Community Writing Collaborative 

By Maddie Davis

As kids, we are expected to treat everyone equally. Most parents teach some version of the “golden rule”- do unto others as you would have them do unto you- to their kids. We grow up with the expectation that we are supposed to judge people on their character and actions alone. I was also raised this way, taught to treat a janitor the same way I would treat a CEO. I was taught to respect people from all walks of life, regardless of their gender, race, education level, yearly salary, or political viewpoint. Up until a few months ago, however, I would avert my eyes from homeless people that I passed on the street. I avoided interacting with them, mainly because their situations were foreign and unnerving to me. Poverty is a huge issue in Charlottesville, but most residents ignore its victims for the same reasons I did. They are scared to get too close to the issue because of their prejudices of the afflicted. Victims of poverty are generally thought to be associated with drugs, gangs, violence, alcoholism, and many other social problems. In reality, homeless people are people, and they are worth more than their situation. False stereotypes towards impoverished people facilitate systematic inequalities and the dehumanization of its victims.

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Negative perceptions of homeless people are commonly held, generally undisputed, and always damaging. I had heard, growing up, that people on the streets needed to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”- a fairly impossible task when you cannot afford boots. I was also told that most homeless people were to blame for their own situation, usually by abusing alcohol or drugs. Matthew Desmond’s Evictedtouches on this issue with a series of interviews from landlords and tenants in low-income areas. One interviewee, Scott, was prescribed painkillers and became addicted due to the feeling of “pure, calm happiness” it provided in his otherwise tragic environment (Desmond 83). His addiction led to the suspension of his nursing license, forcing him into a trailer park where getting drugs was “as easy as asking for a cup of sugar” (Desmond 85). Despite wanting to stop, Scott tore down his pre-set boundaries and shot heroin during a wave of “the sick,” a mixture of severe withdrawal symptoms, eventually leading to a string of thefts to procure money for drugs (Desmond 85). There are millions of stories just like Scott’s of people that want to get help, all of whom are victims of the increasing opioid epidemic. When considering their circumstances, addiction becomes easier to understand and can be easily categorized as a severe health problem. Physically and situationally, homelessness offers no relief or “way out”, so it is easier for most to stay high than to fully process and deal with the severity of their situation. 

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In a conversation with one of the guests at the Haven, I learned about a woman who had overdosed. She was approached by a girl selling Xanax, but it was laced with another substance that sent her to the hospital. She was four months pregnant at the time and, while she survived, the baby did not. She was in a crisis, felt hopeless, and thought that the only relief she would find was inside of a pill bottle. Hearing this story one Saturday morning broke my heart, and I had a deep conversation with my shift supervisor and a guest. We talked about the woman, the frequency of tragedies when opioids are involved, and the ways in which we could help. The guests of the Haven consider it a community, one that has supported them through the highs and lows. Despite the stability it offers, homelessness is still a dangerously isolating and depressing situation to be in. I cannot deny that drug use exists in the impoverished community, but the typical stereotypes associated with it are wrong. When people have no comforts in life, drugs become more appealing, but addiction is never a choice.

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Homelessness is extremely hard to overcome once it has happened. As noted in Evicted, screening practices for housing are rigorous and generally weed out people with past histories of  “missed rent payments” and unreliable income (Desmond 89). This means that even a family that is trying to claw up the ranks could be stuck in “failing” schools and “dangerous” streets because screening usually links “criminality and poverty”, creating a much higher risk of relapse. Homeless people who can gather the resources to eventually find a home might be off of the streets, but are still surrounded by temptations and danger. 

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Considering the instability and scarcity of accessible jobs, it is not a surprise that poverty is extremely difficult to overcome. Inconsistent incomes make impoverished people unreliable tenants, leaving them in constant fear of eviction and living paycheck to paycheck. A majority of people currently in poverty once held blue collar jobs, but their industries are currently failing. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 50,000 jobs were lost in the manufacturing sector from 1979 to 1983- a higher loss than in the Great Depression (Desmond 24). Over thirty years after this extreme devastation of the industry, there has been little progress to reinstate jobs or retrain the affected community. Even now, “one in two working-age African American men” in the city are unemployed, directly comparable to the half of the black community that held manufacturing jobs (Desmond 25). As jobs disappear in the city, thousands of skilled workers are left without options. Despite their qualifications, experience, and dedication to their jobs, there are simply no available jobs that match their skills. Additionally, there is no system in place to retrain them in accordance with current labor demand, so they are deemed obsolete.

