23. Are the Homeless Crazy?

Jonathan Kozol begins his article with with the common belief that many homeless people were deinstitutionalized in the 1970s. However, he refutes this belief with the knowledge of people who work with the homeless who say that the main reason homeless people are homeless is because of economical reasons and not clinical. He then supports this claim with statistics on how much the prices for houses has risen and how the percentage of homeless people actually have mental disorders. After listing a number of statistics, Kozol explains that even though there is a very small percentage of homeless people with mental disorders, it is huge in politics and the press because it is outside the norm. He then continues and writes that even though there are less institutions for the mentally sick and how many of them had be "liberated," he writes that it is only a correlation with the increase of homeless people. He writes that many of the homeless seem to have mental illnesses because of the terrible conditions they live in. He uses the example of a raging woman who was kicked out of her home, if all the homeless did that then maybe America would listen to the injustice they are subjugated to.
This article was very well written and it refutes a logical fallacy, the logical fallacy being the correlation between mentally ill people are usually homeless when in reality, most homeless were not mentally ill. A few points are scattered and the addition of more transitions could make it easier to connect the points. Kozol used statistics very effectively in supporting his point. He also utilizes his example at the end of his article in a very strong way to end his paper. He uses a number of things to support his stand like history, statistics and facts. He is also properly able to counter the logical fallacy slippery slope and also writes in a way that makes people start thinking about the grave situation at hand. Overall, he wrote a very compelling article that was able to successfully counter a common misbelief and make people start worrying about the situation.