homelessness conflict theory essay

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An analysis of homelessness using the conflict theory.

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Homelessness can be understood in the context of Conflict Theory, which holds that capitalism is the main reason for homelessness in the United States. This sample sociology paper explores the idea of Conflict Theory and its application to understanding the homeless problem in the United States.

Homelessness in America

Homelessness has been a substantial problem in the United States for decades. Many argue about the reasons for homelessness which include financial and psychological factors to name a few. Both conservatives and liberals have their specific reasons for the rise of homelessness in this country, but few seem to come up with successful and resilient solutions.

There is much debate regarding the claim that homelessness is the result of lack of resources, laziness, or even lack of motivation. It is evident that capitalism is one of the main reasons for homelessness in contemporary United States, and the cause for capitalism can be linked to the conflict theory.

Social problem's in a capitalist economy

Homelessness has increasingly become a problem in the United States over the past few decades as is evident in Pennsylvania's increasing homeless communities , and it is only continuing to get worse.

The epidemic has skyrocketed over the last few years, as “the number of homeless families rose by close to 30 percent between 2007 and 2009” (Champion, 2010).

Communities collect information on the extent of the problem of homelessness using electronic records from emergency housing shelters and a census conducted in abandoned properties, cars, on the streets, and other places. A point-in-time count of sheltered homeless populations presented by The State of Homelessness in America 2013 identified:

• 633,782 people experiencing homelessness at least one night in January 2012
• This translates to a national homeless rate of 20 per 10,000 people
• Veterans make up almost ten percent of the homeless population

It is quite evident that homelessness in America is a social fact with no singular clear explanation or even definition. It is also clear that homelessness is caused by many risk factors, including individual risks, low-income and poverty , and structural risks. The more a person is exposed to these risks, the greater their risk of becoming homeless. This also means that the chance for a person to remain homeless becomes greater as well.

Analysis of the homelessness problem

An explanation of the epidemic of homelessness involves capitalism. Those who are homeless lack economic, social, and human capital. This is combined with the fact that many who are homeless had a low level of resources in the first place.

According to McNaughton, many people become homeless because they already had low levels of capital resources which were reduced even further by edgework, and “anyone may become homeless, but they are more likely to when they have a low level of resources” (2008, p.108).

This also increases one’s risk of not only becoming homeless but remaining homeless.

The main explanation for homelessness is that the United States is quickly becoming a capitalist country. Capitalism is the main cause of unemployment and homelessness in the last few decades. Karl Marx, the famous philosopher who defined the words capitalism, socialism, and communism , said, in a capitalist society, there are those who have capital and those who do not. Furthermore, this type of society identifies the ownership of capital as a deciding factor in a person’s worth both financially and personally.

Right to own property versus right to shelter and protection

The right to own property is protected by law in a capitalistic society such as the United States, while the right to shelter and food are simply not protected by our government. Those who are in charge of corporations and in politics make up the top percentage of the wealthy in this country, and millions of homes are vacant and abandoned. Meanwhile, working class people with children live in crowded shelters or in vehicles. These are the signs of a capitalistic society.

Capitalism basically divides the people into two categories:

• Those who have capital
• Those who do not

In other words, the people are divided into those who are winners in society and those who are not. And it is becoming increasingly clear that those who are homeless are considered to be losers by those who are not are not lacking a roof over their head and meals every day. After all, being homeless involves a loss of some sort:

“Potent social forces [capitalism, patriarchy, imperialism, home ownership] do exist and being homeless is to lose a stake in several of them” (Neale, 2007, p.46).

Need a paper like this one? Buy your very own research paper today.

Sociological theory applied to homelessness and the conflict theory

A sociological theory that can be used to explain capitalism as a cause for homelessness is the conflict theory. Under Karl Marx’s conflict theory, society has two classes of people: the owners and the workers. The theory suggests that owners basically exploit the workers, depriving them of the basic human necessities such as food and shelter. Meanwhile, the workers believe that they are taken care of adequately, and they rely on the owners for their well-being. But the owners do not have the workers’ best interests in mind because they want to produce wealth by any means.

Under the conflict theory, many people in a capitalistic society see wealth as something that was earned through education, hard work, and dedication. They see the poor and the homeless as lacking motivation, lazy, and uneducated. They believe they want welfare and others to take care of them.

Marx believed that this type of thinking was false consciousness. His conflict theory says that homelessness and other social issues are results of a person’s shortcomings and personality flaws instead of the flaws of society itself.

The conflict theory can be used in research papers to explain capitalism and ultimately homelessness because constant resentment is held by those who have against those who are described as the “have nots” towards the “haves”. There are power differences among social classes that are created by our capitalistic society, and the entire country is dominated by wealthy groups who gain control through competition and ultimately power.

Champion, J. (2010, December 10). Millions of homeless, millions of empty homes. Workers.org. Retrieved January 1, 2014, from http://www.workers.org/2010/us/homeless_and_homes_1216/

McNaughton, C. (2008) Transitions through Homelessness: Lives on the edge. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Neale, J. (1997) ‘Theorising homelessness: contemporary sociological and feminist perspectives’, in Burrows, R., Pleace, N. and Quilgars, D. (eds) Homelessness and Social Policy. London: Routledge: 35-49.

The State of Homelessness in America 2013. (2013, April 8). National Alliance to End Homelessness:. Retrieved December 30, 2013, from http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/the-state-of-homelessness-2013

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The Politics of Homelessness in the United States

Professor, Political Science Department California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

• Published: 10 January 2017
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As the United States grapples with increasing economic inequality and significant poverty, homelessness represents a thorny political and policy issue. This article explores the debates that contrast two primary responses to homelessness, Housing First and the linear, or treatment first, model. Both are employed to address homelessness, though Housing First has been directed almost exclusively to chronic homeless people who are on the streets for long periods of time and contend with mental illness and substance abuse problems. By reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of each type of policy, this article analyzes the philosophy underlying each approach and its impact on homeless people.

Introduction

Homelessness represents both a policy problem and a political quandary in the United States. In the wealthiest economy in the world, the fact that individuals and families lack housing and must live on the streets, in their cars, or in congregate shelters calls into question the basic functioning of the social safety net and suggests that something is deeply wrong with the political and economic priorities of the country. Yet the dominant discourse in the United States proposes that at least some percentage of homeless people are at fault for their situations; their dysfunctional behavior, aberrant choices, and lack of a work ethic explain their homelessness more than economic inequalities or policy priorities. Within this framework of contrasting views on homelessness, debates rage over the significance of the homeless problem, the reasons people lose their housing, how best to assist them, and who should be classified as homeless. These questions often are linked to one another; why homelessness occurs and which demographic variables are stressed in describing homeless populations relate directly to whether and how policy is structured to help people become housed.

A relatively invisible political issue affecting a small portion of the population until the early 1980s, homelessness became increasingly problematic throughout the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in the United States. Although the economy rose and dipped during these decades, as did the percentage of people living in poverty, homelessness appeared to be a relatively intractable problem. The numbers of people newly homeless generally have not abated, even during periods of economic growth. Still more concerning, the homeless population contains sizable numbers of children and young people, both accompanied by parents and unaccompanied by adults. Most estimates indicate that families with children comprise 30% to 36% of the homeless population ( Bassuk et al. 2014 ; Weinreb, Rog, and Henderson 2010 ). And the number of homeless children is increasing. Approximately 1.6 million school-aged children were homeless during the 2011–2012 school year: “These numbers represent a 10% increase over the previous school year—an historic high” ( Bassuk et al. 2014 , 457; National Center on Family Homelessness 2011 ). As the analysis of policy approaches below suggests, political and policy choices may explain, at least in part, the growing numbers of children who are homeless.

Research indicates that the reasons for homelessness are complicated and multilayered. First and foremost, homelessness is a product of poverty:

[A] variety of complex social system dislocations—an increasing rate of poverty, a deteriorating social “safety net,” the steady loss of low-skill employment and low-income housing, and others—have created a situation … where some people are essentially destined to become homeless. In so many words, we now have more poor and otherwise marginalized people than we have affordable housing in which to accommodate them. ( Wright et al. 1998 , 6)

While the official US poverty rate has hovered around 15% since 2010, estimates suggest that “a third of all people were near poor and poor” in the United States ( Iceland 2013 , 44). In addition, approximately 6.6% of households have an income below 50% of the poverty line ( Iceland 2013 , 44), or roughly $12,000 annually for a family of four, suggesting that the depth of poverty presents a tremendous barrier to housing stability for a considerable portion of the population. As Edin and Shaefer discovered in their research on impoverished families in the United States, approximately 1.5 million households lived on cash incomes of at most $2 per day per person in 2011, a calculation that includes cash welfare payments but does not include in-kind assistance like food programs ( Edin and Shaefer 2015 ). When poverty is that profound, people clearly struggle to afford basic necessities such as housing, food, clothing, and utilities and are at considerable risk of becoming homeless.

Low income housing is in short supply, and housing subsidies are not widely available to those whose incomes qualify them for assistance. With almost twelve million extremely low income renters (those who earn less than 30% of area median income), there are just over four million available units that are affordable for this group ( Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies 2013 ). More than 70% of households earning less than $15,000 annually pay more than 50% of their income for rent each month ( Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, 2013 ). In addition, among those who qualify for government-funded low income housing vouchers, only a fourth get access to a voucher, and low income households can expect long waiting lists for federal rental assistance ( Center on Budget and Policy Priorities 2009 ). Thus, housing supply has not kept pace with the numbers of people whose incomes require low cost housing if they are to remain stably housed, putting them at severe risk for homelessness. New data on eviction rates demonstrate the impact of the low cost housing shortage; evictions of low income renters occur because of their inability to pay the full amount of rent consistently ( Desmond 2016 ). When Desmond surveyed low income renters in Milwaukee, he found that approximately 12% had “experienced one forced move—formal or informal eviction, landlord foreclosure, or building condemnation—in the two years prior” ( Desmond 2016 , 330). Among low income renters, women with children were particularly likely to be evicted. Some of those who are evicted double up with family or friends, some find another rental in the private market, and others become homeless.

Struggles with poverty and low income housing shortages interact with several other convoluted causes of homelessness, often a combination of what are termed “structural” and “individual” issues, such as low wages and the declining value of the minimum wage, family violence, lack of access to welfare supports, mental illness, and drug and alcohol use ( Williams 2016 ; Williams 2008 ). To further complicate matters, in the United States a number of homeless subpopulations exist that may have differing service needs as well as reasons for becoming homeless; for example, families with children, unaccompanied youth, and the mentally ill may diverge significantly from one another. The differences between the “chronic” versus first time or “crisis” homeless populations have become a crucial area of study and debate in the United States. Chronically homeless people are unaccompanied adults who have been homeless for a year or more or who have had at least four episodes of homelessness over the past three years and are either mentally or physically disabled. Culhane and Metraux found that among those who stay in shelters, the chronically homeless had substantially more substance use and mental illness than the rest of the shelter-using homeless population ( Culhane and Metraux 2008 ). Studies that track shelter use over one- or two-year periods indicate that a relatively small portion of the homeless population is “chronic” or long term, but that they use a disproportionate amount of resources and have service needs that differ from those who are homeless for short periods.

