself.” The answer is in the hands of the people, but the system lies in theirs. According to that same article, “Grant programs such as the Health Care for the Homeless and Health Centers programs not only ensure basic healthcare for uninsured populations, but also represent a cadre of healthcare providers whose principal aim and expertise lies in addressing the complex needs of homeless patients and other vulnerable groups.” A wider funding base is needed to promote and support the healthcare management systems for the homeless, and give them a better understanding of the system at hand.
Financial costs of healthcare for the homeless burdens the nation, when the hospitals, in many respects, could easily provide free care. Obviously hospitals have the right to charge the government for the financially deprived, but there is a greater reward in morality when it comes to the selflessness of free care. Hospitals have been at our nations forefront of reliable care for the needy. Obviously these few individuals create a large source of income for these hospitals, but the lucre is seemingly excessive, and could be put to a better use.

Having the will power to choose whether or not to do something is what divides us. Trying to excel in life and better ourselves is what makes humans different from other species, however, we do not always think positive. To live in our world today is not always easy; a person is always fighting for something in life. There is always something that we want or need that we cannot have. Of the 671,859 homeless people in the United States, there was roughly eighteen percent that were chronically homeless that had mental health, alcohol and/or other drug problems in 2007(Endhomelessness.org, 7). In the United States there are billions of people and a small percentage of them are chronically homeless that need help. In 2007 Montana had 537 to 2,500 homeless people living on the streets, but in California there was an estimated 65,001 to 160,000 homeless people living on the streets (Endhomelessness.org, 7). With all the homeless people living among us, a person should open up their eyes and help the homeless. The ones who need it the most are the chronically homeless and without anyone’s help they will always be homeless. The United States has always helped people in need, but the ones they cannot over look are the chronically homeless people. Of the almost one million people that are homeless, less than half are homeless all the time.

Gladwell did not write this essay for the fun of it. He believed it was his job to help with the homeless problem. He did this by addressing the public with a story backed by statistics to sway the average person’s beliefs on the homelessness problem. When Gladwell described the life of Murray Barr, it was aimed at the idea that all homeless people are normal people that are seeking help, but do not know how to get it. Society has this perception that all homeless people are cists on a community. Any person can be a productive member of society, but they need to be taught how to be useful. There has to be new approaches to this problem. Even if Mangano’s ideas didn’t work, it was a step forward towards fixing the chronic homelessness problem. There is no sense in spending money on soup kitchens and shelters when they are not solving the problem. They are just letting the problem continue by allowing the homeless to be dependent on society. The homeless see the shelters as a safety net so they have no motivation to help themselves. The only problem with Gladwell’s essay was the fact that he tended to get off the subject when he went into detail about the police force’s problem in Los Angeles. Even though Gladwell’s point was taken into account, it was still not necessary to add this into his article. It would have been better if Gladwell would have just applied statistics and examples directly regarding the homelessness problem.

@alyssa.jackson1
First off I would like to say that I would love a way for the United States to be able to afford to give homeless people money to pay for a decent life. The problem, though, is America was based off of a capitalistic government, meaning if one wants to make money that person needs work in the free market. In this form of economy, persons who do nothing receive nothing from the government; that would come in the form of communism. In capitalism, one must give to society to receive anything in return. I don’t believe that America is turning its back to the problem; I believe America has its hands tied.
The point about the senior citizens and education is good because American money does go to those things, but senior citizens have paid into taxes their whole lives and deserve health care. Education for children is paid for by their parents paying taxes that go towards the schools. People that receive from the government either pay or have paid taxes and actually give to society.
It is true that homeless people are sick and need help, but aren’t there many people in that same situation? I know a few people who are chronically ill, and they have worked very hard to earn their own health care. Homeless people are in a hard situation, and I understand this. I also know that there are many more people out there that also have it very hard, but they’re contributing to society and making something of themselves.

I think people are becoming increasingly aware of the prevalence of homeless people in today’s society, and the problem has been addressed many, many times. The question remains, what solution will be effective? At what point has the care for these people gone too far? How about the people who are perfectly content with their lifestyle and aware of their mentality and perspectives? They are obviously not assessed as chronically ill, but how could their eyes be open to the opportunities of a better lifestyle? The homeless problem has not been overlooked by any means, but the solutions have grown more and more complex and unique to each individual due to failed attempts and helping these people in the past. @kristen.marcure

@alyssa.jackson1
You make some very interesting and valid points Alyssa. The United States is a very wealthy country with thousands of organizations that support the unfortunate. The homelessness problem needs to be confronted head on, and there has to be more organizations that support the problem with physical and financial entities. One question you have to ask yourself is: “Where do we draw the line”. How many more programs can the United States financially fund? There has to be a financial source to fix a problem that appears to be impossible to solve. One of the problems the United States is facing is the fact that we are in a recession. Our nation is eleven trillion dollars in debt right now and is growing at a rate of 3.48 billion dollars a day.
It is very true that the funding for the homeless problem needs to increase, but you might not realize that government programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and even our education systems are not doing so well because of the recession we are in. Gladwell discussed in his essay that the public needs to confront this issue so that the American Government is forced to do something about this problem. It is not a very common thing to hear about the homelessness problem in the national news. Sure, you hear about it every once in a while, but the truth is the problems that affect senior citizens, our nation’s youth and even the war in Iraq get even more media attention. This means that these nationally addressed problems are going to have much more funding because this is what the public thinks needs to be done first. This world is full of terrible things and realistically we cannot fix them all.
It is an absolutely terrible thing the way the homeless are all stereotyped into one group. You made a great point by stating the fact that not all homeless people are alcoholics and drug abusers. This is most likely part of the problem with helping the homeless getting back on their feet. Change has to start with the American public, and the truth is this stereotype started within the American people. Most people associate the homeless as lazy bums that abuse alcohol and other drugs. This problem is unfair to the homeless that don’t abuse drugs and have underlying factors to why they became homeless in the first place. A great majority of homeless people never really came from a real home in the first place, and many are mentally ill. Our nation is very dedicated to its people, but there is always room for improvement. We have to start looking towards one another to fix this problem and fight against stereotypical people. In order to address this problem more thoroughly we might just have to look inside ourselves for ideas. We have to sway the average person’s beliefs of the homeless and educate with truthful facts. It is a great point you make on why we should be able to go a little further and achieve a better environment for the homeless when we have come so far with limiting human suffering. Why can’t we go a little further? What we need to really discuss is how to carry out the task of helping the homeless eventually help themselves.