The Hole In The Net Essay Research

The Hole In The Net Essay, Research Paper

Our social safety net has a hole in it. The fibers of the net are

decaying; the hole is getting bigger. More people are falling through,

and the people with the least strength are holding the most of the

weight. Three to four million Americans are homeless according to the

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 5.5% cannot find jobs

according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, and the figure is over

twice that in the 20-24 year old age group, according to the Department

of Education. A very slim minority of these people are sucking off the

system, but the vast majority just had a bad break.

Such is the story of Peter and Megan, as told by author Jonathan Kozol

in his Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award winner Rachel and Her

Children: Homeless Families in America. Peter was a carpenter and she

was a homemaker who raised their five children. They lived in a neat,

working class apartment building in New York City. Peter did

construction for public housing projects, and had a vast array of

technical skills and tools: .I did carpentry. I painted. I could do

wallpapering. I earned a living. We spent Sundays walking with our

children on the beach.. It may sound like this was a happy family,

living the American Dream. Perhaps they were — they were self

sufficient for all of the 12 years that they had been married, they had

a steady income, a close and loving family, a home, and a chance for

their children to do even better than they had done. Then the fire

struck. They came racing home after hearing the news, only to find that

everything had been destroyed. The children lost their pet dog and cat,

Megan lost her grandmother.s china, but Peter perhaps lost the most: his

tools. Since the fire, he has not had a job, because a carpenter without

tools might as well not have eyes. He explained that for every job he

had, he would add a new tool to his collection. But they all went up in

the blaze. When Kozol first met them, they were living in a welfare

hotel in New York, where they had been living for two years. They can.t

get out because federal assistance programs (better known as welfare)

tell them that their family limit for an apartment is $366 a month –

this with seven family members living in New York City. (In comparison,

that.s about the rock bottom price for a week in a New York City one

room motel.) In their two room .apartment., the entire place is falling

apart, with crumbling walls, no working toilets, and a stench Kozol

describes as .overpowering..

A year later, Kozol meets Peter and Megan again. This time they.re

living on the street, and their children have been taken away, all to

different foster homes, because, Peter says .White children are in

demand by the adoption agencies.. The social safety net designed to help

people who are down on their luck: where is it for Peter and Megan, not

to mention their children. And without a safety net, how can we expect

people to fulfill this .American Dream.. Evidently, we can.t. It.s as

good as dead.

Peter and Megan are real people. This is a real story. For as long as

anybody can remember, we.ve been pounded by success stories of the

American Dream. But for every Colin Powell, Lee Iacocca, Bob Dole, or

Arnold Schwartzenegger, there are dozens, if not hundreds of Peters and

Megans. And as long as there are people who want jobs and can.t get

them, as long as children live on the streets because of no fault of

their own, as long as the value of a dollar for the worker keeps

declining, we can.t really say that the American Dream is a reality.

The American Dream doesn.t have a set definition. It used to mean

having a husband who worked and provided for his family, a wife who

raised the children, and for every generation, a chance to do better

than your parents and to have your children do even better than you. But

today a new definition of the dream is in order. It basically comes down

today to the knowledge that if you, as President Clinton says, .work

hard and play by the rules,. you will be able to provide food, clothing,

shelter, medical care, education, and a few pleasures for your family.

First, though, society needs to get its proverbial house in order. As a

society we need to make certain that some things are brought back to the

table if we want to restore the dream, specifically:

· Job stability – Without a steady source of income, it.s impossible to

have a budget on which to base how you allot your money, and obviously a

steady cash flow is the only way to purchase the necessities.

· A superior pubic education system – In order to get ahead, you have to

have an education. In order for people to allow their children to do

better than they did, their children have to have more education. Some

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