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Homelessness |
Homelessness is the condition and social category of people who lack housing, because they cannot afford, or are otherwise unable to maintain, regular, safe, and adequate shelter. The term "homelessness" may also include people whose primary nighttime residence is in a homeless shelter, in an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized, or in a public or private place not designed for use as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.12 A small number of people choose to be homeless nomads, such as some Romani people (Gypsies) and members of some subcultures.3 An estimated 100 million people worldwide are homeless.4
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines a "chronically homeless" person as "an unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who has either been continuously homeless for a year or more, or has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years."5
The term "homelessness" includes the people whose primary daytime residence is in an institution that provides a residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized, or in a public or private place not designed for use as a regular sleeping conditions for human beings.67
The term used to describe homeless people in academic articles and government reports is "homeless people". Popular slang terms for the homeless include: vagrant, tramp, hobo (U.S.), transient, bum (U.S.), bagman/bagwoman, street walker, urban outdoorsmen 8, or the wandering poor. The term '(of) No Fixed Abode' (NFA) is used in legal circumstances. Sometimes the term "houseless" is used to reflect a more accurate condition in some cases.910
The major reasons and lack of causes for homelessness as documented by many reports and studies include:11121314
A substantial percentage of the U.S. homeless population are individuals who are chronically unemployed or have difficulty managing their lives effectively due to prolonged and severe drug and/or alcohol abuse.17 Substance abuse can cause homelessness from behavioral patterns associated with addiction that alienate an addicted individual's family and friends who could otherwise provide support during difficult economic times.
Increased wealth disparity and income inequality causes distortions in the housing market that push rent burdens higher, making housing unaffordable.18
Dr. Paul Koegel of RAND Corporation, a seminal researcher in first generation homelessness studies and beyond, divided the causes of homelessness into structural aspects and then individual vulnerabilities.14
Homeless people face many problems beyond the lack of a safe and suitable home. They are often faced with many social disadvantages and reduced access to private and public services such as:
There have been many violent crimes committed against the homeless. 19 A recent study in 2007 found that this number is increasing.2021
Most countries provide a variety of services to assist homeless people. They often provide food, shelter and clothing and may be organised and run by community organisations (often with the help or volunteers) or by government departments. These programs may be supported by government, charities, churches and individual donors.
In 1998, a study by Koegel and Schoeni of a homeless population in Los Angeles, California, reported that a significant number of homeless do not participate in government assistance programs, and the authors reported being puzzled as to why that was, with the only possible suggestion from the evidence being that transaction costs were perhaps too high.22
Many non-profit organizations such as Goodwill Industries maintain a mission to "provide skill development and work opportunities to people with barriers to employment", though most of these organizations are not primarily geared toward homeless individuals. Many cities also have street newspapers or magazines: publications designed to provide employment opportunity to homeless people or others in need by street sale.
While some homeless have paying jobs, some must seek other methods to make money. Begging or panhandling is one option, but is becoming increasingly illegal in many cities. Despite the stereotype, not all homeless people panhandle, and not all panhandlers are homeless. Another option is busking: performing tricks, playing music, drawing on the sidewalk, or offering some other form of entertainment in exchange for donations. In cities where plasmapheresis centers still exist, homeless people may generate income through frequent visits to these centers.
Homeless people have been known to commit crimes just to be sent to jail or prison for food and shelter. In police slang, this is called "three hots and a cot" referring to the three hot daily meals and a cot to sleep on given to prisoners. Similarly a homeless person may approach a hospital's emergency department and fake physical or mental illness in order to receive food and shelter.citation needed
Invented in 2005, in Seattle, Bumvertising, an informal system of hiring the homeless to advertise by a young entrepreneur, is providing food, money, and bottles of water to sign-holding homeless in the Northwest. Homeless advocates accuse the founder, Ben Rogovy, and the process, of exploiting the poor and take particular offense to the use of the word "bum" which is generally considered pejorative.2324
In Australia the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) is a joint Commonwealth and state government program which provides funding for more than 1,200 organisations which are aimed to assist homeless people or those in danger of becoming homeless, as well as women and children escaping domestic violence [23]. They provide accommodation such as refuges, shelters and half-way houses, and offer a range of supported services. The Commonwealth has assigned over $800 million between 2000-2005 for the continuation of SAAP. The current program, governed by the Supported Assistance Act 1994, specifies that "the overall aim of SAAP is to provide transitional supported accommodation and related support services, in order to help people who are homeless to achieve the maximum possible degree of self-reliance and independence. This legislation has been established to help the homeless people of the nation and help rebuild the lives of those in need, the joining of the states also helps enhance the meaning of the legislation and demonstrates the collaboration of the states and their desire to improve the nation as best they can.