Layered upon and connected to the various causes of homelessness, arguments weighing the best policy responses to homelessness present central political questions in the United States. As the primary federal legislation responding to homelessness, the McKinney-Vento Act is the funding vehicle for many local shelters and homeless programs. The Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act was passed in 1987 and renamed the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act in 2000. The federal legislation provides funding for a broad range of homeless programs and services, including emergency and transitional shelters, permanent housing, healthcare, education, and job training. The act provides a definition of homelessness used by most federal and state programs, as well as most scholars engaged in research on homelessness (Pub. L. No. 100-77). Officially, a homeless person is defined by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act as

an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; and an individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is—a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill); an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings. (Pub. L. No. 100-77)

This relatively narrow definition of homelessness was expanded in 2010 with the passage of the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act (Pub. L. No. 111-22). By adding people who are doubled up, facing eviction, residing in motels, and precariously housed, the HEARTH Act amends McKinney-Vento to include those who are homeless but do not live in shelters or literally on the street. It also explicitly mandates that women fleeing domestic violence be considered homeless and fully eligible for homeless services.

Among the discussions about the purposes and chief concerns of McKinney-Vento is the examination of its priorities, particularly the balance between funding for emergency shelters and permanent housing. The most recent of these debates contrasts the “linear” method to the “Housing First” approach to addressing homelessness. At the core of the linear model, the primary policy for the past thirty years has been to rely on “emergency” shelters to assist homeless people. These shelters proliferate in US cities and are often the only type of homeless service available in a metropolitan area. With limits on stays of thirty to ninety days, this approach in theory provides immediate, short-term shelter for the homeless. Homeless people must meet certain milestones in order to move through a series of steps in an emergency shelter and sometimes transitional housing, toward permanent housing; ergo, the reliance on emergency shelters is considered the first step in the linear approach. “Housing First,” on the other hand, seeks to provide permanent housing immediately and follow up with social supports, addiction therapy, and the like after housing has been secured. Though Housing First is a more recent strategy in the homeless policy arsenal, it has gained stalwart advocates that include some service providers and the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.

Both the linear and Housing First models, as currently structured and implemented, have been supported and criticized by researchers and advocates, for different reasons. Some argue, for example, that the linear model utilizes social control as the foundation for its programs, while Housing First is perceived to avoid social control and introduce consumer choice. In addition, although the linear model has been the primary response to homelessness for decades, significant numbers of people remain without housing, including thousands of people who are newly homeless every month. On the other hand, Housing First has been conceived and implemented largely to benefit chronically homeless populations. Some advocates argue that the federal government’s narrow interest in Housing First—as a response to chronic homelessness exclusively—has led to a general disregard of homeless families both in policy circles and by the public in recent years. Questions about whether and how the Housing First approach could be executed to benefit other subpopulations in addition to the chronically homeless remain unanswered. Though the criticisms of the two models are mostly different, the models share the inability to address the core reason that people are homeless: a severe shortage of low cost housing in the United States means that the housing stock simply is too small to meet the needs of low income people, thus producing housing instability and homelessness. 1 Combined with declining real wages, the dearth of government housing assistance, and waning welfare supports, any homeless policy that does not significantly expand low cost housing options will not address the structural reasons that people become homeless and thus will not prevent or respond effectively to homelessness.

This article explores the political and policy debates that contrast the Housing First and linear models, both used to respond to homelessness in the United States. By reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of each type of policy, this article analyzes the philosophy underlying each policy approach and its impact on homeless people. While the primary function for Housing First to date has been to help long-term or chronically homeless people who struggle with mental illness and substance abuse, this article explores its applicability to other subpopulations, including families, and argues that the need for low cost, permanent housing is paramount for homeless interventions and policies to succeed.

The Linear Approach

In place in some form since the 1980s, the linear model still stands as the dominant type of homeless service provision in the United States; more shelters and programs rely on this version of homeless assistance than the Housing First model. Characterized as “earning your way to housing” ( Willse 2015 , 143), linear programs are built on the notion that homeless people must move through various stages of social services, for example emergency shelter, transitional shelter, and finally permanent housing. Various other terms have been used to refer to the linear approach, including “mainstream model” ( Padgett, Henwood, and Tsemberis 2016 ), “continuum of care” model ( Collins, Malone, and Clifasefi 2013 ), “staircase model” ( Padgett, Henwood, and Tsemberis 2016 ), “residential treatment first” ( Tsai et al. 2010 ), or simply “treatment first” ( West et al. 2014 ). All of these terms refer to an approach that “anticipates that homeless persons will enter and graduate from a sequence of programs … with progress based on recovery toward self sufficiency” ( Kertesz et al. 2009 , 496); they are based on the pretext that the individual must be reformed in order to gain and maintain housing ( Willse 2015 ; Williams 2016 ).

The linear model depends on acceptance into a short-term homeless shelter as the basic first step in the progression toward housing. Shelters range from small, private shelters serving fewer than twenty people to large, armory-style shelters that house hundreds of people ( Dordick 1997 ). Most family homeless shelters provide a bedroom in a larger building or a bedroom and kitchenette in a renovated motel to homeless families ( Williams 2016 ), but also may have shared bedrooms, bathrooms, and public spaces ( Fisher et al. 2014 ). Though they vary, most emergency shelters employ basic regulations that serve as surveillance and control mechanisms. Specifically, clients are expected to reveal to the staff their personal histories, current goals, and daily activities. Shared living space and caseworker surveillance make it difficult for homeless residents to find time to themselves and to keep many aspects of their lives private. Indeed, because of shelter rules and invasive staff practices, many homeless people exhaust other options before turning to a shelter as their last resort. Yet because so many people do have to choose between the street and a shelter, and because there are too few shelters for the number of homeless people, the shelters are almost always full. They constantly have to turn people away for lack of space ( Foscarinis 2008 ; Williams 2016 ).

In the linear approach, permanent housing is perceived as a resource that could easily be wasted on those who are not “housing ready.” For homeless people to be successful in maintaining housing over a long period of time, they must conquer a series of steps to stabilize their mental health, achieve abstinence from drugs and alcohol, improve their financial status, and regulate their behavior: “Most linear interventions assume that a return to long-term stable housing, in either the private market or a subsidized setting, requires the restoration of behavioral self-regulation and the capacity to interact in a constructive social environment and also that an individual’s tangible resource needs must be addressed” ( Kertesz et al. 2009 , 500; Padgett, Henwood, and Tsemberis 2016 ; Willse 2015 ). Each step in the sequence comes with increasing demands on the homeless person ( Padgett, Henwood, and Tsemberis 2016 ), often including treatment for drugs or alcohol that results in abstinence, or agreeing to take medication to prove psychiatric stability ( Greenwood, Stefancic, and Tsemberis 2013 ; Tsemberis and Eisenberg 2000 ). For those who are perceived as noncompliant or who may choose another path to housing, their lack of cooperation is presumed to be proof that they cling to the very dysfunctional behaviors and choices that supposedly created their homelessness ( Williams 2016 ). In other words, they are perceived not to be “housing ready” ( Padgett, Henwood, and Tsemberis 2016 ).

Analysis of the Linear Approach

Many of the criticisms of the linear approach begin with its reliance on emergency shelters as the first step in a process that must be completed in order to achieve permanent housing. Though theoretically emergency shelters provide immediate assistance and a place to sleep for all who need it, the reality is that there are not enough shelter beds to meet demand, and emergency shelters often have waiting lists and turn people away ( Foscarinis 2008 ; Williams 2016 ). In addition, shelters may refuse assistance to people for a multitude of reasons, including that they lack enough space for larger families; do not wish to work with people with active drug, alcohol, or mental health issues, which are perceived as problematic in a communal setting; have only English-speaking staff; will not house families headed by women with teenage sons (boys above age twelve are not allowed to stay in some shelters for homeless battered women); or do not wish to work with women who are homeless due to domestic violence ( Williams 2008 ). The notion that a shelter provides “emergency” housing, then, is only true in some circumstances for particular people; homeless people must meet a fairly rigid set of requirements to gain entrance to most shelters.

Once accepted into an emergency shelter, homeless people may discover that the program is built on the assumption that they are too dysfunctional to make appropriate choices about housing or about what they need in order to become housed. As Willse argues:

[P]opular conceptions of poverty in the United States have maintained that individuals living in poverty produce their impoverished conditions, not social or governmental institutions. Such discourse of personal responsibility has been accompanied by intensive networks of social welfare technologies that seek to regulate the poor by intervening in individual behavior…. [P]ersons living without shelter have been understood as being especially incapable of self-management and in need of invasive social assistance. ( Willse 2015 , 140–141).

Invasive social assistance is one of the hallmarks of family emergency shelters, and much of the research literature focuses on the tendency for shelters to utilize social control as a key aspect of their programs ( DeWard and Moe 2010 ; Hartnett and Postmus 2010 ; Williams 2016 , 2008 ; Willse 2015 ). Research describes how shelter programs are designed to control, shape, and change perceived deviant behaviors as much as to help people locate housing. Policies such as curfews, specified morning wake-up times, smoking bans, required chores, breathalyzers, and urinalysis tests are paired with requirements to participate in parenting classes, substance abuse counseling, and budgeting classes. The extensive and complicated rules and mandatory requirements create an environment that suggests that families are homeless largely because of their behaviors and choices. Willse maintains that the linear model’s reliance on “invasive social assistance” in making “‘shelter resistant’ individuals ‘housing ready’" ( Willse 2015 , 140) both reflects and serves to enforce a view of homeless people as undeserving of assistance.

When provided the opportunity to critique the shelter system, homeless families, for example, articulate their desire for permanent subsidized housing as opposed to emergency, transitional, or other nonpermanent shelter solutions. In a study of housing decisions made by homeless families, homeless adults with children articulated anxiety and dissatisfaction with many of the programs currently available to them. While subsidized housing was the most desired assistance, project-based transitional housing was perceived as the worst option because “facilities [were] in undesirable locations, rules that excluded men (including fathers of children), and various environmental stressors” ( Fisher et al. 2014 , 382), including concerns about crime. Transitional housing, though usually available for a year and thus providing help for longer than an emergency shelter, has many of the same rules and restrictions as an emergency shelter. Transitional housing may be perceived as a necessary step in the linear model in order eventually to achieve permanent housing.

Despite criticisms, it is doubtful that the linear approach—and the shelters and transitional programs on which it depends—will disappear. With an extensive network of shelters, too much infrastructure exists that would be difficult and expensive to transition to other purposes. There is, moreover, a significant investment in the linear approach and its treatment objectives on the part of social service workers. The idea that programs “waste” housing by putting people into apartments who are not “housing ready” persists among some social service programs ( Padgett, Henwood, and Tsemberis 2016 ). As Kertesz and others point out, however, more than twenty years of funding for the linear approach through the federal government’s Continuum of Care process has not abolished or even truly decreased homelessness ( Kertesz et al. 2009 ). Thus without evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of the linear model, conditions were ripe for a new approach, Housing First, to gain interest and adherents.

