America’s Homelessness Crisis
Have you ever been to a major city and seen the extreme levels of homelessness and poverty? If you have, you may have given them some change, or maybe you feared them so you ignored them as if they were not there. That is due to the social culture in America, in which we accept the idea that another human being can simply live on the streets in conditions worse than that of some wild animals. Homelessness continues to grow at an alarming rate as housing and renting costs continue to outprice minimum working wages. This said inflation has led to thousands of Americans without a roof over their heads and living on the streets, not knowing when another meal will come.
Nowhere in America is this problem as bad as in New York City. In the city, there is one homeless person for every one hundred twenty people, this is almost 1% of the population homeless. One of these homeless individuals was Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old street performer. Neely was known for impersonating Michael Jackson through the NYC metro stations and on popular street corners. In the past years, Neely had struggled to get by as he continued to struggle with mental health issues from both being hungry and homeless, living off donations from the audience of his street performances. Due to these mental health struggles, on May 1st, Neely had a panic attack on the NYC subway where he began to express his hunger and thirst screaming he did not care if he died and that he had nothing to live for. He yelled at other passengers on the metro telling them to move away and leave him alone. Neely simply was thirsty and hungry and tired from living on the streets and not having a steady meal every day.
After his outbursts, another rider on the subway, Daniel Penny, came up from behind Neely and placed him into a chokehold for about 15 minutes. Daniel Penny, a Marine Veteran, after almost 2 weeks, was charged with manslaughter for the murder of Jordan Neely. This charge was not complete without much controversy across the political world. Firstly, the charge was not immediate as the police did not arrest him the day he murdered Neely, claiming there was no probable cause to officially arrest him. This brought much anger from the left as there was video evidence showing Neely struggling to breathe as Penny continued to apply pressure to his neck. This was later followed up by Republican supporters raising over $2 million for Penny’s legal defense, turning this murder into a more political issue. This was perpetuated through right-wing pundits who continued to defend Penny for his actions, some claiming Neely deserved to be killed.
BBYO Miami Regional Board at the Miami Rescue Mission
This treatment towards homeless people should be unacceptable, defending the murder of an innocent citizen. We as a society need to help others who have been born into unfortunate situations, not see them as second-class. Efforts to help can be done through a multitude of organizations and methods. For example, last week, as a part of the Miami Regional Board for BBYO (B’nai Brith Youth Org.), I helped host an event to participate in Mission Hope with the Miami Rescue Mission. In this event, many of the members of our chapter donated hygiene goods to be handed out to those in need who may not be able to afford or have access to hygiene goods. We did this to give homeless people the necessary hygiene goods that we take for granted every day including soap, toothbrushes, toilet paper, and deodorant. These goods, enable homeless people to clean themselves and have a better opportunity at getting hired for jobs and give them a chance at being reintegrated into society. This is a small way within my own community that I was able to contribute to bringing an end to homelessness. Although you may not see the effects of your small actions directly, it is very impactful to those in need who may be able to change their lives for the better. Every small effort can help towards solving the problem, but to eradicate homelessness we must look towards our government. Homelessness is too extensive to completely solve through good individual deeds, we must lobby our representatives to make impactful and systematic legislation further to fund housing, healthcare, and food access programs to bring an end to this violent treatment of our fellow human beings.
