Matthew Maglio 7/24/22 Homelessness in Tampa Tampa-Saint Petersburg is known as the city with the highest homelessness rate per capita in the nation. This is obviously a very big issue considering the rapid growth that the city has been experiencing. Black Americans are overrepresented in the homeless population with respect to their portion of the national population. For every 10,000 people in this area 57 are homeless and the black population is highly overrepresented in this statistic. This issue not only shows racial disparity in Tampa, but the issue also affects the city. This needs to be addressed by adding more homeless programs to help get these people into a proper living situation. This could be addressed by creating homelessness programs that allow them to work in jobs around the city that need help and can be used to teach them career skills. If you are able to provide the homeless with a marketable job skill along with proper life skills, they can develop a career out of it and become self-reliant. This should be the overall goal of these homeless programs is to help people out of their situation. Paying $10 an hour in a job field where the hires were needed already is an affordable program compared to other welfare programs in the past. In order to add this however there would need to be proper homeless services in place so that living situations are accounted for. Another program that could help with the racial disparity is to have local leaders visit elementary and middle school classes once a month. These people can be elected volunteers who might be law officials, pastors, school admin, or other professionals. Their goal in these lessons is to teach school age kids a new life lesson or skill every time. This could be career paths, money management, professional development, and conduct. Requiring students to participate in interactive lessons about these topics could give them a well-rounded background to succeeded as they get older. With schools around inadequate or overcrowded neighborhoods having a much higher proportion of black households this would give kids in this circumstance an advantage. If the program is successful, it should be applied to all schools for the students who might not get the guidance required in life at home. These are just some examples of programs and things we can implement to improve the situation in our city. Tampa-Saint Petersburg is beautiful place with lots of opportunities as the city thrives and gets bigger, we should give back to the people by offering adequate opportunities. Homelessness is a problem that can be solved there just needs to be the first big step. Matthew Maglio 7/24/22 Works Cited . Audrey Smedley, Brian Smedley. “Twentieth-Century Developments in Race Ideology: 13: 4 Race in North.” Taylor & Francis, Taylor & Francis, 20 Apr. 2018, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9780429494789-13/twentiethcentury-developments-race-ideology-audrey-smedley-brian-smedley. Fitzpatrick, Cara. “Investigation: How Pinellas County Is Failing Its Black Students .” Tampa Bay, 2015, https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2015/investigations/pinellas-failurefactories/. Carter, George R. “From Exclusion to Destitution: Race, Affordable Housing, and Homelessness.” Cityscape, vol. 13, no. 1, 2011, pp. 33–70. https://www-jstororg.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/stable/20868768?seq=7 Kendi, Ibram X. How to Be an Antiracist. Vintage, 2021. “The Paley Center in New York.” The Paley Center for Media, https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?item=121904. “Slavery by Another Name.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, https://www.pbs.org/show/slavery-another-name/. Thompson, J. Phillip. “Taking Freedom: Capitalism, Democracy, and W.E.B. Du Bois' Two Proletariats.” Pacific Standard, Pacific Standard, 16 Apr. 2018, https://psmag.com/socialjustice/taking-freedom-capitalism-democracy-and-du-bois. Matthew Maglio 7/24/22 Matthew Maglio 7/24/22 Matthew Maglio 7/24/22 Matthew Maglio 7/24/22 Matthew Maglio 7/24/22