Housing First

The roots of Housing First can be traced to programs developed by Pathways to Housing in the early 1990s in New York City ( Greenwood, Stefancic, and Tsemberis 2013 ; Tsemberis, Gulcur, and Nakae 2004 ). A nonprofit agency serving the chronic or long-term homeless population who also battle mental illness and/or substance abuse, Pathways created a program with the central premise that chronically homeless people could be housed immediately. Supportive services such as primary healthcare, employment assistance, substance abuse counseling, and mental healthcare were offered after housing was secured ( Greenberg et al. 2013 ; Tsemberis and Eisenberg 2000 ). Pathways founders argue that homeless people have a right to housing, even if it is not a legally recognized right in the United States ( Greenwood, Stefancic, and Tsemberis 2013 ). In addition, their organizing principle of consumer choice creates a level of respect for their clients’ viewpoints about the quality, style, and location of housing, as well as the services utilized once they are housed ( Padgett, Henwood, and Tsemberis 2016 ; ( Greenwood, Stefancic, and Tsemberis 2013 ). The argument that people have to prove they are housing ready, so central to the linear model, was rejected by Pathways and other programs pursuing a Housing First model.

With assistance to locate housing and extensive support services offered but not mandated once a person has been housed, Housing First “offers the independence and privacy that most consumers desire” ( Tsemberis and Eisenberg 2000 , 491), alongside intensive but flexible and nonmandatory services to help people maintain their housing and attain greater self-sufficiency ( Greenberg et al. 2013 ). Staff members track down and do outreach to invite homeless people who are eligible for housing to apply to the program, and once they have entered the program, help them locate, choose, rent, and furnish an apartment. Programs may lodge clients in a variety of settings: “Supportive housing may consist of individual residential units in market housing; set-asides of some number of units inside larger residential developments; congregate apartment or single room occupancy (SRO) buildings that exclusively house the target population; or mixed-tenancy, congregate buildings that provide affordable housing for people with and without disabilities or histories of homelessness” ( Levitt et al. 2012 , 413; Collins, Malone, and Clifasefi 2013 ). For Pathways to Housing programs that serve as a model for many other Housing First programs, “major goals are to … meet basic needs, enhance quality of life, increase social skills and social roles, and increase employment opportunities” ( Tsemberis and Eisenberg 2000 , 489). Neither psychiatric treatment nor sobriety must be attained by homeless people in order to qualify for housing, and they need not agree to participate in any particular service or form of care to remain housed; rather, programs employ a harm reduction approach with the goal of reducing risks to participants associated with substance use or mental illness ( Padgett, Henwood, and Tsemberis 2016 ). Housing First is expensive because of the intensive supportive services that accompany housing for the chronically homeless; Moulton estimates the cost of housing a chronically homeless person at $55,600 for the first year (2013).

The gradual spread of Housing First approaches set in motion a new view of chronically homeless people; they began to be referred to as “vulnerable populations” ( West et al. 2014 , 232; Tsemberis and Eisenberg 2000 ), with an emphasis on their high mortality rates ( Willse 2015 ). While a focus on their presumed dysfunctional choices and personal responsibility for their circumstances has not been eradicated from political discourse or from social service responses to homelessness, Housing First did draw attention to ways that the chronically homeless could be considered a weak and defenseless population who deserved assistance. Chronically homeless people are appreciably more likely than the general population to suffer from cirrhosis of the liver, end-stage renal disease, hypothermia, and HIV/AIDS, among other issues; as a result, they visit emergency rooms and are hospitalized often ( Willse 2015 ). Though vulnerability as an organizing principle has not completely edged out the long-held view of poor and homeless people as responsible for their own circumstances, it was embraced by the US government under the George W. Bush administration when it adopted Housing First for chronic homeless initiatives.

Contrasting with advocates’ and social programs’ calls for housing as a “right,” the US government began to support using a Housing First approach for chronic homeless populations principally as a cost-saving measure ( Willse 2015 ). The federal government largely depoliticized Housing First by deemphasizing both the claims that homeless people have a right to housing and the importance of client input and consumer choice in housing. Foscarinis points out that by the 1990s, advocates for the homeless had little hope that a constitutional right to housing would be recognized at the federal level: “[A]s a practical and political matter, prospects for establishing a constitutional right to shelter or housing were rightly seen as extremely limited, and such litigation was not actively pursued” (2008, 116). Thus, homeless advocates accepted that promoting Housing First initiatives in terms of their potential to save the state money would be politically more viable than an assertion of the right to housing.

In 2003 the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) called for an end to chronic homelessness in ten years and a drop by 50% in five years ( United States Department of Housing and Urban Development 2002 ). HUD matched its behest with funding increases for programs providing permanent housing and supportive services for mentally ill and substance-dependent, long-term homeless people ( Moulton 2013 ). The US government pledged $35 million to fund permanent housing and supportive services for chronically homeless people ( Greenwood, Stefancic, and Tsemberis 2013 ). Concerned over the cost to cities and states of managing the service needs of this group, HUD and others cited data suggesting that chronically homeless people created a significant financial burden for state and local governments as a result of their heavy use of shelters, jails, detoxification facilities, hospitals, and other services ( Moulton 2013 ). Studies showed, for example, that chronically homeless people “represented a relatively small proportion of the homeless (approximately 10 percent), but utilized approximately half of shelter services as measured in days” ( Spence-Almaguer, Petrovich, and Paige 2008 , 3; Kuhn and Culhane 1998 ). The average cost per year in services paid by local, state, and federal governments for each chronically homeless person was estimated at $44,733 in 2006 dollars ( Moulton 2013 , 601).

Analysis of Housing First

A number of studies have found that Housing First for chronically homeless people can be successful in maintaining housing and saving the state money. Early studies done by Pathways to Housing in New York City indicated better long-term housing retention for chronically homeless people using a Housing First rather than a linear model ( Tsemberis, Gulcur, and Nakae 2004 ; Tsemberis and Eisenberg 2000 ) and lower rates of substance use ( Padgett, et al., 2011 ). Evidence from San Mateo, California, showed that both criminal justice and medical costs decreased considerably for sixteen chronically homeless people assisted by a Housing First program ( Greenberg et al. 2013 ; see also Martinez and Burt 2006 ). In another study, 111 chronically homeless individuals with “severe” alcohol addiction were housed in a single-site setting in Seattle. “[O]nly 23% (26 of 111) of participants returned to homelessness during the 2-year period, and afterward, 24% (7 of 26) of these individuals returned to the same housing project” ( Collins, Malone, and Clifasefi 2013 , S272). Some of the participants indicated that they would be willing to accept abstinence-based housing, but did not believe they would be successful in remaining housed in such a program ( Collins, Malone, and Clifasefi 2013 , S272). Groton reviewed five studies that explored results of Housing First interventions across the United States; all showed better results for housing retention when a Housing First method was used as opposed to the linear model ( Groton 2013 ). Neither the linear nor Housing First approaches, however, demonstrated a significant decrease in substance use or mental illness among participants ( Groton 2013 ).

Despite some promising data on the outcomes of Housing First approaches, a serious problem with Housing First policies is their reliance on access to low income housing to operate. The low income housing stock in the United States is shrinking. Without access to low cost housing, Housing First programs cannot place formerly homeless people in apartments or houses, the first and crucial step in the Housing First approach. Although the federal government has voiced support for Housing First interventions, it has not provided sufficient funding for housing vouchers or succeeded in expanding the low income housing supply. As a result of its tepid attempts to address the lack of low cost housing, some academics have suggested that the government’s defense of Housing First “has been largely rhetorical in practice” ( Foscarinis 2008 , 123). Without a real and sustained financial investment in low cost housing, then, the government champions Housing First more in the abstract than in practice.

Although Housing First represents a departure from past homeless policy requiring people to prove they are “housing ready” or “deserving” of help before they get assistance, not all portions of the homeless population share in the advantages presented by the new programs. In essence, with its emphasis on chronically homeless individuals, Housing First may be siphoning both funding and the focus of policymakers away from families and other homeless subpopulations:

In recent years, homeless families with children have not received the same federal attention and level of fiscal support as other homeless subgroups. Specifically, the federal government and local agencies have responded to the unique needs of chronically homeless persons with an influx of targeted federal funding…. Even as their numbers increase and more are taking longer to transition to self-sufficiency, homeless families remain largely invisible to the public and absent from the national policy debate. ( ICPH 2011 , 1)

Thus the attention to the economic costs associated with allowing chronically homeless people to remain on the street has enabled Housing First advocates to gain funding for programs, obtain housing vouchers, and the like, but specifically for chronically homeless individuals. Families, who are relatively invisible to the public as compared to chronically homeless people and cost the state little comparatively, have not gained the same traction with policymakers ( Foscarinis 2008 ). Data suggest that while chronic homelessness has decreased in the past ten years, there has been an increase in family homelessness ( Weinreb, Rog, and Henderson 2010 ). Low income housing shortages particularly affect single-parent families, in which one income must stretch to support multiple people; single-parent families are more likely to experience “severe” problems affording housing ( Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies 2008 ).

Analyses of Housing First programs and demonstration projects generally do not address how the choice to assist the chronically homeless population is made at the expense of other subpopulations among the homeless or those in poverty who are precariously housed, but funding, personnel, and most important housing vouchers are a limited resource. This is clearly demonstrated with a program in California designed to assist the fifty most vulnerable chronically homeless in one California county. County social service workers received fifty vouchers from the housing authority to pursue the program; these are vouchers that were then no longer available to other low income or homeless people and families. Judgments regarding “vulnerability” were based on the number of visits to the emergency room, presence of cirrhosis of the liver, advanced age, and consumption of police services, including how many civil penalties were owed for infractions like sleeping on the sidewalk and other laws that criminalize the functions of living while homeless ( Cornejo 2014 ). The program served chronically homeless, single individuals but not families. The method used by this program to identify people eligible for a Housing First intervention has been repeated in many other cities and counties as the norm for operating Housing First programs ( Padgett, Henwood, and Tsemberis 2016 ). Because the concept of vulnerability in this case is tied to the costs incurred by the state for healthcare and criminal justice systems, cities and counties often select the fifty or one hundred people who use the most services and present the clearest financial incentive for the state to remove them from homelessness.

