"Patterns For A Purpose"

Carbine 1

Jessica Carbine

Adam Burningham 

English 1010-Section 026

Sept/15/2015

Questions in fifth edition "Patterns for a Purpose"

Page: 266, 1-4 

1."According to Kozol, what are the prevailing attributes towards the Homeless?"

• The Homeless people in this article are seen as a blight on society, a carrier for disease, and a warning of what could happen to you. In most the examples he uses the homeless are homeless because of too many things happening at once . Its not really their fault they just couldn't handle it financially and so they lost their homes . He see both sides of the story fairly well and his examples are easy to follow. He gives examples of what its like to be homeless, it's about survival mostly and the outsiders view of homeless lifestyle.

2. "To what extent are government officials and the general public part of the problem of homelessness?"

• They are running away form the problem instead of facing it. They seem to think that if they can't see the homeless people than they must not exist. They sweep homeless people under the rug and close their eyes to them instead of giving them the help they need. The author even stated that homeless people are sometimes given a one night stay but in exchange they are given one way ticket out of town. His example is in Wyoming but there is another incident where that happened, in Utah during the 2002 winter Olympics. The Olympics were being held in Salt lake city that year so in order to "clean up the city" they gave all the homeless people a one way ticket out of town.  

3. "In paragraph 38, Kozol says that we are afraid of homeless children. What are we afraid of ?"

In the article the author states that he doesn't know why we are afraid of homeless children, he then goes on to say, maybe we are afraid of disease or the adolescents they'll become. I thin it's more psychological than that though, I think that we see homelessness as a disease. When we see a homeless child we think he or she is going to grow up to be homeless just like their parents and therefore they are just one more person to catch the disease from. To them us it's only a matter of time before the whole world is infested with this "disease" and they see no cure. 

4. "Are any examples particularly moving? Which ones? why do they affect you in the way they do?

• I really like the last line " So from pity we graduate from weariness; from weariness to impatience; from impatiences to annoyance to dislike and sometimes contempt."                       I felt like I related to the statement in paragraph four  "Most people are permitted to make more than one mistake. Not when you're poor" because it seems to be true in most financial situations. I was also really saddened bye some of the stories of homeless people being Beaten, Murdered, or even set on fire. I just don't understand mindless acts of violence like that.