The New Homeless

I was looking over CNN for current events and I came across a video. This video made me think back to our unit on privilege and poverty. In the video, we see a single mother and her two kids who live in Washington D.C. She worked for the government and was fired in 2007. Ever since, it has been nearly impossible for her to keep her job. Currently, her kids go to public school and they all live in a shelter. The image of homeless families has increased dramatically because of the economic recession. It was reported that there has been a 15 percent increase of homeless families in the D.C. area alone. This particular families shelter will be shutting down soon and they are worried about what to do next.

This video made me think to the artifact about what it means to be poor. I can only imagine how much more embarrassing and challenging it must be for this family to both be poor and homeless. It is stories like this that make a person wonder why we are giving these corporate giants such huge breaks and dumping more and more money into Iraq when we could cut off a sliver of that money and help the people who were basically betrayed by their hard work. This also made me think to the term we discussed in class. America is often referred to as the world police in its attempts to protect against violence and preserve liberty for all. Maybe we should focus a bit more on our own problems because finding a job is becoming more difficult by the day.