Research on successful exit from homelessness has followed funding priorities; much of the academic research on solutions to homelessness published in the past ten years has monitored chronically homeless individuals. Thus, while the research exploring chronically homeless people’s ability to exit homelessness, especially in the context of a Housing First program, is plentiful, there is less research exploring homeless families’ exits from homelessness ( Bassuk et al. 2014 ). Research suggests that homeless families who exit a shelter without a permanent housing option “frequently double up with others, or move from place to place, with stays in regular housing sometimes interspersed with returns to shelter” ( Fisher et al. 2014 , 367). Other research demonstrates that homeless families with alcohol or drug issues mirror chronically homeless people to some degree and likewise would benefit from a Housing First approach. For example, a study of homeless families in Massachusetts found that those testing positive for alcohol or drugs stayed in shelters longer than those who did not ( Weinreb, Rog, and Henderson 2010 ). The same study, however, noted that “for families, personal circumstances may have less bearing on the timing of shelter exits than policy and program factors” (598). Specifically, some families remained in the shelter in order to obtain a housing subsidy, though the wait was long and resulted in further instability for families who had to live in a congregate setting, not to mention the high financial cost of shelter stays relative to housing subsidies.

Another issue that may affect the success of Housing First is the impact of chronically homeless people on other residents in housing approximate to program units. One study compared chronically homeless people to long-term homeless people who did not meet the chronic definition, but had stayed in shelters at least 730 nights over a four-year period. Both were tenants in a program in which they received housing and supportive services. Property managers associated with the program assessed chronically homeless people as needing more time and effort to adjust to living in an apartment, as less hygienic than the long-term shelter residents, and as requiring more support from case managers to make the transition to permanent housing ( Levitt et al. 2012 ). In this case, property managers were all associated with the program, so they were trained to work with chronically homeless people and willing to provide the extra care and attention required by residents. Circumstances may differ, however, in cases where property managers are private employees who are not apt to want to expend more energy on homeless clients; evidence suggests that low income tenants who are perceived to cause trouble may be evicted from low cost housing ( Desmond 2016 ). Since Housing First agencies prefer scatter-site housing(placing clients in apartments or houses “scattered” among numerous complexes) as an alternative to housing all clients together in one apartment building, it is likely that property managers would not be agency employees, at least in some cases. Given chronically homeless people’s struggle to transition to behavioral norms associated with long-term housing, the potential for complaints from neighbors and problems with landlords or property managers presents a hurdle for the Housing First model, though the question has not been addressed in a sustained manner in the literature.

Although most studies suggest substantial savings associated with housing chronically homeless people as compared to their costs to the state when not housed, some researchers have argued that these claims are overgeneralized ( Kertesz et al. 2009 ). Gilmer et al. found that clients with serious mental illness who were enrolled in a program utilizing a Housing First philosophy increased their use of outpatient mental health visits in comparison to a control group of similarly mentally ill people who did not have access to supportive housing ( Gilmer et al. 2010 ). The large-scale study evaluated over twenty thousand clients and thus compared costs associated with a larger and broader group of homeless people than many of the smaller scale studies of individual programs to date. Importantly, annual service costs were $12,056 higher for homeless people in supportive housing than in the control group. These “findings contrast with previous studies that have found that the costs for more intensive services and subsidized housing are mostly or entirely offset by reductions in inpatient, emergency, and justice system costs” ( Gilmer et al. 2010 , 1123). The authors suggest that when larger programs serve clients beyond the fifty to one hundred most expensive homeless people recruited by some programs, savings to the state diminish. Because many of the twenty thousand homeless people surveyed in the Gilmer study did not have significant numbers of hospitalizations, jail stays, or use of detoxification services, their costs to the state were minimal before they entered the program, and thus monetary savings to the state could not be used as a justification to pay for Housing First programs.

Perhaps the most pressing question regarding the future of both the linear and Housing First interventions is whether and to what degree Housing First will expand from its roots in programs for chronically homeless people to aid other groups. Questions abound about whether to extend the model to homeless people who are not mentally ill or substance users, to families, or to those who are homeless for short periods. Folded into the Housing First definition is the concept of “harm reduction,” so it has been conceptualized with a substance-dependent population in mind ( Greenwood, Stefancic, and Tsemberis 2013 ). Since homeless families exhibit less drug and alcohol use and mental illness than the chronically homeless, and point to low wages, underemployment, and low income housing shortages as primary reasons for homelessness, their principal needs will not be addressed unless Housing First’s supportive services are reoriented to provide assistance for locating employment and child care and improving employment options. It is doubtful, then, that simply applying the model to families or to those who do not have substance abuse or mental illness issues will be fruitful. Given the level of diversity in the homeless population, a one-size-fits-all model does not make sense.

If the rationale for public funding of Housing First programs lies in the argument that the state saves money relative to the linear model or to simply not assisting people, then there will be little political will to assist families or other portions of the population who do not utilize criminal justice and public health systems to a great degree and thus do not produce state expenditures at the same level as the chronically homeless. Families also tend to have relatively short periods of homelessness, so generally do not stay in emergency shelters for long periods of time ( Fisher et al. 2014 ). In this sense, programs that rely on showcasing net reductions in state costs when chronically homeless people are provided permanent housing have employed a limited strategy. In addition, families and others who do not meet the chronic definition represent a much larger group than the people currently targeted for Housing First interventions, because there are many more people who are homeless for short periods of time than are homeless for a year or more ( Poulin, Metraux, and Culhane 2008 ). Studies that track shelter use over one- or two-year periods indicate, for example, that approximately 10% are chronically homeless ( Burt 2001 ). Consequently, there will necessarily be significant expenditures associated with extending the Housing First model to the rest of the homeless population. Chief among these costs would be creating more low cost housing alternatives. Given the dearth of affordable housing now plaguing the system, this would require a wholesale rethinking and reinvestment in the American social safety net. Perhaps because this seems almost inconceivable given the political climate in the United States, the unavailability of housing units has not received sustained attention in the research on the linear and Housing First policies.

In the face of these challenges, however, Housing First has the potential to resolve many of the problems with emergency shelters. Although not yet widespread, there have been attempts on the part of battered women’s shelters in particular to establish Housing First programs that are not designed to serve a chronically homeless population and to address concerns about the social control orientation of emergency shelters. This seems like a promising start, and such organizations may provide a model to create programs for a population with severe housing problems but less intensive social service needs ( Fisher et al. 2014 ). An Oregon program for homeless battered women that incorporates a Housing First model is an illustrative case in point ( Williams 2008 ). In 2003 it closed its domestic violence shelter in order to use the resources previously expended on running the shelter to focus more directly on battered women’s housing needs. It continues to provide emergency help to battered women through the use of motel vouchers; it now aids five times as many women as had been housed in the shelter. Under the prior program, many women were not served because the shelter was full. The Oregon agency now pours the money saved by not operating a shelter into “mobile advocacy,” working to house women and to offer them multiple support services to address simultaneously their histories of domestic violence, economic marginalization, and housing requirements. The program helps some women to get into other shelters and some to become housed immediately ( Williams 2008 ).

Another important barrier to expanding Housing First models to families is the dearth of well-designed, methodologically sound research on families exiting homelessness. Evidence-based studies, similar to the research used to assess Housing First for chronically homeless people, are necessary to explore what kinds of assistance homeless families desire to become stably housed and whether and what type of supportive services are required alongside permanent housing. In a review of six studies of family homelessness, Bassuk points out that homeless families do not fare well in a variety of interventions currently used, including emergency and transitional shelters: “Compared with their homelessness at enrollment, the housing circumstances of families generally improved at exit from these programs; that is, families were no longer literally homeless, but many were not residentially stable. Furthermore, their work status was slightly improved, but most families were not earning a livable wage” ( Bassuk et al. 2014 , 470). The larger the family, the more complicated it becomes to locate affordable housing. Apartments for families are more expensive and scarcer than studio apartments that an individual could rent ( Padgett, Henwood, and Tsemberis 2016 ), and strict rules instituted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development govern the number of bedrooms in which a family with children must live. But these hurdles do not alone explain the reduced attention to family homelessness. Rather, the tendency to ignore this group relative to their chronic counterparts has much to do with the government’s reliance on cost saving as a motivating rationale for assisting homeless people. It can also be explained by the public’s propensity not to envision families when they consider homelessness, largely because of the stereotypical view of homeless people as “street” people who are dirty, mentally ill, eating out of trash cans, and sleeping on sidewalks. Unlike chronically homeless people, families may not “look” homeless in the context of popular stereotypes, so they become relatively invisible, with less political and public support for solving their homelessness.

Given that a focus on cost savings associated with housing the chronically homeless has proven to be a limited strategy, and in fact has caused homeless families to be ignored by policymakers, perhaps it is time for homeless advocates and Housing First supporters to reemphasize the concept of a right to housing. The contention that all people have a right to housing, and that it is the government’s responsibility to assist people in meeting a minimum standard of living that includes stable housing, is not widely embraced in the United States and calls into question the neoliberal model that has been the foundation for the dominant political discourse on homelessness as well as policy prescriptions in the United States since the 1980s. It is, however, a political argument that would enable homeless advocates to maintain that all portions of the homeless population deserve housing, not just those who are visible or chronically homeless or use state services heavily. Since the severity of income and wealth inequality has captured the attention of both politicians and the public in the United States, the argument that all people deserve a roof over their heads may be politically more acceptable now than it has been for the past one hundred years.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the Circle of Giving and the College of Liberal Arts at California Polytechnic State University for awarding grants to support this project. Many thanks also to Caitlyn Morrison, Stacy Okoro, Sydney Tanimoto, and Nestor Veloz-Passalacqua for their assistance with research for this project.

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Thanks to the anonymous reviewer and the editor for Oxford Handbooks Online for articulating this point as an important critique of both models.

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Applying the Conflict Theory to the Issue of Homelessness

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Table of Contents

Understanding of Homelessness through the Conflict Theory

Social issue.

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Analysis of the Issue

Sociological theory.

Within the limits of conflict theory, homelessness is interpreted as one of the main drawbacks of capitalism in the USA. The aim of the paper is to analyze the application of the conflict theory to enhance an understanding of the problem of homelessness in the country.

During many decades, homelessness in the USA has remained a topical problem. Scholars highlight psychological and financial causes to be the most acute. Although the government and the Senate provide their own definite reasons for the rise of homelessness in the USA, there is still no effective solution to the problem. In addition, there is a heated debate surrounding the causes of homelessness, such as lack of motivation and laziness. On the other hand, it is apparent that capitalism is one of the main causes of homelessness, and the ground for capitalism can be related to the conflict theory.

Over the past few decades, homelessness has become an acute problem in the country that continues to get worse. For instance, “the number of homeless families rose by 30% between 2007-2009” (Champion, 2010). In addition, sociologists continue to gather information about the rise of homelessness in the recent years using electronic data provided by the emergency housing shelters and surveys made on the number of abandoned properties, cars, etc.

In 2013, The State of Homelessness in America identified "633,782 people who experienced homelessness on one night in January 2012. The statistics show the rate of the homeless within the country to be of about 20 per 10,000 US citizens” (2013). According to the research, the veterans comprise up to 10% of the homeless population in our country.

Capitalism is often used to explain the reason of homelessness. For example, it is said that the homeless population lacks social, economic and human capital. In addition, homeless people are believed to have a low level of resources. For instance, McNaughton notes that people become homeless because they own low levels of resources that are constantly reduced, and “anyone may become homeless, but they are more likely to when they have a low level of resources” (2008, p.108). Furthermore, this statement explains the reason why people remain homeless for a long period.

