Miley Cyrus’ VMA activities recently hit the news again – but this time it wasn’t for twerking. Instead, Miley took the spotlight off herself and put it on the issue of homeless youth. Passing her award acceptance on to 22-year-old Jesse Helt, a formerly homeless youth, Miley brought attention to severe social inequality across the U.S. The move raised over $200,000 for Los Angeles homeless youth. However, sociologists show that increasing media awareness of a stigmatized group can have both positive and negative consequences.
Regardless of Miley’s intentions, her effort to give voice to the homeless population is a step in the right direction. Sociologists show that increased awareness of and contact with stigmatized populations can help decrease that stigma.
- Barrett Lee, Chad Farrell, and Bruce Link. 2004. “Revisiting the Contact Hypothesis: The Case of Public Exposure to Homelessness.” American Sociological Review. 69(1).
The media also plays a large role in which issues get deemed “social problems”—problems we feel responsible for helping to fix. Positive media attention given to homelessness at the VMAs, while fleeting, may have some positive impact on social perceptions of homelessness.
- Joseph Gusfield. 1989. “Constructing the Ownership of Social Problems: Fun and Profit in the Welfare State.” Social Problems. 36(5).
- James Forte. 2002. “Not in My Social World: A Cultural Analysis of Media Representations, Contested Spaces, and Sympathy for the Homeless.” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. 29(4).
However, raising awareness of what many see as a deserving segment of the homeless population—white, healthy, homeless youth—may also detract from what many sociologists call the “undeserving poor.” This equally important group of minority populations and welfare recipients will have a much harder time finding its way into an awards show.
- Michael Katz. 2013. The Undeserving Poor: America’s Enduring Confrontation with Poverty. 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press.
Comments 2
Letta Page — September 4, 2014
I was really bothered by the fact that much of the story after the VMAs was focused on learning about the background of Miley's friend and "digging up the dirt" that he had a criminal past and a warrant. All of a sudden, it seemed like the press was focused on how this criminal found his way into favor with a star (umm, it seems like a lot of stars have brushes with the law, too...). Suddenly he wasn't a homeless youth worthy of our attention, but a criminal duping his way onto national TV.
In Edina, MN, I'm proud to say, the city government and citizens are working to build a new unaccompanied youth long-term shelter with up to 34 studio apartments. This may sound like a small step -- 34 youth off the streets on any given night -- and it is. The problem is enormous. But the shortage of beds for unaccompanied youth (that is, homeless kids who aren't with their parent or guardian when they go to a shelter to seek help) is shameful. For instance, Wilder estimated about 2,500 unaccompanied youth on the streets in Minnesota on a given *winter* night in 2013. At that time, there were six drop-in shelters that would take unaccompanied minors if they had room, 108 emergency shelter beds, and just about 600 transitional housing units (to which young people might be admitted after exiting juvenile facilities or treatment centers, but that also housed adults).
Further, unaccompanied minors tend, rather obviously, to be kids running away. Yes, some will be your "rebellious youth" -- the "damn kids" many respond to and assume can just go back to their parents' nice, suburban home if they'll just cut their hair or go to school. Many others will be kids dropping out of the foster system (or aging out), addicts whose families have found themselves with the agonizing decision to cut ties, and young people fleeing inhospitable homes that featured abuse, neglect, parental drug abuse, or intolerance (largely of young people who identify as LGBTQ).
This problem deserves attention, and I'm glad Miley Cyrus brought a spotlight. I just wish the media had continued to focus on the problem of youth homelessness instead of looking at this one particular homeless youth and determining that he was "undeserving" of help or attention because of his criminal record.
As my dad, who ran a homeless shelter for many years, put it, you may find many ways to "justify" why homeless adults should be left to their own defenses, but no kid deserves to be without a warm bed and a caring adult to rely on. As far as he could see it, there was simply no argument you could make, with your morals intact, that a kid "deserves" homelessness.