Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, But Words Will Form Your Perception of Me

I want to focus in on some common perceptions and assumptions about homelessness and use my sources to complicate these perceptions in unique and perhaps unheard-of ways that will give a whole new outlook on homelessness (to whomever I am able to reach through my presentation.) I am not sure if I should focus in on one thing or multiple things. Personally, I would like to look at all of these things, as they all fall under the category of perceptions of homelessness and I think they are the most important topics to highlight and complicate. My challenge is just figuring out how to integrate them into each other or into one bigger idea. I think I have made it clear that homelessness is a complex issue (and you can even see this in my post below, which is my Verbal Portrait.) I am leaning toward looking at how "forms of literacy" and forms of literature as well as use of language may shape perceptions about homelessness and about the causes of homelessness.

I want to highlight some topics such as forms of literature on homelessness by using Toxic Literacies (Taylor) to look at how forms and applications of "the system" control the lives and limit the choices of the homeless who are actually trying to work their way out of homelessness. I am also going to use different forms of literature from Shalom Community Center in order to integrate my agency into my paper and in my final project.

I also want to examine how language used in these two different types of literature can reinforce or complicate perceptions on homelessness. I am also going to examine the language used in my sources that describes those experiencing homelessness and also that describes those who are not experiencing homelessness.

"Causes of homelessness" is one of the most commonly discussed aspects of homelessness among "the housed" (a.k.a. those who are not experiencing homelessness) and there is so much that can be brought to light here (even though bringing these issues to light may only further complicate things.) I also think it is important to see how those experiencing homelessness talk about themselves and others in their situation and perhaps cite, using statistical data, what the most common causes of homelessness are. Using real people is the best source in my opinion. My interview for the Verbal Portrait will be one example of this type of situation. I have sources that have a negative view of people's own choices leading them to homelessness (i.e. "laziness".) These sources are some of those that I used in my Verbal Portrait, such as Public Beliefs About Homelessness (Lee) and Perspectives of Employed People Experiencing Homelessness of Self and Being Homeless: Challenging Socially Constructed Perceptions and Stereotypes (Shier). I even found an article that has President Reagan reinforcing such ideas that laziness and poor choices are what lead people to homelessness, not his presidency nor the economic state at the time. Another interesting source I found, Housing Patterns of Homeless People: The Ecology of the Street in the Era of Urban Renewal (Wasserman) shows those experiencing homeless as key stakeholders in urban communities with goals, concerns, and desired boundaries similar to those who “legitimately” live downtown.

Obviously, there are countless different views on homelessness and, of course, different forms of language to go with each of them. There's American pop culture and media perceptions, perceptions of middle class individuals, perceptions of political figures in high positions, perceptions that agencies like Shalom try to put out into society, and these are all molded to some degree by language use. I want to use my sources in two ways: as pieces of information about perceptions of homelessness and about certain statistics, and forms of literature in order to analyze the language used in each one. In this way I can integrate use of language and forms of literature and the information presented in Toxic Literacies into my interest in how perceptions are formed about the causes of homelessness.