According to the capitalist structure, people are divided into those who own capital and those who do not. Thus, a capitalist outlook identifies homeless people as losers in society because they lack property, food and other goods that are attributed to the winners in society. As a result, being homeless means experiencing some kind of loss.

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The sociological theory identifies capitalism as the reason for homelessness in the conflict theory. According to Karl Marx’s conflict theory, there are two classes of people in society: the owners and the workers. Marx explains that the former usually take advantage of the latter, depriving them of the basics needed for a quality life, such as shelter and food. Although the workers think that they are treated adequately, the owners take care of their profit only.

The conflict theory explains capitalism and homelessness due to continuous indignation among social classes about the quality of life in the country. The capitalistic structure creates a huge gap in society that is dominated by the wealthy groups that control the distribution of power and goods in the country.

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Social conditions of becoming homelessness: qualitative analysis of life stories of homeless peoples

• Mzwandile A. Mabhala   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1350-7065 1 , 3 ,
• Asmait Yohannes 2 &
• Mariska Griffith 1  

International Journal for Equity in Health volume  16 , Article number:  150 ( 2017 ) Cite this article

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It is increasingly acknowledged that homelessness is a more complex social and public health phenomenon than the absence of a place to live. This view signifies a paradigm shift, from the definition of homelessness in terms of the absence of permanent accommodation, with its focus on pathways out of homelessness through the acquisition and maintenance of permanent housing, to understanding the social context of homelessness and social interventions to prevent it.

However, despite evidence of the association between homelessness and social factors, there is very little research that examines the wider social context within which homelessness occurs from the perspective of homeless people themselves. This study aims to examine the stories of homeless people to gain understanding of the social conditions under which homelessness occurs, in order to propose a theoretical explanation for it.

Twenty-six semi-structured interviews were conducted with homeless people in three centres for homeless people in Cheshire North West of England.

The analysis revealed that becoming homeless is a process characterised by a progressive waning of resilience capacity to cope with life challenges created by series of adverse incidents in one’s life. The data show that final stage in the process of becoming homeless is complete collapse of relationships with those close to them. Most prominent pattern of behaviours participants often describe as main causes of breakdown of their relationships are:

engaging in maladaptive behavioural lifestyle including taking drugs and/or excessive alcohol drinking

Being in trouble with people in authorities.

Homeless people describe the immediate behavioural causes of homelessness, however, the analysis revealed the social and economic conditions within which homelessness occurred. The participants’ descriptions of the social conditions in which were raised and their references to maladaptive behaviours which led to them becoming homeless, led us to conclude that they believe that their social condition affected their life chances: that these conditions were responsible for their low quality of social connections, poor educational attainment, insecure employment and other reduced life opportunities available to them.

It is increasingly acknowledged that homelessness is a more complex social and public health phenomenon than the absence of a place to live. This view signifies a paradigm shift, from the definition of homelessness in terms of the absence of permanent accommodation [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ], with its focus on pathways out of homelessness through the acquisition and maintenance of permanent housing [ 6 ], to understanding the social context of homelessness and social interventions to prevent it [ 6 ].

Several studies explain the link between social factors and homelessness [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ]. The most common social explanations centre on seven distinct domains of deprivation: income; employment; health and disability; education, skills and training; crime; barriers to housing and social support services; and living environment [ 11 ]. Of all forms, income deprivation has been reported as having the highest risk factors associated with homelessness [ 7 , 12 , 13 , 14 ]: studies indicate that people from the most deprived backgrounds are disproportionately represented amongst the homeless [ 7 , 13 ]. This population group experiences clusters of multiple adverse health, economic and social conditions such as alcohol and drug misuse, lack of affordable housing and crime [ 10 , 12 , 15 ]. Studies consistently show an association between risk of homelessness and clusters of poverty, low levels of education, unemployment or poor employment, and lack of social and community support [ 7 , 10 , 13 , 16 ].

Studies in different countries throughout the world have found that while the visible form of homelessness becomes evident when people reach adulthood, a large proportion of homeless people have had extreme social disadvantage and traumatic experiences in childhood including poverty, shortage of social housing stocks, disrupted schooling, lack of social and psychological support, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, neglect, dysfunctional family environments, and unstable family structures, all of which increase the likelihood of homelessness [ 10 , 13 , 14 ].

Furthermore, a large body of evidence suggests that people exposed to diverse social disadvantages at an early age are less likely to adapt successfully compared to people without such exposure [ 9 , 10 , 13 , 17 ], being more susceptible to adopting maladaptive coping behaviours such as theft, trading sex for money, and selling or using drugs and alcohol [ 7 , 9 , 18 , 19 ]. Studies show that these adverse childhood experiences tend to cluster together, and that the number of adverse experiences may be more predictive of negative adult outcomes than particular categories of events [ 17 , 20 ]. The evidence suggests that some clusters are more predictive of homelessness than others [ 7 , 12 ]: a cluster of childhood problems including mental health and behavioural disorders, poor school performance, a history of foster care, and disrupted family structure was most associated with adult criminal activities, adult substance use, unemployment and subsequent homelessness [ 12 , 17 , 21 ]. However, despite evidence of the association between homelessness and social factors, there is very little research that examines the wider social context within which homelessness occurs from the perspective of homeless people themselves.

This paper adopted Anderson and Christian’s [ 18 ] definition, which sees homelessness as a ‘function of gaining access to adequate, affordable housing, and any necessary social support needed to ensure the success of the tenancy’. Based on our synthesis of the evidence, this paper proposes that homelessness is a progressive process that begins at childhood and manifests itself at adulthood, one characterised by loss of the personal resources essential for successful adaptation. We adopted the definition of personal resources used by DeForge et al. ([ 7 ], p. 223), which is ‘those entities that either are centrally valued in their own right (e.g. self-esteem, close attachment, health and inner peace) or act as a means to obtain centrally valued ends (e.g. money, social support and credit)’. We propose that the new paradigm focusing on social explanations of homelessness has the potential to inform social interventions to reduce it.

In this study, we examine the stories of homeless people to gain understanding of the conditions under which homelessness occurs, in order to propose a theoretical explanation for it.

The design of this study was philosophically influenced by constructivist grounded theory (CGT). The aspect of CGT that made it appropriate for this study is its fundamental ontological belief in multiple realities constructed through the experience and understanding of different participants’ perspectives, and generated from their different demographic, social, cultural and political backgrounds [ 22 ]. The researchers’ resulting theoretical explanation constitutes their interpretation of the meanings that participants ascribe to their own situations and actions in their contexts [ 22 ].

The stages of data collection and analysis drew heavily on other variants of grounded theory, including those of Glaser [ 23 ] and Corbin and Strauss [ 24 ].

Setting and sampling strategy

The settings for this study were three centres for homeless people in two cities (Chester and Crewe) in Cheshire, UK. Two sampling strategies were used in this study: purposive and theoretical. The study started with purposive sampling and in-depth one-to-one semi-structured interviews with eight homeless people to generate themes for further exploration.

One of the main considerations for the recruitment strategy was to ensure that the process complies with the ethical principles of voluntary participation and equal opportunity to participate. To achieve this, an email was sent to all the known homeless centres in the Cheshire and Merseyside region, inviting them to participate. Three centres agreed to participate, all of them in Cheshire – two in Chester and one in Crewe.

Chester is the most affluent city in Cheshire and Merseyside, and therefore might not be expected to be considered for a homelessness project. The reasons for including it were: first, it was a natural choice, since the organisations that funded the project and the one that led the research project were based in Chester; second, despite its affluence, there is visible evidence of homelessness in the streets of Chester; and third, it has several local authority and charity-funded facilities for homeless people.

The principal investigator spent 1 day a week for 2 months in three participating centres, during that time oral presentation of study was given to all users of the centre and invited all the participants to participate and written participants information sheet was provided to those who wished to participate. During that time the principal investigator learned that the majority of homeless people that we were working with in Chester were not local. They told us that they came to Chester because there was no provision for homeless people in their former towns.

To help potential participants make a self-assessment of their suitability to participate without unfairly depriving others of the opportunity, participants information sheet outline criteria that potential participants had to meet: consistent with Economic and Social Research Council’s Research Ethics Guidebook [ 25 ], at the time of consenting to and commencing the interview, the participant must appear to be under no influence of alcohol or drugs, have a capacity to consent as stipulated in England and Wales Mental Capacity Act 2005 [ 26 ], be able to speak English, and be free from physical pain or discomfort.

As categories emerged from the data analysis, theoretical sampling was used to refine undeveloped categories in accordance with Strauss and Corbin’s [ 27 ] recommendations. In total 26 semi-structured interviews were carried out. Theoretical sampling involved review of memos or raw data, looking for data that might have been overlooked [ 27 , 28 ], and returning to key participants asking them to give more information on categories that seemed central to the emerging theory [ 27 , 28 ].

The sample comprised of 22 male and 4 female, the youndgest participant was 18 the eldest was 74 years, the mean age was 38.6 years. Table 1 illustrates participant’s education history, childhood living arrangements, brief participants family and social history, emotional and physical health, the onset of and trigger for homelessness.

Ethical approval

Ethical approval was obtained from the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Chester. The centre managers granted access once ethical approval had been obtained, and after their review of the study design and other research material, and of the participant information sheet which included a letter of invitation highlighting that participation was voluntary.

Data analysis

In this study data collection and analysis occurred simultaneously. Analysis drew on Glaser’s [ 23 ] grounded theory processes of open coding, use of the constant comparative method, and the iterative process of data collection and data analysis to develop theoretical explanation of homelessness.

The process began by reading the text line-by-line identifying and open coding the significant incidents in the data that required further investigation. The findings from the initial stage of analysis are published in Mabhala [ 29 ]. The the second stage the data were organised into three themes that were considered significant in becoming homeless (see Fig. 1 ):

Engaging in maladaptive behaviour

Being in trouble with the authorities.

Being in abusive environments.

Social explanation of becoming homeless. Legend: Fig. 1 illustrates the process of becoming homeless

The key questions that we asked as we continued to interrogate the data were: What category does this incident indicate? What is actually happening in the data? What is the main concern being faced by the participants? Interrogation of the data revealed that participants were describing the process of becoming homeless.

The comparative analysis involved three processes described by Glaser ([ 23 ], p. 58–60): each incident in the data was compared with incidents from both the same participant and other participants, looking for similarities and differences. Significant incidents were coded or given labels that represented what they stood for, and similarly coded or labeled when they were judged to be about the same topic, theme or concept.

After a period of interrogation of the data, it was decided that the two categories - destabilising behaviour, and waning ofcapacity for resilience were sufficiently conceptual to be used as theoretical categories around which subcategories could be grouped (Fig. 1 ).

Once the major categories had been developed, the next step consisted of a combination of theoretical comparison and theoretical sampling. The emerging categories were theoretically compared with the existing literature. Once this was achieved, the next step was filling in and refining the poorly defined categories. The process continued until theoretical sufficiency was achieved.