Housing First is an initiative to help the homeless get re-integrated into society, and out of homeless shelters. It was initiated by the federal government's Interagency Council on Homelessness. It asks cities to come up with a plan to end chronic homelessness. In this direction, there is the belief that if homeless people are given independent housing to start off with, with some proper social supports, then there would be no need for emergency homeless shelters, which it considers a good outcome. However this is a controversial position.25
In Boston, Massachusetts, in September 2007, an outreach to the homeless was initiated in the Boston Common, after some arrests and shootings, and in anticipation of the cold winter ahead. This outreach targets homeless people who would normally spend their sleeping time on the Boston Common, and tries to get them into housing, trying to skip the step of an emergency shelter. Applications for Boston Housing Authority were being handed out and filled out and submitted. This is an attempt to enact by outreach the Housing First initiative, federally mandated. Boston's Mayor, Thomas Menino, was quoted as saying "The solution to homelessness is permanent housing". Still, this is a very controversial strategy, especially if the people are not able to sustain a house with proper community, health, substance counseling, and mental health supportive programs.26
There are many places where a homeless person might seek refuge.
Health care for the homeless is a major public health challenge.343536373839404142
Homeless people are more likely to suffer injuries and medical problems from their lifestyle on the street, which includes poor nutrition, substance abuse, exposure to the severe elements of weather, and a higher exposure to violence (robberies, beatings, and so on). Yet at the same time, they have little access to public medical services or clinics. This is a particular problem in the US where many people lack health insurance: "Each year, millions of people in the United States experience homelessness and are in desperate need of health care services. Most do not have health insurance of any sort, and none have cash to pay for medical care." 43 44
Homeless persons often find it difficult to document their date of birth or their address. Because homeless people usually have no place to store possessions, they often lose their belongings, including their identification and other documents, or find them destroyed by police or others. Without a photo ID, homeless persons cannot get a job or access many social services. They can be denied access to even the most basic assistance: clothing closets, food pantries, certain public benefits, and in some cases, emergency shelters.
Obtaining replacement identification is difficult. Without an address, birth certificates cannot be mailed. Fees may be cost-prohibitive for impoverished persons. And some states will not issue birth certificates unless the person has photo identification, creating a Catch-22.45
This problem is far less acute in countries which provide free-at-use health care, such as the UK, where hospitals are open-access day and night, and make no charges for treatment. In the US, free-care clinics, especially for the homeless do exist in major cities, but they are usually over-burdened with patients. 46
The conditions affecting the homeless are somewhat specialized and have opened a new area of medicine tailored to this population. Skin conditions and diseases abound, because homeless people are exposed to extreme cold in the winter and they have little access to bathing facilities. Homeless people also have more severe dental problems than the general population.47 Specialized medical textbooks have been written to address this for providers.48
There are many organizations providing free care to the homeless in countries which do not offer free medical treatment organised by the state, but the services are in great demand given the limited number of medical practitioners. For example, it might take months to get a minimal dental appointment in a free-care clinic. Communicable diseases are of great concern, especially tuberculosis, which spreads more easily in crowded homeless shelters in high density urban settings.49
In 1999, Dr. Susan Barrow of the Columbia University Center for Homelessness Prevention Studies reported in a study that the "age-adjusted death rates of homeless men and women were 4 times those of the general US population and 2 to 3 times those of the general population of New York City". 50
In 2007 urban designer and social theorist Michael E. Arth proposed a controversial national solution for homelessness that would involve building nearly carfree Pedestrian Villages in place of what he terms "the current band-aid approach to the problem."51 A prototype, Tiger Bay Village, was proposed for near Daytona Beach, FL. He claims that this would be superior for treating the psychological as well as psychiatric needs of both temporarily and permanently homeless adults, and would cost less than the current approach. It would also provide a lower cost alternative to jail, and provide a half-way station for those getting out of prison. Work opportunities, including construction and maintenance of the villages, as well as the creation of work force agencies would help make the villages financially and socially viable. 525354
Since the publication of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Charter of the United Nations -- UN) in 1948, the public perception has been increasingly changing to a focus on the human right of housing, travel and migration as a part of individual self-determination rather than the human condition. The Declaration, an international law reinforcement of the Nuremberg Trial Judgements, upholds the rights of one nation to intervene in the affairs of another if said nation is abusing its citizens, and rose out of a 1939-1945 World War II Atlantic environment of extreme split between "haves" and "have nots." The modern study of homeless phenomena is most frequently seen in this historical context.
