Personifying Villainy

        Amongst both successful and unsuccessful ventures toward bettering the lives of the homeless in the Portland general area, there has been no shortage of hiccups along the way. I bring up the idea of "characterized" villainy, under the idea of how many local community members and community organizations have such stigmatized viewpoints against public support and development with the intention to improve the lives of the homeless population. Currently, successful initiatives that support the development of private and safe LGBTQ housing have come under backlash for a variety of reasons including their proximity to existing public areas and infrastructure. In the NPR interview and posting I reference below, we touch on the fragile subject of the local communities' personal standing and viewpoints of these pro-homeless shelters. 

        Without targeting and effectively eliminating the upheld bias that many holds against the homeless, it'll be extremely difficult to come up with long-term solutions to aid in their recoveries. In this certain instance, the safe shelter established in the harbor and support of those in the LGBTQ community come under fire due to the community's standing image of the homeless population and the camp's proximity to local schools. While certain points are made in the defense of their claims against the continued existence of these camps near the schools, the primary concerns shared by the parents and community seem to stem from the fact that implicitly assume that the camp is going to be a harbor of criminal activity. Firstly, it was the claim that the existence of the camp includes the possibility of sexual offenders or the like being within normally restricted distances from centers of the community and schools. While the concern on paper may be valid, the intrinsic belief that just because homeless populations would utilize the structure that criminals would also be present is unreasonably biased against the homeless population as a whole. One member of the sheltered community reads a letter from one such concerned public member, concerned not only about the proximity of the camp to her 7-year-old's school as it would be something he could see from his class, but that "He is within earshot, sight, and gunshot range of this village." The simple assumption that her child would be more endangered on a daily basis due to the simple presence of a homeless shelter is an inappropriate level of bias that unfortunately pervades many sides of our local communities when it comes to dealing with aid and support of the less fortunate.

Link to the NPR interview.

By: Auston Anglin