Figure 1 illustrates the process of becoming homeless. The analysis revealed that becoming homeless is a process characterised by a progressive waning of resilience created by a series of adverse incidents in one’s life. Amongst the frequently cited incidents were being in an abusive environment and losing a significant person in one’s life. However, being in an abusive environment emerged from this and previously published studies as a major theme; therefore, we decided to analyse it in more detail.

The data further show that the final stage in the process of becoming homeless is a complete collapse of relationships with those with whom they live. The most prominent behaviours described by the participants as being a main cause of breakdown are:

Engaging in maladaptive behaviour: substance misuse, alcoholism, self-harm and disruptive behaviours

Being in trouble with the authorities: theft, burglary, arson, criminal offenses and convictions

The interrogation of data in relation to the conditions within which these behaviours occurred revealed that participants believed that their social contexts influenced their life chance, their engagement with social institution such as education and social services and in turn their ability to acquire and maintain home. Our experiences have also shown that homeless people readily express the view that behavioural lifestyle factors such as substance misuse and engaging in criminal activities are the causes of becoming homeless. However, when we spent time talking about their lives within the context of their status as homeless people, we began to uncover incidents in their lives that appeared to have weakened their capacity to constructively engage in relationships, engage with social institutions to make use of social goods [ 29 , 30 , 31 ] and maturely deal with societal demands.

Being in abusive environments

Several participants explicitly stated that their childhood experiences and damage that occurred to them as children had major influences on their ability to negotiate their way through the education system, gain and sustain employment, make appropriate choices of social networks, and form and maintain healthy relationships as adults.

It appears that childhood experiences remain resonant in the minds of homeless participants, who perceive that these have had bearing on their homelessness. Their influence is best articulated in the extracts below. When participants were asked to tell their stories of what led to them becoming homeless, some of their opening lines were:

What basically happened, is that I had a childhood of so much persistent, consistent abuse from my mother and what was my stepfather. Literally consistent, we went around with my mother one Sunday where a friend had asked us to stay for dinner and mother took the invitation up because it saved her from getting off her ass basically and do anything. I came away from that dinner genuinely believing that the children in that house weren’t loved and cared for, because they were not being hit, there was no shouting, no door slamming. [Marco]

It appears that Marco internalised the incidents of abuse, characterised by shouting, door slamming and beating as normal behaviour. He goes on to intimate how the internalised abusive behaviour affected his interaction with his employers.

‘…but consistently being put down, consistently being told I was thick, I started taking jobs and having employers effing and blinding at me. One employer actually used a “c” word ending in “t” at me quite frequently and I thought it was acceptable, which obviously now I know it’s not. So I am taking on one job after another that, how can I put it? That no one else would do basically. I was so desperate to work and earn my own money. [Marco]

Similarly, David makes a connection between his childhood experience and his homelessness. When he was asked to tell his life story leading to becoming homeless, his opening line was:

I think it [homelessness] started off when I was a child. I was neglected by my mum. I was physically and mentally abused by my mum. I got put into foster care, when I left foster care I was put in the hostel, from there I turn into alcoholic. Then I was homeless all the time because I got kicked out of the hostels, because you are not allowed to drink in the hostel. [David]

David and Marco’s experiences are similar to those of many participants. The youngest participant in this study, Clarke, had fresh memories of his abusive environment under his stepdad:

I wouldn't want to go back home if I had a choice to, because before I got kicked out me stepdad was like hitting me. I wouldn't want to go back to put up with that again. [I didn't tell anyone] because I was scared of telling someone and that someone telling me stepdad that I've told other people. ‘[Be] cause he might have just started doing again because I told people. It might have gotten him into trouble. [Clarke]

In some cases, participants expressed the beliefs that their abusive experience not only deprived them life opportunities but also opportunities to have families of their own. As Tom and Marie explain:

We were getting done for child neglect because one of our child has a disorder that means she bruise very easily. They all our four kids into care, social workers said because we had a bad childhood ourselves because I was abused by my father as well, they felt that we will fail our children because we were failed by our parents. We weren’t given any chance [Tom and Marie]

Norma, described the removal of her child to care and her maladaptive behaviour of excessive alcohol use in the same context as her experience of sexual abuse by her father.

I had two little boys with me and got took off from me and put into care. I got sexually abused by my father when I was six. So we were put into care. He abused me when I was five and raped me when I was six. Then we went into care all of us I have four brothers and four sisters. My dad did eighteen months for sexually abusing me and my sister. I thought it was normal as well I thought that is what dads do [Norma]

The analysis of participants in this study appears to suggest that social condition one is raised influence the choice of social connections and life partner. Some participants who have had experience of abuse as children had partner who had similar experience as children Tom and Marie, Lee, David and his partners all had partners who experienced child abuse as children.

Tom and Marie is a couple we interviewed together. They met in hostel for homeless people they have got four children. All four children have been removed from them and placed into care. They sleep rough along the canal. They explained:

We have been together for seven years we had a house and children social services removed children from us, we fell within bedroom tax. …we received an eviction order …on the 26th and the eviction date was the 27th while we were in family court fighting for our children. …because of my mental health …they were refusing to help us.

Our children have been adopted now. The adoption was done without our permission we didn’t agree to it because we wanted our children home because we felt we were unfairly treated and I [Marie] was left out in all this and they pin it all on you [Tom] didn’t they yeah, my [Tom] history that I was in care didn’t help.

Tom went on to talk about the condition under which he was raised:

I was abandoned by my mother when I was 12 I was then put into care; I was placed with my dad when I was 13 who physically abused me then sent back to care. [Tom].

David’s story provides another example of how social condition one is raised influence the choice of social connections and life partner. David has two children from two different women, both women grew up in care. Lisa one of David’s child mother is a second generation of children in care, her mother was raised in care too.

I drink to deal with problems. As I say I’ve got two kids with my girlfriend Kyleigh, but I got another lad with Lisa, he was taken off me by social services and put on for adoption ten years ago and that really what started it; to deal with that. Basically, because I was young, and I had been in care and the way I had been treated by my mum. Basically laid on me in the same score as my mum and because his mum [Lisa] was in care as well. So they treated us like that, which was just wrong. [David]

In this study, most participants identified alcohol or drugs and crime as the cause of relationships breakdown. However, the language they used indicates that these were secondary reasons rather than primary reasons for their homelessness. The typical question that MA and MG asked the interview participants was “tell us how did you become homeless”? Typically, participants cited different maladaptive behaviours to explain how they became homeless.

Alvin’s story is typical of:

Basically I started off as a bricklayer, … when the recession hit, there was an abundance of bricklayers so the prices went down in the bricklaying so basically with me having two young children and the only breadwinner in the family... so I had to kinda look for factory work and so I managed to get a job… somewhere else…. It was shift work like four 12 hour days, four 12 hour nights and six [days] off and stuff like that, you know, real hard shifts. My shift was starting Friday night and I’ll do Friday night, Saturday night to Monday night and then I was off Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but I’d treat that like me weekend you know because I’ve worked all weekend. Then… so I’d have a drink then and stuff like that, you know. 7 o’ clock on a Monday morning not really the time to be drinking, but I used to treat it like me weekend. So we argued, me and my ex-missus [wife], a little bit and in the end we split up so moved back to me mum's, but kept on with me job, I was at me mum’s for possibly about five years and but gradually the drinking got worse and worse, really bad. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. … I used to drink to get rid of the anxiety and also to numb the pain of the breakup of me marriage really, you know it wasn’t good, you know. One thing led to another and I just couldn’t stop me alcohol. I mean I’ve done drugs you know, I was into the rave scene and I’ve never done hard drugs like heroin or... I smoke cannabis and I use cocaine, and I used to go for a pint with me mates and that. It all came to a head about November/December time, you know it was like I either stop drinking or I had to move out of me mum's. I lost me job in the January through being over the limit in work from the night before uum so one thing led to another and I just had to leave. [Alvin]

Similarly, Gary identified alcohol as the main cause of his relationship breakdown. However, when one listens to the full story alcohol appears to be a manifestation of other issues, including financial insecurities and insecure attachment etc.

It [the process of becoming homeless] mainly started with the breakdown of the relationship with me partner. I was with her for 15 years and we always had somewhere to live but we didn't have kids till about 13 years into the relationship. The last two years when the kids come along, I had an injury to me ankle which stopped me from working. I was at home all day everyday. …I was drinking because I was bored. I started drinking a lot ‘cause I couldn't move bout the house. It was a really bad injury I had to me ankle. Um, and one day me and me partner were having this argument and I turned round and saw my little boy just stood there stiff as a board just staring, looking at us. And from that day on I just said to me partner that I'll move out, ‘cause I didn't want me little boy to be seeing this all the time. [Gary]

In both cases Gary and Alvin indicate that changes in their employment status created conditions that promoted alcohol dependency, though both explained that they drank alcohol before the changes in their employment status occurred and the breakdown of relationships. Both intimated that that their job commitment limited the amount of time available to drink alcohol. As Gary explained, it is the frequency and amount of alcohol drinking that changed as a result of change in their employment status:

I used to have a bit of a drink, but it wasn’t a problem because I used to get up in the morning and go out to work and enjoy a couple of beers every evening after a day’s work. Um, but then when I wasn't working I was drinking, and it just snowballed out, you know snowball effect, having four cans every evening and then it went from there. I was drinking more ‘cause I was depressed. I was very active before and then I became like non-active, not being able to do anything and in a lot of pain as well. [Gary]

Furthermore, although the participants claim that drinking alcohol was not a problem until their employment circumstances changed, one gets a sense that alcohol was partly responsible for creating conditions that resulted in the loss of their jobs. In Gary’s case, for example, alcohol increased his vulnerability to the assault and injuries that cost him his job:

I got assaulted, kicked down a flight of stairs. I landed on me back on the bottom of the stairs, but me heel hit the stairs as it was still going up if you know what I mean. Smashed me heel, fractured me heel… So, by the time I got to the hospital and they x-rayed it they wasn't even able to operate ‘cause it was in that many pieces, they weren't even able to pin it if you know what I mean. [Gary]

Alvin, of the other hand, explained that:

I lost my job in the January through being over the limit in work from the night before, uum so one thing led to another and I just had to leave. [Alvin]

In all cases participants appear to construct marriage breakdown as an exacerbating factor for their alcohol dependence. Danny, for example, constructed marriage breakdown as a condition that created his alcohol dependence and alcohol dependence as a cause of breakdown of his relationship with his parents. He explains:

I left school when I was 16. Straight away I got married, had children. I have three children and marriage was fine. Umm, I was married for 17 years. As the marriage broke up I turned to alcohol and it really, really got out of control. I moved in with my parents... It was unfair for them to put up with me; you know um in which I became... I ended up on the streets, this was about when I was 30, 31, something like that and ever since it's just been a real struggle to get some permanent accommodation. [Danny]

Danny goes on to explain:

Yes [I drank alcohol before marriage broke down but] not very heavily, just like a sociable drink after work. I'd call into like the local pub and have a few pints and it was controlled. My drinking habit was controlled then. I did go back to my parents after my marriage break up, yes. I was drinking quite heavily then. I suppose it was a form of release, you know, in terms of the alcohol which I wish I'd never had now. When I did start drinking heavy at me parents’ house, I was getting in trouble with the police being drunk and disorderly. That was unfair on them. [Danny]

The data in this study indicate that homelessness occurs when the relationships collapse, irrespective of the nature of the relationship. There were several cases where lifestyle behaviour led to a relationship collapse between child and parents or legal guardians.

