TY - JOUR
T1 - Against the poor
T2 - Homelessness in U.S. law
AU - Grande, Elisabetta
PY - 2011/1
Y1 - 2011/1
N2 - Poverty should be conceived as a social plague to combat, yet in today's United States, in times of extraordinary wealth and productivity, it has been definitely normalized. Rather than fighting against its economic roots, the U.S. system attacks its human most poignant expression: the homeless. The article shows how, during the last 30 years, the U.S. legal system has been responsible not only for the production of homelessness, but also for the construction of the homeless as a social enemy to destroy. From the protection of the homeless' positive rights to the negation of his negative rights, the U.S. legal system' parable tells us a story of fundamental rights impairment, of annihilation of the feeling of human solidarity, of regression towards the dark times of the "homo homini lupus" law, a story that is doomed not to be confined to the United States.
AB - Poverty should be conceived as a social plague to combat, yet in today's United States, in times of extraordinary wealth and productivity, it has been definitely normalized. Rather than fighting against its economic roots, the U.S. system attacks its human most poignant expression: the homeless. The article shows how, during the last 30 years, the U.S. legal system has been responsible not only for the production of homelessness, but also for the construction of the homeless as a social enemy to destroy. From the protection of the homeless' positive rights to the negation of his negative rights, the U.S. legal system' parable tells us a story of fundamental rights impairment, of annihilation of the feeling of human solidarity, of regression towards the dark times of the "homo homini lupus" law, a story that is doomed not to be confined to the United States.
KW - U.S. legal system
KW - anti-poverty legislation and cases
KW - homelessness
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79954436803&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2202/1934-2640.1375
DO - 10.2202/1934-2640.1375
M3 - Article
SN - 1535-167X
VL - 11
JO - Global Jurist
JF - Global Jurist
IS - 1
M1 - 2
ER -