Person-Blame Approach To Homelessness

Social problems are defined as behavior that strays away from the standards and norms of society. People take two different approaches for blaming social problems, “person-blame” and “system-blame”. A pro of the person-blame approach is recognizing that people and their actions are not entirely based on their environment and that people hold responsibility in their decisions. The members of society that are deviating from social norms are seen as the root of the problem. Most people believe these outcasts of society deviate because of bizarre circumstances, such as illness, accidents, character flaw etc. They believe if someone in society has a problem it is because of something of their own action. For example, a person-blamer would possibly …show more content…
The author brings up how when you get laid off your salary will abruptly decrease whether you are receiving unemployment or finding another job. Because of this decrease of salary many people cannot afford the high cost of living in the U.S. The author is blaming the high cost of living and decrease of salary as reasons for homelessness. One point made by the author that I found particularly weak is that the cost of living is so high it is hard to save during unemployment because all the money goes to bills. This does not contribute much to the readers understanding of homelessness because there are many different alternatives for living situations. For example, one could move in with a friend or family member temporarily. Also one could adjust their lifestyle to cut down on bills and expenses until they are on their feet. Another point I found weak is how just because your salary decreases you can “easily” become homeless. I do not find this much help because just because salary may decrease does not mean you can fall easily into homelessness. People may have savings for these emergencies. Also with a lifestyle adjustment, cost of living can decrease along with the salary …show more content…
The author believes that the biggest cause of homelessness is the homeless themselves and a person’s failure to discipline their lifestyle leads to being homeless. Author states to prevent homelessness people must spend less and save more. The point made where the question of how much money was spent on careless purchases does not help the reader understand homelessness. It uses stereotypes because not every homeless person spent all their money on drugs, alcohol, or clothes, etc. This letter bluntly tells the reader that homelessness is a result of one’s poor spending decisions but ignores the many different scenarios and situations a person can be in that is not in their control. Another weak point made is that it is a person’s personal responsibility to meet their own obligations to their family, their credit card company, their bank, etc. Yes people need to take responsibility of their own obligations but people make mistakes and go through different things in life. Although it might not be someone’s or the government’s responsibility to meet others obligations there should still be aid to those who are