It is unfortunate when people " in our own society who are so labeled are therefore seen as being the authors of their own problems"(Fleming 239). Reasons such as drug addiction are assigned to characterize homeless people as having "personal failing, inadequacy or lack of effort"(Fleming 239). Not all people on the streets are deviants. There is just too much evidence showing that every day people can wind up homeless.
The continual cycle of poverty that leads to homelessness is very hard to break. Welfare is what Thomas O"Reilly Fleming describes as a "Catch 22" for the homeless where "in order to get welfare you have to have a home, if you don't have a home you can't collect welfare"(Fleming 247). Most people do not understand how hard it can be to break the cycle of poverty. The hard love approach, laden with "punishingly heavy-handed cutbacks, workfare, and increasingly tight welfare eligibility requirements" will never curb homelessness (Capponi 262). These types of measures only alienate the homeless and push them further from mainstream society. All these loopholes, labels and artificial barriers do is create a system that tries to deal with the situation but never really addresses the issues creating the problem. When a person walks through that door to get assistance, they should be afforded the opportunity to be dealt with as an individual and not just a statistic. Sometimes a homeless person may be only a check away from being off the streets. These cannot be people that are just labeled and cast to the back of the line. People's personal situations must be addressed and dealt with accordingly. .
Warm shelter can be very hard to find in the life of a homeless person. People who are more fortunate tend to see the homeless experience as free money, meals and shelter. John Stackhouse seemed to be attempting to cement these beliefs when he infiltrated the street-life first hand.