In the USA, the federal government's HUD agency has required federally funded organizations to use a computer tracking system for the homeless and their statistics, called HMIS (Homeless Management Information System).555657 There has been some opposition to this kind of tracking by privacy advocacy groups, such as EPIC.58 However, HUD considers its reporting techniques to be reasonably accurate for homeless in shelters and programs in its Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress.59
Actually determining and counting the number of homeless is very difficult in general due to the their lifestyle habits.6061 There are so-called "hidden homeless" out of sight of the normal population and perhaps staying on private property.62 Various countries, states, and cities have come up with differing means and techniques to calculate an approximate count. For example, a one night "homeless census count", usually held in the early Winter, for the year is a technique used by a number of American cities, especially Boston, Massachusetts.6364 Los Angeles, California uses a mixed set of techniques for counting, including the point-in-time street count.6265
In 2005, an estimated 100 million people worldwide were homeless.66
The following statistics indicate the approximate average number of homeless people at any one time. Each country has a different approach to counting homeless people, and estimates of homelessness made by different organizations vary wildly, so comparisons should be made with caution.
The number of homeless people worldwide has grown steadily in recent years.7273 In some Third World nations such as India, Nigeria, and South Africa, homelessness is rampant, with millions of children living and working on the streets.7475 Homelessness has become a problem in the countries of China, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines despite their growing prosperity, mainly due to migrant workers who have trouble finding permanent homes.76
For people in Russia, especially the youth, alcoholism and substance abuse is a major cause and reason for becoming and continuing to be homeless.77
The United Nations, United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat) wrote in its Global Report on Human Settlements in 1995: "Homelessness is a problem in developed as well as in developing countries. In London, for example, life expectancy among the homeless is more than 25 years lower than the national average. Poor urban housing conditions are a global problem, but conditions are worst in developing countries. Habitat says that today 600 million people live in life- and health-threatening homes in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The threat of mass homelessness is greatest in those regions because that is where population is growing fastest. By 2015, the 10 largest cities in the world will be in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Nine of them will be in developing countries: Bombay, India - 27.4 million; Lagos, Nigeria - 24.4; Shanghai, China - 23.4; Jakarta, Indonesia - 21.2; S o Paulo, Brazil - 20.8; Karachi, Pakistan - 20.6; Beijing, China - 19.4; Dhaka, Bangladesh - 19; Mexico City, Mexico - 18.8. The only city in a developed country that will be in the top ten is Tokyo, Japan - 28.7 million."78
In 2008, Dr. Anna Tibaijuka, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, referring to the recent report "State of the World’s Cities Report 2008/2009"79, said that the world economic crisis we are in should be viewed as a “housing finance crisis” in which the poorest of poor were left to fend for themselves.80
In the sixteenth century in England, the state first tried to give housing to vagrants instead of punishing them, by introducing bridewells to take vagrants and train them for a profession. In the eighteenth century, these were replaced by workhouses but these were intended to discourage too much reliance on state help. These were later replaced by dormitory housing ("spikes") provided by local boroughs, and these were researched by the writer George Orwell. By the 1930s in England, there were 30,000 people living in these facilities. In the 1960s, the nature and growing problem of homelessness changed for the worse in England, with public concern growing. The number of people living "rough" in the streets had increased dramatically. However, beginning with the Conservative administration's Rough Sleeper Initiative, the number of people sleeping rough in London fell dramatically. This initiative was supported further by the incoming Labour administration from 1997 onwards with the publication of the 'Coming in from the Cold' strategy published by the Rough Sleepers Unit, which proposed and delivered a massive increase in the number of hostel bed spaces in the capital and an increase in funding for street outreach teams, who work with rough sleepers to enable them to access services.
