Discussion of Examples and How Homelessness is Portrayed in Cultural “Artifacts”.

In our examples of how homelessness is portrayed in society we could see common themes through various types of media. Our examples of movies, documentaries, comedic television shows news articles and music give us a wide scope of how homelessness is portrayed. I think the main them to these portrayals of homeless is one that shows them as unequal and dehumanizes the homeless. In the article, "working without place", the author states, "homeless is also a term of disrespect for those who do not fit into a conception of home- who do not fit prevailing standards of housing, land tenure, family form and material comfort." In some of these examples we see the hardships the characters go through without having this place of "home". In these media examples we can see a a displacement of place and the adaptation to survive these conditions whether it be short term or long term. In these examples you also see the urban setting of homelessness which is discussed in the article "Alternative Cartographies of Homelessness: Rendering visible British women's experiences of 'visible' homelessness. The authors conclude, " In the popular imagination homelessness tends to be reduced to the experience of 'visible' homelessness or 'rooflessness'. Thus constructed, it may in turn come to be understood as mainly restricted to the urban realm..." In these portrayals you can see the economic hardships the in-turn lead to the loss of home and the individual struggle to redefine "home".
In some examples they relocate to shelters and others find a way to live on the streets temporarily before they can figure something out. In all these examples you can see the you can see a problem of an individual's struggle to recuperate instead of having structural support. I agree with the article " The Everyday Geography of the Homeless in Kansas City" as i conclude with this statement, " Faced with a problem that is unlikely to go a way in the near future, it is imperative that we begin to see the problem of homelessness not simply lacking a roof and to understand the context within which the experience of homelessness is embedded. Any lasting solutions to the problem must address the individual vulnerabilities and the structural causes of that problem." The problem lies in the structure in which homelessness is created not solely created by the individual.