Street life

                           The Street Life

Down town San Fernando: 09/04/2013

San Fernando is well known for its busy sidewalks, great bargains and a healthy commerce sector. There is a real urban feel to this area and patrons know exactly what this city has to offer and they understand its culture. There is another story to this city. One that is often seen but not acknowledge. The side walks are not only used by vendors for a living or patrons but by street dwellers. Those that make the side walks their home and everyday people take for granted. These street dwellers also are a part of the culture of the urban and they are mirrors of the shortcomings of the urban. Most times commuters will ignore the sight and say that its because of mental illness they are on the street but then some are there because of domestic issues at home or being homeless. Whatever the reason they are alone and survive on their own means and it is seen that in cities around the world these street dwellers are becoming a part of the urban culture.

The Theory 

Currently on the streets of cities such as San Franciso, there is the same problem of homelessness as seen in San Fernando Trinidad.  According to (Daly 2008; Pacione 2009) Homelessness is a problem in the Global South and rising in the Global North. Alot of the figures for this issue usually do not reflect the real number of displaced people. Most of the cases are unseen where they stay at an unsecure locations. 

The casues of homelessness are numerous and most likely result in a combination of personal and structural factors as seen by ((Daly 2008; Pacione 2009) . These include those that are unemployed, substance abusers, runaway youths and street children (Gottdiener and Budd 2005). Attempts can be made to help these people as seen in the Newsday article   http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,128337.html where Trevor Braithwaite is the manager for 11 year of Shamrock which is a center for homeless people in San Fernando. Although he has this facility he says 

“You know how many battered women call us,” Braithwaite said, but there is nowhere, nothing, nothing. It is a real problem. There is a woman who sleeps in a bus shelter on Chancery Lane at nights.”

Therefore the facility is there but it is not equipt to facilitate the amount of homeless that is asking for help. There is now research being done that could at least reduce the problem where the homeless population and their problems should be viewed through their eyes because only they would know what they need (Daly 2008; DeVerteuil et al. 2009).  San Francisco for example has seen a rise in homelessness but now "kinder' and "gentler" policies instead of punitive ones are being used.They emphasized that the homeless population is diverse due to gender and ethnicity also by using methods such as participant observations , life histories and tracing homeless people's experiences in and geographies of the city then a solution can be found. 

The Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cWl61pa_Ek  

The References

Daly G. (2008). Housing and homelessness, in Hall T., Hubbard P.and Short J.R. The sage companion to the city, London: 267-281

DeVerteuil G., Lee W. and Wolch J. (2009). New spaces for the local welfare state? The case of general relief in Los Angeles Country. Social and cultural geography,3 (3): 229-246

Pacione M. (2009). Urban Geography: A global perspective. London: Routledge.