In general, in most countries, many towns and cities had an area which contained the poor, transients, and afflicted, such as a "skid row". In New York City, for example, there was an area known as "the Bowery", traditionally, where alcoholics were to be found sleeping on the streets, bottle in hand. This resulted in rescue missions, such as the oldest homeless shelter in New York City, The Bowery Mission, founded in 1879 by the Rev. and Mrs. A.G. Ruliffson.81
In smaller towns, there were hobos, who temporarily lived near train tracks and hopped onto trains to various destinations. Especially following the American Civil War, a large number of homeless men formed part of a counterculture known as "hobohemia" all over America.82
Although not specifically about the homeless, Jacob Riis wrote about, documented, and photographed the poor and destitute in New York City tenements in the late 1800s. He wrote a ground-breaking book including such material in How the Other Half Lives in 1890, which inspired Jack London's The People of the Abyss (1903). This raised public awareness, causing some changes in building codes and some social conditions.
However, modern homelessness as we know it, started as a result of the economic stresses in society, reduction in the availability of affordable housing, such as single room occupancies (SROs), for poorer people. In the United States, in the 1970s, the deinstitutionalisation of patients from state psychiatric hospitals was a precipitating factor which seeded the homeless population, especially in urban areas such as New York City.83
The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 was a pre-disposing factor in setting the stage for homelessness in the United States.84 Long term psychiatric patients were released from state hospitals into SROs and supposed to be sent to community mental health centers for treatment and follow-up. It never quite worked out properly, the community mental health centers mostly did not materialize, and this population largely was found living in the streets soon thereafter with no sustainable support system.8586
Also, as real estate prices and neighborhood pressure increased to move these people out of their areas, the SROs diminished in number, putting most of their residents in the streets.
Other populations were mixed in later, such as people losing their homes for economic reasons, and those with addictions (although alcoholic hobos had been visible as homeless people since the 1890s, and those stereotypes fuelled public perceptions of homeless people in general), the elderly, and others.
Many places where people were once allowed freely to loiter, or purposefully be present, such as churches, public libraries and public atriums, became stricter as the homeless population grew larger and congregated in these places more than ever. As a result, many churches closed their doors when services were not being held, libraries enforced a "no eyes shut" and sometimes a dress policy, and most places hired private security guards to carry out these policies, creating a social tension. Many public toilets were closed.
This banished the homeless population to sidewalks, parks, under bridges, and the like. They also lived in the subway and railroad tunnels in New York City. They seemingly became socially invisible, which was the intention of many of the enforcement policies.
The homeless shelters, which were generally night shelters, made the homeless leave in the morning to whatever they could manage and return in the evening when the beds in the shelters opened up again for sleeping. There were some daytime shelters where the homeless could go, instead of being stranded on the streets, and they could be helped, get counseling, avail themselves of resources, meals, and otherwise spend their day until returning to their overnight sleeping arrangements. An example of such a day center shelter model is Saint Francis House in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in the early 1980s, which opens for the homeless all year long during the daytime hours and was originally based on the settlement house model.87
There was also the reality of the "bag" people, the shopping cart people, and the soda can collectors (known as binners or dumpster divers) who sort through garbage to find items to sell, trade and eat. These people carried around all their possessions with them all the time since they had no place to store them. If they had no access to or capability to get to a shelter and possible bathing, or access to toilets and laundry facilities, their hygiene was lacking. This again created social tensions in public places.
These conditions created an upsurge in tuberculosis and other diseases in urban areas.
