Tag: nyc

Understanding Homelessness in NYC: Myths and Realities

Living in New York City, as is the case in any major city throughout the world, one of the many daily occurrences you encounter is that of homelessness. As I walk into the subway and sit down, I expect some person claiming to be homeless and needing some help. I actually see the same person sometimes multiple times a week asking for money. I used to be pretty generous and give money to the homeless(especially if they had a visible handicap), but then one day I asked myself a question about why there were so many people who were homeless and what policy could be put into place to really address the problem.

First and foremost, homelessness, particularly in NYC, gets over-exaggerated. About less the one percent of New Yorkers are homeless. And to further break the number down, most homeless people suffer from either substance abuse or mental illness, which inhibits them from carrying out basic life necessities such as holding a steady job or maintaining basic hygiene. If you want to alleviate homelessness, more mental health hospitals and fewer shelters would prove much more effective. Now can we go around and put every homeless person who we suspect to be crazy and rush them to a mental institution no( at least not exactly) It would best be done through a system where a homeless person breaks a law such as public urination or vagrancy and having a psychiatrist do an evaluation to see if that person is susceptible to go into society and of course getting the person to consent to be institutionalized (unless the person is deemed a danger to himself or others and such consent wouldn’t be needed).

And second, the idea that I am going to give every homeless person who asks me for money throughout my day my hard-earned cash to encourage them further to beg doesn’t help anybody. It came to me one day that many homeless people actually are already receiving government assistance through disability and SSI checks that they beg because they know they can get over on people. A typical New York City subway train contains ten cars. So if you were homeless and ambitious enough to beg for money on every subway car and get at least two people to give you a dollar, you can earn twenty dollars per train. You hit five trains in a day, you can make up to a hundred dollars a day just begging for money(untaxed, mind you). So homelessness for some can be pretty lucrative.

If you don’t buy my point, look at how the Japanese deal with their homeless issues. Which can best be explained by watching this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK–oCVP18A. I myself had gotten a chance to visit Tokyo a few years back and was struck by how different homelessness was over there than it is here. First, no homeless person can ever be seen begging. Second, I didn’t encounter any homeless person who reeked of foul odor, as is the case in NYC(whole subway carts will be emptied just because passengers can’t take the smell of some of the homeless people in it). The third most homeless people live in these makeshift communities in the Tokyo subway systems.

I do believe that we should help people who are down on their luck for their sake and ours, but I just think we’re going the wrong way about it. And that by having an honest and more open dialogue, we’ll really help these downtrodden individuals.

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A Disappointing Paris Experience: Insights from My Trip

From May 23, 2017, until June 4, 2017, I was in Paris, France. It was my second time ever outside the United States( The only other country I’ve been to was Japan) and my first time in France. I didn’t really have any expectations before I came to France. I decided to come to Paris on vacation. The reason I chose Paris is that for the past year I’ve been teaching myself French. So I thought to myself, France would probably be the best place to get some practice in. So here goes my review of the entire trip(from of course, my own personal opinion)

Paris, I found to be pretty boring and really expensive, the sum of my experience there. The entire city looks virtually the same with its cliche three to four-story buildings. I found myself sometimes in new parts of the city, wondering to myself, “If I’ve been here before”. You can walk the city for hours yet see the same old canals and cobbled streets. Now I’m from New York City, and I’m used to experiencing totally different scenery after a couple of hours of walking. In New York, neighborhoods can look totally different from each other and have a totally different vibe altogether. This is not true of Paris, where the entire city can be pretty uniform in both scenery and vibe.

Now, the second strife I had with Paris is how extremely expensive it was(particularly the food). In Paris, there are a lot of bistros, and one can commonly observe Parisians eating outside many of these bistros. I myself ate at some of these places, and yes, the food is good, but I soon found out bistros were the only places one could find good quality food (of course, the exception is if you cook your own dinner). In New York, if I were hungry and wanted to eat out on a budget, I would have a plethora of options. Maybe I can go to the local deli and order a hero for four dollars, or maybe go to a Chinese takeout and order a meal for less than six dollars. This is not true of Paris, where you will be hard-pressed to find any fast food joints. I’ve seen about two McDonald’s (which were not as good as the McDonald’s in America in my opinion). There are no food trucks in Paris. The only option I found myself taking if I wanted to eat for cheap was to visit a supermarket and buy a refrigerated sandwich(which let me tell you aren’t really that good and doesn’t certainly don’t fill you up).

There are a ton of scamming gypsies all over Paris; they congregate by the tourist attraction, usually asking tourists if they would like to sign some form and then asking them for some Euros. Here’s one example, my second day, I went to visit The world famous Musee d’Orsay(It contain the famous Van Gogh self-portrait) I was across the street from the museum when a woman who I thought was deaf(as she played the role) came up to me with some forms with a pledge to donate to some bogus institution for the deaf. I smiled and signed to her that I wasn’t interested in making any pledges. As I crossed the street, I saw here going up to two females and immediately conversing with them. I must tell you I was a little upset at this revelation of deceit. She had me perfectly fooled that she was deaf and had me feeling a slight remorse for her. I witnessed more gypsy scamming besides this, such as an old gypsy woman asking children at a McDonald’s for food; the children proceeded to give her food, she smiled and took the food. I walked outside ten minutes later to find this woman with a bag full of bread( I guess that wasn’t enough to satiate her treacherous hunger). I also notice that virtually all the homeless in Paris are, in fact gypsies, and they can be seen sitting on cardboard(sometimes entire families, including children) and begging for money.

Overall, I believe Paris is overtly hyped up as a great and magnificent city. But hey, I guess it all depends on what you’re looking for. I am more of a big city cosmopolitan kind of guy. I like to walk around a large city and be in awe, like I am in New York, and I was in Tokyo.

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