The writing “The Homeless and their Children” by Jonathan Kozol describes one families way of life in the Martinique Hotel in New York City. This is a hotel that houses around four hundred homeless families. When I first started to read this writing, my first impression of the hotel was a good one. I thought, “Wow that is very nice of that city to have a whole hotel for homeless people to stay.” As I read on my opinion soon changed.
The family described in this writing contains a mother and four children. One of her children is very sick with lead poisoning. This woman does not have a job but is on welfare. She has to pay 1500 dollars every two weeks to stay in this hotel for the homeless. This is outrageous. There is no way that the condition that this woman and her family are living in is worth even half of 1500 dollars. To get a picture in your head, the woman’s room is described as having pools of sewage on the floor, a radiator with a broken valve, a very unstable crib for the baby, and horrible lighting. All the room contains is two chairs, a fridge and a T.V that doesn’t work. By the time the writing had described all this I was thinking to myself, “This woman might be better off living on the street.”
Sometimes cities or organizations are not what they appear to be. Although it looks like something nice is being done for someone, the situation is not as grand as it is cut out to be. There is something seriously wrong with this picture. If someone wants to make an effort to help someone, that’s great, but they should truly help them and try their best to get that person back on their feet. In this woman’s case, this hotel where she was staying was more of a burden to her than it was a help. What is the point of even having an organization like that if it is not going to help anyone? To me it seems as if this city was just in it for the money. The hotel described in this story overcharged this woman for her room and never even made an effort to improve her living conditions. Organizations like the Martinique Hotel should really be ashamed of themselves. They are not helping anyone and would be better off shut down.
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I read and did a response on this article myself and agrre with you completely. It broke my heart to hear the tragedy of this woman's life. What hurt me the most was that there appeared to be no real escape for her. We need to search outside ourselves and begin truly helping others , not just take pity on them.
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