In the next excerpt, Emily outlines the incidents: smoking weed, doing crack and heroin, and drinking alcohol. She also uses the words ‘because’, ‘when’ and ‘obviously’, which provide clues about the precipitating condition for her behaviours “spending long time with people who take drugs”.

I've got ADHD like, so obviously my mum kicked me out when I was 17 and then like I went to **Beswick** and stuff like that. My mum in the end just let me do what I wanted to do, ‘cause she couldn't cope anymore. …I mean I tried to run away from home before that, but she'd always like come after me in like her nightie and pyjamas and all that. But in the end she just washed her hands of me . [Emily]

Emily presented a complex factors that made it difficult for her mother to live with her. These included her mother struggle with raising four kids as a single parent, Emily’s mental health (ADHD], alcohol and drug use. She goes on to explain that:

Ummm, well the reason I got kicked out of my hostel was ‘cause of me drinking, so I'd get notice to quit every month, then I’d have a meeting with the main boss and then they'd overturn it and this went on every month for about six months. Also, it was me behaviour as well, but obviously drink makes you do stuff you don't normally do and all that shit. I lived here for six months, got kicked out because I jumped out the window and broke me foot. I was on the streets for six months and then they gave me a second chance and I've been here a year now. So that's it basically. [Emily]

There were several stories of being evicted from accommodation due to excessive use of alcohol. One of those is David:

I got put into foster care. When I left foster care I was put in the hostel, from there I turn into alcoholic. Then I was homeless all the time because I got kicked out of the hostels, because you are not allowed to drink in the hostel. It’s been going on now for about… I was thirty-one on Wednesday, so it’s been going on for about thirteen years, homeless on and off. Otherwise if not having shoplifted for food and then go to jail, and when I don’t drink I have lot of seizures and I end up in the hospital. Every time I end up on the street. I trained as a chef, I have not qualified yet, because of alcohol addiction, it didn’t go very well. I did couple of jobs in restaurants and diners, I got caught taking a drink. [David]

Contrary to the other incidents where alcohol was a factor that led to homelessness, Barry’s description of his story appears to suggest that the reason he had to leave his parents’ home was his parents’ perception that his sexuality brought shame to the family:

When I came out they I’m gay, my mum and dad said you can’t live here anymore. I lived in a wonderful place called Nordic... but fortunately, mum and dad ran a pub called […] [and] one of the next door neighbours lived in a mansion. His name was [….] [and] when I came out, he came out as in he said “I'm a gay guy”, but he took me into Liverpool and housed me because I had nowhere to live. My mum and dad said you can't live here anymore. And unfortunately, we get to the present day. I got attacked. I got mugged... only walked away with a £5 note, it’s all they could get off me. They nearly kicked me to death so I was in hospital for three weeks. By the time I came out, I got evicted from my flat. I was made homeless. [Barry]

We used the phrase “engaging in maladaptive behaviour” to conceptualise the behaviours that led to the loss of accommodation because our analysis appear to suggest that these behaviours were strategies to cope with the conditions they found themselves in. For example, all participants in this category explained that they drank alcohol to cope with multiple health (mental health) and social challenges.

In the UK adulthood homelessness is more visible than childhood homelessness. However, most participants in this research reveal that the process of becoming homeless begins at their childhood, but becomes visible after the legal age of consent (16). Participants described long history of trouble with people in authority including parents, legal guardians and teachers. However, at the age of 16 they gain legal powers to leave children homes, foster homes, parental homes and schools, and move outside some of the childhood legal protections. Their act of defiance becomes subject to interdiction by the criminal justice system. This is reflected in number of convictions for criminal offenses some of the participants in this study had.

Participants Ruddle, David, Lee, Emily, Pat, Marco, Henry and many other participants in this study (see Table 1 ) clearly traced the beginning of their troubles with authority back at school. They all expressed the belief that had their schooling experience been more supportive, their lives would have been different. Lee explains that being in trouble with the authorities began while he was at school:

‘The school I came from a rough school, it was a main school, it consisted of A, B, C, D and The school I came from [was] a rough school, it was a main school, it consisted of A, B, C, D and E. I was in the lowest set, I was in E because of my English and maths. I was not interested, I was more interested in going outside with big lads smoking weed, bunking school. I used to bunk school inside school. I used to bunk where all cameras can catch me. They caught me and reported me back to my parents. My mum had a phone call from school asking where your son is. My mum grounded me. While my mum grounded me I had a drain pipe outside my house, I climbed down the drain pipe outside my bedroom window. I used to climb back inside. [Lee]

Lee’s stories constructed his poor education experiences as a prime mover towards the process of becoming homeless. It could be noted in Table 1 that most participants who described poor education experiences came from institutions such as foster care, children home and special school for maladjusted children. These participants made a clear connection between their experiences of poor education characterised by defiance of authorities and poor life outcomes as manifested through homelessness.

Patrick made a distinct link between his school experience and his homelessness, for example, when asked to tell his story leading up to becoming homeless, Patrick’s response was:

I did not go to school because I kept on bunking. When I was fifteen I left school because I was caught robbing. The police took me home and my mum told me you’re not going back to school again, you are now off for good. Because if you go back to school you keep on thieving, she said I keep away from them lads. I said fair enough. When I was seventeen I got run over by a car. [Patrick]

Henry traces the beginning of his troubles with authorities back at school:

[My schooling experience]… was good, I got good, well average grades, until I got myself into [a] few fights mainly for self-defence. In primary schools, I had a pretty... I had a good report card. In the start of high school, it was good and then when the fights started that gave me sort of like a... bad reputation. I remember my principal one time made me cry. Actually made me cry, but eh... I don't know how, but I remember sitting there in the office and I was crying. My sister also stuck up for me when she found out what had happened, she was on my side; but I can’t remember exactly what happened at that time. [Henry]

Emily’s story provides some clues about the series of incidents - including, delay in diagnosing her health condition, being labelled as a naughty child at school, being regularly suspended from school and consequently poor educational attainment.

Obviously, I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD till I was like 13, so like in school they used to say that's just a naughty child. … So it was like always getting suspended, excluded and all that sort of stuff. And in the end [I] went to college and the same happened there. [Emily]

The excerpt above provides intimations of what she considers to be the underlying cause of her behaviour towards the authorities. Emily suggests that had the authorities taken appropriate intervention to address her condition, her life outcomes would have been different.

Although the next participant did not construct school as being a prime mover of their trouble with authorities, their serious encounters with the criminal justice system occurred shortly after leaving school:

Well I did a bit of time at a very early age, I was only 16… I did some remand there, but then when I went to court ‘cause I'd done enough remand, I got let out and went to YMCA in Runcorn. Well, that was when I was a kid. When I was a bit older, ‘cause it was the years 2000 that I was in jail, I was just trying to get by really. I wasn’t with Karen at the time. I was living in Crewe and at the time I was taking a lot of amphetamines and was selling amphetamines as well, and I got caught and got a custodial sentence for it. But I've never been back to jail since. I came out in the year 2000 so it's like 16 years I've kept meself away from jail and I don't have any intentions of going back. [Gary]

The move from school and children social care system to criminal justice was a common pathways for many participants in this study. Some including Lee, Crewe, David, Patrick spent multiple prison sentences (see Table 1 ). Although Crewe did not make connection between his schooling experiences and his trouble with law, it could be noted that his serious encounter with criminal justice system started shortly after leaving foster care and schooling systems. As he explains:

I was put into prison at age of 17 for arson that was a cry for help to get away from the family, I came out after nine months. I have been in prison four times in my life, its not very nice, when I came out I made a promise to myself that I’m never going to go back to prison again. [Crewe]

Lee recalls his education experience. He explained:

I left school when I was fifteen… then I went off the rails. I got kidnapped for three and half months. When I came back I was just more interested in crime. When I left school I was supposed to go to college, but I went with travellers. I was just more interested in getting arrested every weekend, until my mum say right I have enough of you. I was only seventeen. I went through the hostels when I was seventeen. [Lee]

None describe the educational experience with a similar profundity to Marco:

On few occasions I came out on the corridors I would be getting battered on to my hands and knees and teachers walk pass me. There was quite often blood on the floor from my nose, would be punched on my face and be thrown on the floor. …. It was hard school, pernicious. I would go as far as saying I never felt welcome in that school, I felt like a fish out of the water, being persistently bullied did my head in. Eventually I started striking back, when I started striking back suddenly I was a bad one. My mother decided to put me in … school for maladjusted boys, everyone who been there including myself have spent time in prison. [Marco]

The trouble with authorities that was observes in participants stories in this category appear to be part of the wider adverse social challenges that the participants in this study were facing. Crewe’s description of arson as a cry for help appears to be an appropriate summation of all participants in this category.

The participants’ description of the social conditions in which were raised and their references to maladaptive behaviours which led to them becoming homeless, led us to conclude that they believe that their social condition affected their life chances: that these conditions were responsible for their low quality of social connections, poor educational attainment, insecure employment and other reduced life opportunities available to them.

The key feature that distinguish this study from comparable previous studies is that it openly acknowledges that data collection and analysis were influenced by the principles of social justice [ 28 , 30 , 31 ]. The resulting theoretical explanation therefore constitutes our interpretation of the meanings that participants ascribe to their own situations and actions in their contexts. In this study, defining homelessness within the wider socioeconomic context seemed to fit the data, and offered one interpretation of the process of becoming homeless.

While the participants’ experiences leading to becoming homeless may sound trite. What is pertinent in this study is understanding the conditions within which their behaviours occurred. The data were examined through the lens of social justice and socio-economic inequalities: we analysed the social context within which these behaviours occurred. We listened to accounts of their schooling experiences, how they were raised and their social network. The intention was not to propose a cause-and-effect association, but to suggest that interventions to mitigate homelessness should consider the social conditions within which it occurred.

