Should Community Colleges Use Their Parking Lots to House the Homeless?
Choice B for Essay 2, Due April 7, 2020
Read LA Times editorial “Why not let homeless college students park in campus lots?” and develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the claim that community colleges are acting in students’ best interests by providing sleeping spaces in the parking lots.
Suggested Essay Outline for Homeless Debate
Paragraph 1: Explain the homeless crisis for California community college students.
Paragraph 2: Your thesis, defend or refute the case that community colleges would be doing a service to the community by providing overnight parking facilities for homeless students in their cars.
Paragraphs 3-6: Develop your supporting paragraphs.
Paragraph 7: Develop a counterargument and rebuttal.
Paragraph 8: Your conclusion is a powerful restatement of your thesis.
Paragraph 9: Videos of homeless students, such as “How Homeless College Students Get by at Humboldt State,” can pull our heart strings by showing us very sympathetic people trying to get by, but do these portrayals encompass the full spectrum of homeless people who will be using the college service and if not, does this not constitute cheap propaganda?
Some Points to Consider:
One. How can we enforce cars that never move and essentially create a permanent homeless encampment?
Two. Will this policy create a homeless magnet that gets out of control and hurts other students?
Three. Is this well-intentioned policy punishing other students?
Four. Will lack of bathrooms result in people going to the bathroom outdoors and creating a health crisis and a repugnant environment?
Five. Will colleges be afflicted with liability for all the crimes committed in these parking lots?
Six. Can colleges afford proportionate security to the growth of people living in the parking lots?
Seven. Should these encampments be allowed at colleges close to elementary schools?
Eight. Will the community become bitter and sour at the community colleges for allowing a festering wound to occur in their "backyards"?
Nine. Is this policy even a true solution to the homeless crisis?
Sample Thesis Against Turning Parking Lots into Homeless Shelters
The proposal to make community college parking lots into homeless shelters is a salient example of good intentions ushering us into the bowels of hell. The misguided plan to make parking lots into a homeless sanctuary will curdle into chaos, stench, and criminality. For one, colleges cannot afford enough law enforcement officers to patrol a vast area rife with assault, thievery, and other criminality, resulting in bankrupting the college with lawsuits. Second, the college cannot afford enough bathrooms to accommodate the thousands of people, which will in turn make the college a giant sewer that contaminates the entire community with infectious diseases. Third, the majority of people will look at the college as a cesspool of criminality and disease and avoid attending this lame excuse for a college, resulting in enrollment numbers so low that the college will soon cease to exist.
Sample Thesis That Supports Turning Parking Lots Into Homeless Shelters
The above rebuttal against the proposal to turn community college parking lots into homeless shelters is a classic use of the slippery slope fallacy in which someone cries Chicken Little and all worst case scenarios while assuming the parking lot plan won’t have any specific contingencies designed to prevent the panic-based emotionally charged scenarios that have been hysterically described above. The above hysterics are in truth a smokescreen designed to make a selfish excuse for ignoring those students for whom horrible life circumstances beyond their control have put them in a homeless situation. Regarding the Hysterical Critic’s contention that there will be criminality in the parking lot, obviously colleges will have a maximum occupancy at the level of which its law enforcement feels comfortable creating a secure place for the students. Regarding the Hysterical Critic’s claim the college will “become a giant sewer,” obviously campus engineers will put enough bathrooms on the premises in proportion to the maximum occupancy allowed. Regarding the fear tactic that non-homeless students won’t enroll in the college, this is a paranoid scenario based on the irrational premise that the college won’t have any limits on the amount of homeless people it accommodates and under what restrictions those accommodations will be based. Let us therefore address the needs of our homeless population and leave the selfish Chicken Little arguments in the argumentative dustbin where they deserve.
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