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Merit is also cited as a reason for division amongst social classes. As Sarah Smarsh describes, people view laborers as deserving their role because “it’s all they’re suited for” (Smarsh 44). However, just because physical labor is looked down upon by society doesn’t make it intellectually inferior; what places people in those jobs is “birth” and “family history” (Smarsh 44). A person’s worth should not be decided by a blue or white collar job; it should be evaluated through their character and work ethic. At the Haven, I met a man whose family had owned a construction company. Between the manual labor, the blueprint drawings, and balancing financials, he came home physically and mentally exhausted at the end of the day. The most rewarding part of the job, he said, was building a foundation of a person’s life for years to come. He lifted planks of wood to generate income; that doesn’t make him less intelligent or less deserving of a stimulating job. However, the notion that laborers are inferior to white collar workers is commonly held and creates a systematic divide. 

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Stereotypes about homeless people makes their issues easier to ignore. The upper- and middle- class populations feel justified in distancing themselves from the struggles of poverty because they have dehumanized its victims. This distance allows them to dodge responsibility, especially when they accept the common perception of homeless people as “lazy” or “to blame” for their situation. As Smarsh describes, the true danger of poverty is not their physical situation and labor, but the way they are treated as a result. “Devaluing” the low-income population can lead to severe mistreatment from corporations, insurance companies, politicians, and even other individuals (Smarsh 45). When the general public considers a person “dispensable,” they will naturally “inflict a violence” upon them because they feel no remorse (Smarsh 45). Homeless and impoverished people have been so dehumanized that the general public feels it cannot relate to them on a basic human level. Therefore, when injustices are committed, they are less inclined to rush to action because they feel no sympathy. Eventually, distancing oneself from poverty leads to normalization of the issue. Its victims are left, either completely invisible or totally foreign to the average passerby. Like me.

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As sad as it is, systemic injustices are common enough that a majority of the homeless community expects them. After all, most are victims of major faults in some type of system: racism, sexism, criminal justice practices, failing economic sectors. What’s the worst part about being homeless, you ask? According to guests at the Haven, the lack of basic human decency. Time and time again, I have heard about people sitting out on the street and being walked past all day long. Eye contact with a passerby is a luxury, a smile is a treasure. One day, a guest came in visibly upset because he felt like a total “waste of space”. Slumped shoulders are a common sight because though these guests have so much to offer, they will never be seen behind their cardboard signs. 

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The effects of the Haven are immediately felt amongst its guests. The day shelter provides a hot meal and a warm room but, most importantly, it offers a hand to people who have been turned away by most of society. When asking guests about their experience at the Haven, they rarely credit shower services or clothing closets as their favorite aspect. According to two guests, the constant motivation from the Haven’s community to “get on [their] feet, get a place” and the “stability” that the building provides pushes guests to “keep [themselves] going”. Being able to walk in the door and be greeted with a “hi, how are you today?” can make all the difference.

Stereotypes of homelessness that middle and upper-class citizens hold allow them to dehumanize poverty. When confronted with these issues, most people prefer to ignore them because it is easier than tearing down their misconceptions. I understand the hesitancy towards interacting with the homeless population; the stereotypes that surround them are unnerving at best. However, this naive view of poverty ignores the basic humanity of millions of people. 

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Volunteering at the Haven has easily been the most eye-opening experience of my life, not only because I get to see outside my bubble of privilege, but because I have met incredible people. One guest proposed to his girlfriend of six years last month. Another sent a letter about immigration policy reform to Vice President Pence using a computer at the Haven. Every Saturday, a group of guys debate about the potential of the UVA football team this season in front of the kitchen. Last week, someone who was struggling to find an apprenticeship to get his barber’s license asked if he could set up a makeshift barbershop in the corner of the sanctuary upstairs. I am not asking you to completely throw out all stereotypes that you have of homeless people; that would be impossible. Just consider what you’re missing if you don’t see beyond their situation.

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Works Cited

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Desmond, Matthew. Evicted. Broadway Books, 2016.

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Smarsh, Sarah. Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth. Thorndike Press, 2019.

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