Participants in this study identified substance misuse and alcohol dependency as a main cause of their homelessness. These findings are consistent with several epidemiological studies that reported a prevalence of substance misuse amongst the homeless people [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 ]. However, most these studies are epidemiological; and by nature epidemiological studies are the ‘gold standard’ in determining causes and effects, but do not always examine the context within which the cause and effect occur. One qualitative study that explored homelessness was a Canadian study by Watson, Crawley and Cane [ 37 ]. Participants in the Watson, et al. described ‘lack of quality social interactions and pain of addition. However, Watson et al. focus on the experiences of being homeless, rather than the life experiences leading to becoming homeless. To our knowledge the current study is one of very few that specifically examine the conditions within which homelessness occurs, looking beyond the behavioural factors. Based on the synthesis of data from previous studies, it makes sense that many interventions to mitigate homelessness focus more on tackling behavioural causes of homelessness rather than fundamental determinants of it [ 38 ]. From the public health intervention’ point of view, however, understanding the conditions within which homelessness occurs is essential, as it will encourage policymakers and providers of the services for homelessness people to devote equal attention to tackling the fundamental determinants of homelessness as is granted in dealing behavioural causes.

Participants in this study reported that they have been defiant toward people in positions of authority. For most of them this trouble began when they were at school, and came to the attention of the criminal justice system as soon as they left school at the age of 16. These findings are similar to these in the survey conducted by Williams, Poyser, and Hopkins [ 39 ] which was commissioned by the UK Ministry of Justice. This survey found that 15 % of prisoners in the sample reported being homeless before custody [ 39 ]; while three and a half percent of the general population reported having ever been homeless [ 39 ]. As the current study reveals there are three possible explanations for the increased population of homeless young people in the criminal justice system: first, at the age of 16 they gain legal powers to leave their foster homes, parents homes, and schools and move beyond some of the childhood legal protections; second, prior to the age of 16 their defiant behaviours were controlled and contained by schools and parents/legal guardians; and third, after the age of 16 their acts of defiant behaviour become subject to interdiction by the criminal justice system.

The conditions in which they were born and raised were described by some participants in this study as ‘chaotic’, abusive’, ‘neglect’, ‘pernicious’ ‘familial instability’, ‘foster care’, ‘care home’, etc. Taking these conditions, and the fact that all but one participants in this left school at or before the age of 16 signifies the importance of living conditions in educational achievement. It has been reported in previous studies that children growing up in such conditions struggle to adjust in school and present with behavioural problems, and thus, poor academic performance [ 40 ]. It has also been reported that despite these families often being known to social services, criminal justice systems and education providers, the interventions in place do little to prevent homelessness [ 40 ].

Analysis of the conditions within which participants’ homelessness occurred reveals the adverse social conditions within which they were born and raised. The conditions they described included being in an abusive environment, poor education, poor employment or unemployment, poor social connections and low social cohesion. These conditions are consistent with high index of poverty [ 37 , 41 , 42 ]. And several other studies found similar associations between poverty and homelessness [ 42 ]. For example, the study by Watson, Crowley et al. [ 37 ] found that there were extreme levels of poverty and social exclusion amongst homeless people. Contrary to previous studies that appear to construct homelessness as a major form of social exclusion, the analysis of participants’ stories in this current study revealed that the conditions they were raised under limited their capacity to engage in meaningful social interactions, thus creating social exclusion.

Homeless people describe the immediate behavioural causes of homelessness; however, this analysis revealed the social and economic conditions within which homelessness occurred. The participants’ descriptions of the social conditions in which were raised and their references to maladaptive behaviours which led to them becoming homeless, led us to conclude that they believe that their social condition affected their life chances: that these conditions were responsible for their low quality of social connections, poor educational attainment, insecure employment and other reduced life opportunities available to them.

Limitations

The conclusions drawn relate only to the social and economic context of the participants in this study, and therefore may not be generalised to the wider population; nor can they be immediately applied in a different context. It has to be acknowledged that the method of recruitment of the 26 participants generates a bias in favour of those willing to talk. The methodology used in this study (constructivist grounded theory) advocates mutual construction of knowledge, which means that the researchers’ understanding and interpretations may have had some influence on the research process as the researchers are an integral part of the data collection and analysis

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all participants in this study; without their contribution it would not have been possible to undertake the research. The authors acknowledge the contribution of Professor Paul Kingston and Professor Basma Ellahi at the proposal stage of this project. A very special thanks to Robert Whitehall, John and all the staff at the centres for homeless people for their help in creating a conducive environment for this study to take place; and to Roger Whiteley for editorial support. A very special gratitude goes to the reviewers of this paper, who will have expended considerable effort on our behalf. 

This research was funded by quality-related research (QR) funding allocation for the University of Chester.

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The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to ethical restriction and privacy of participant data but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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MM wrote the entire manuscript, designed the study, collected data, analysed and interpreted data, and presented the findings. AY contributed to transcribing data and manuscript editing. MG contributed to data collection, and transcribed the majority of data. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Mzwandile A. Mabhala .

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Mabhala, M.A., Yohannes, A. & Griffith, M. Social conditions of becoming homelessness: qualitative analysis of life stories of homeless peoples. Int J Equity Health 16 , 150 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-017-0646-3

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-017-0646-3

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• Homeless People
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• Permanent Accommodation
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• Homelessness Essays

Homelessness as a Social Problem Essay

Homelessness is a social problem which is associated with numerous social problems. The challenges that the homeless people face in the society are mostly caused by illnesses due to poor housing facilities or coldness and overcrowding. Reports indicate that contagious and respiratory diseases have been rampant among the homeless people. Moreover, due to poor living conditions, homeless people suffer from other types of diseases caused by poor hygiene. Homelessness as a problem is however not a naturally occurring phenomenon. Although poverty has been cited as the major cause of homelessness among the people, the reality is that poverty as a problem is not caused by nature. Apart from poverty, various other factors have been associated with the problem of homelessness. Sociologists have used three theoretical perspectives to explain the causes of homelessness in the society. According to sociologists, symbolic interaction, functionalism, and conflict theory are the major causal factors to the homelessness problem. This essay will analyse how sociologists articulate these theories to the problem of homelessness. It will also try to verify whether there are any efforts by the society in trying to address the problem and whether these efforts have been successful.

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Homelessness has been defined as the lack of regular and decent housing among individuals in a society or in some parts of the society. These factors that have been associated with mental illness, drug abuse, physical or sexual abuse as well as lack of money due to poverty. In giving solutions to these problems, sociologists have pointed out on the three sociological theories. Functionalist sociologists associate the complexity of the society with the problem of poverty and lack of finances to acquire proper housing. The functionalist approach compares the evolution of the society with that of an organism, combining all parts of that organism together to make it whole. They consider the society to have evolved through such processes, making the structures function together to achieve a common goal, which is developing together (Isajiw 38). The complex nature of the society has been associated with complexity of the institutions. Building blocks of the society in the view of these sociologists are the family as well as the clan. The clan is part of the larger society, and through relationships developed by the individual people in the society, the result is strong solidarity among these people. According to the theory, the significance of an individual is not is not vested in his or her individuality, but in the status that he has accorded to his own status, his opinion in social relation patterns and the kind of behaviours associated with that particular status. Relationships developed by these structures are supposed to be the pillars in which the society is built upon. As social institutions keep on developing, people are expected to be careful about one another. As the individual cares about other people in the family, the family cares about the clan. This is the essence of the society in which all people ought to be mindful of one another. However, this is not the case altogether. Isajiw (102) observes that people are increasingly being more independent from each other, breaking the structures already set by the rules of functionalism. With the increase in individualism, more people are becoming poor. There is little assistance accorded to the poor by the rich and the able people in the society.

This has been as a result of the broken structures. The only attachment that is currently in existence in the society is the family, which is also breaking apart with time. This has increasingly alleviated the problems that people face in the society. Even the people who are supposed to be caring about their partners have grown apart, making the people poorer. The needs of the needy people increases, yet there are few available opportunities to solve them. Problems that lead to homelessness increases and consequently, people remain homeless for a long time. The emphasis of conflict theory is on the role played by coercion in bringing social order. Sociologists such as Karl Max saw the society to be fragmented into different small groups of people that try to compete with each other to acquire both social and economic resources. Social order according to Bartos and Paul (13) is brought about by the domination of one group of people to other groups. Power is in the hands of the people who have the greatest authority in the society is those who control the political, economic and social resources.

The competition that results from individuals struggling for power and control of the resources victimizes the poor people in the society. This results into conflicts and exploitation. Individuals who control the resources and means of production victimize the others. As a result of control of these resources, most of the people lack the opportunity to improve their lives. The poor thus remains poor, while the rich remains rich and gets richer.

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The disparities created by this problem lead to lack of the very basic needs by the poor people. Shelter is a basic need which every person is entitled to. However, in the event of poor distribution of resources, the poor do not have the access to these resources and means of production. However, this does not occur over night. Control of the means of production by a few individuals by a few people increases their greed. This deprives the rest of the people of these resources and creates a vicious circle of poverty. Those who have been denied the opportunities by the society are therefore regarded as poor. Due to their high levels of poverty, they cannot afford decent housing.

Symbolic interaction according to sociologists influences many areas and disciplines in the society. According to various sociologists, people act towards various things by the virtue of their meanings. These meanings are derived from socially developed interactions, which are later modified through interpretation. According to the father of the theory Max Weber, individual’s actions are determined by their interpretation of the meaning of the world. Through its analysis of the society, the theory addresses the different and yet subjective meanings that people impose on objects, events, and behaviours (Herman 88).

According to this theory, people are in a position to decide what they want and why they want that thing through their individual and personalized interpretation of the world. People thus define the term “home” differently according to this theory. While to some people a home is a symbol of unity and mutual coexistence of different individuals in a group of people, to others it is a sense of belonging. These groups do not see the meaning of having a constant place where they live in. they possess little wealth and attach little value to the things that define wealth and achievements. A house according to them has no use. The mental condition of these people is the biggest contributing factor to their definition of a home. Some of them are mad, while others are drug users. This results to their condition of homelessness. The various causes of homelessness in the society have adequately been discussed. There are efforts to reduce the number of people who are homeless in the society. These efforts have been shown by different groups in the society. Some have vested interests while others are simply concerned parties to the problem of homelessness. The government for example has developed many projects that are geared at developing housing projects for the poor at affordable prices. Due to the increased prices of mortgages, owning a home by the poor people has remained a dream due to affordability issues. To house these people, the government has implemented various housing projects for the poor.

The non-governmental organizations and the well-wishers have also chipped in their efforts in trying to address the problem of homelessness among the people. Various groups have tried to provide homes to the street people who do not have a place to stay. Even the children’s homes have tried to solve this issue. However, these problems have not been adequately addressed as more needs to be done to solve this problem.

Homelessness as discussed in this paper is a social problem. Having been caused by social structures, the problem is not regarded as individual. According to the three sociological theoretical perspectives of symbolic interaction, functionalism, and conflict theory, this problem can only be solved by addressing the contributing factors to the problem. Failure to address these factors, social structures will create more homeless conditions than those solved by the efforts extended towards solving the problem.

Works Cited

• Bartos, Otomar J, and Paul E. Wehr. Using Conflict Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print.
• Herman, Nancy J. Symbolic Interaction: An Introduction to Social Psychology. Walnut Creek, CA [u.a.: AltaMira [u.a., 2003. Print.
• Isajiw, Wsevolod W. Causation and Functionalism in Sociology. New York: Schocken Books, 1968. Print.

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