In 1979, a New York City lawyer, Robert Hayes, brought a class action suit before the courts, Callahan v. Carey, against the City and State, arguing for a person's state constitutional "right to shelter". It was settled as a consent decree in August 1981. The City and State agreed to provide board and shelter to all homeless men who met the need standard for welfare or who were homeless by certain other standards. By 1983 this right was extended to homeless women.
By the mid-1980s, there was also a dramatic increase in family homelessness. Tied into this was an increasing number of impoverished and runaway children, teenagers, and young adults, which created a new sub-stratum of the homeless population (street children or street youth).
Also, in the 1980s, in the United States, some federal legislation was introduced for the homeless as a result of the work of Congressman Stewart B. McKinney. In 1987, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act was enacted.
Several organisations in some cities, such as New York and Boston, tried to be inventive about help to the swelling number of homeless people. In New York City, for example, in 1989, the first street newspaper was created called "Street News" which put some homeless to work, some writing, producing, and mostly selling the paper on streets and trains.88 It was written pro bono by a combination of homeless, celebrities, and established writers. In 1991, in England, a street newspaper, following on the New York model was established, called The Big Issue and was published weekly.89 Its circulation grew to 300,000. Chicago has StreetWise which has the largest circulation of its kind in the United States, thirty thousand. Boston has a Spare Change newspaper built on the same model as the others: homeless helping themselves. Seattle has Real Change, a $1 newsletter that directly benefits the homeless and also reports on economic issues in the area. More recently, Street Sense, in Washington, D.C. has gained a lot of popularity and helped many make the move out of homelessness. Students in Baltimore, M.D. have opened a satellite office for that street paper as well (www.streetsense.org). One program that has found successcitation needed in New York City is Pathways to Housing, which adopts the Housing first philosophy in providing housing for those homeless with mental health issues.
In 2002, research showed that children and families were the largest growing segment of the homeless in America,9091 and this has presented new challenges, especially in services, to agencies. Back in the 1990s, a teenager from New York, Liz Murray, was homeless at fifteen years old, and overcame that and went on to study at Harvard University. Her story was made into an Emmy-winning film in 2003, Homeless to Harvard.
Some trends involving the plight of the homeless have provoked some thought, reflection and debate. One such phenomenon is paid physical advertising, colloquially known as "sandwich board men"9293 and another specific type as "Bumvertising". Another trend is the side effect of unpaid free advertising of companies and organisations on shirts, clothing and bags, to be worn by the homeless and poor, given out and donated by companies to homeless shelters and charitable organisations for otherwise altruistic purposes. These trends are reminiscent of the "sandwich board signs" carried by poor people in the time of Charles Dickens in the Victorian 1800s in England94 and later during the Great Depression in the United States in the 1930s.
In the USA, the government asked many major cities to come up with a ten year plan to end homelessness. One of the results of this was a "Housing first" solution, rather than to have a homeless person remain in an emergency homeless shelter it was thought to be better to quickly get the person permanent housing of some sort and the necessary support services to sustain a new home. But there are many complications of this kind of program and these must be dealt with to make such an initiative work successfully in the middle to long term. 95 96
It has been reported that some formerly homeless people, when they finally were able to get their housing and life straightened out and return to a normal lifestyle, felt moved and grateful enough to have donated money and volunteer service to the organizations which helped them when they were homeless. 97
A small number of homeless people choose to be homeless, living as nomads. Nomadism has been a way of life in many cultures for thousands of years. This cultural practice is due to seasonal availability of plants and animals or to facilitate trade. However the term homelessness is different from nomadism/rootlessness in that nomads and Gypsy travellers in caravans have "planned mobility" rather than forced mobility.98
In Britain, most nomadic people are Roma (or Gypsy) people, Irish travellers, Kalé from North Wales, and Scottish travellers. Many of these people continue to maintain a semi-nomadic lifestyle and live in caravans; however, others have chosen to settle more permanently in houses.99Some European countries have developed policies that acknowledge the unique nomadic (or "travelling") life of Gypsy people;100101 Similar work has also been done by the Australian government, regarding the subgroup of Aborigine people who are nomadic. In large Japanese cities such as Tokyo, the "many manifestations of urban nomadism" include day labourers and subculture groups.
In different languages, the term for homelessness reveals the cultural and societal perception and classification of a homeless person:102
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