Homeless and Their Children

David F. Wiley English-111-OFA Summary and Response first gear Draft Jonathon Kozol, the writer of Illiterate America in 1985, takes time to nurture Illiteracy and p each overty in America and he wrote a invigorated in 1988 c on the wholeed The Homeless and Their Children where He told a story of a charr and her four children called Joanne (Kozol, 1985). Jonathan spent a lot of time to get to hunch forward Rachel and her children who lived in a stateless hotel in New York called the Martinique, which was located at Sixth Avenue and Thirty Second Street. This hotel was known to be the largest hotel for the homeless people in New York.Jonathan Kozol was enlightening the facts that there were so some(prenominal) homeless and illiterate people in America, large the facts that at least(prenominal) one third of Ameri ass citizens were affected. With Joannes illiteracy she couldnt sympathise her mail, didnt know if it was important or if it was about her children and this made h er rattling s dod non knowing if she did the right thing for her children. Martinique Hotel is home to over 400 hundred families and 1200 children. The hotel itself is in a very dilapidated condition, and its like living in the slum.The conditions in the hotel were horrible, from walls that are were crumbling covered in lead based paint, to plumbing issues in the bathroom that has made rude sewage stand in pools on the floor, This was a terrible occupation for Joanne and her children. They had 4 beds set up in one room that were on unprotected bed frames, which made a very unsafe for the children to residual on. Joanne had a radiator that is was spewing hot steam which was located at eye take aim to some of the children. The crib for her youngest child who is only just months old was locomote apart this made Joanne worried for his safety.There were green mold looking smudges all over the walls from leaking plumbing from the rooms above hers. The lighting in the flat is bright fluorescent lights that made it very hard on their eyes. The video set they have was borrowed and didnt even really work at all and the antenna for the television set is a wire pelage hanger. Joanne complained to the management of the Martinique Hotel and never received any friend at all on any of the unbelievable problems she is faced with on a unremarkable basis in her apartment that she has had to live in with her four children. Her oldest hild whom is 7 years old had been to the hospital a couple of weeks previously because of the tasty tasting lead based paint on the walls. Kids will be kids he had eaten some of the paint and got sick. The sad part that Joanne couldnt demonstrate her mail so she didnt realize in a freshet of mail that was piling up, one of the mail was from the vivifys placement telling her to bring the child back for follow up to care on his lead poisoning issue. Joanne didnt read the mail as she couldnt, so she didnt take her son for the follow up doctors appointments that he needed.This is sad to see in this generation that we have our American Citizens to fall as victims to homeless and illiteracy and living in devastating conditions. Our government needs to step up to investigate the problems. This phrase made me sick to my stomach. The more I read this article the angrier I became. This answers me wonder how America the richest and highest technology advanced nation in the foundation can just discard and leave the homeless un-attended as if they get intot exist. I have always had a soft amount for these people in need. This article has just made me more condole with to the cause of helping those in need.It simply breaks my heart to know that we leave out billions of dollars sending money and food all over the world to help all these other countries with their homeless and starving problem, but we arent tight-fitting to solving solve the same problem in our own country. In the article it talked mentions about the t remendous amount of rent she pays at the hotel like fifteen hundred dollars a month and it enrages me so much I can hardly contain myself while type this. We as a nation have to make this cause of homelessness and illiteracy of our citizens a top priority.There is so much (me me me) of selfishness in our society that I am afraid this is something that will always be pushed as frown priority. Our leaders in this country give titanic speeches on big issues just so they can get into the office and once they make it to office they forget what they promised to the public they serve. I feel we as individuals can make a difference in life by not just thinking about ourselves only, but by doing the right things by, giving love, care and help to our fellow citizens in need. Bibliography Kozol, J. (1985). Illiterate America. Garden City, NY bowman Press/Doubleday. Words 864