Change in Social Construction, Not Quarters

What do you think when you see a homeless person on the streets?

The ongoing debate on the topic of homelessness diverges into two lines of interpretation: (1) individual interpretation and (2) structural interpretation. As a society, especially from the sociocultural point of view, Americans put great emphasis on independency. This highlights the debate between the differing groups on whether homelessness is an individual’s personal failure (individual) or a larger, socioeconomic/structural issue (structural).

The words “independency” and “dependency” dominate our media-filled lives, inevitably misshaping our understanding of what homelessness really means as a social reality.

Cronley (2010) states, “For most Americans, success and failure become matters of individual responsibility… Here the individual’s ability to locate and retain housing becomes a matter of individual-level factors and personal choice. Those without homes are either deviant or dysfunctional.” (p.324)

Now, Is that really the case?

Let’s talk about the following: (1) the brief historical background on homelessness, in light of the debate between governmental funding and privatization, (2) the individual factors and structural factors that are leading causes to homelessness and (3) the overall social construction of homelessness, focusing on the dynamic relationship that a homeless individual has with his society, and vice versa.

I’ll break it down into two parts.

1. Individual Interpretation

The individual perspective holds the belief that homelessness is more of an individual factor’s issue (e.g, incarceration, health status, education, substance abuse, minority status.)

2. Structural Interpretation

Homelessness is largely due to society overly stereotyping financial burdens and what it means to be ‘dysfunctional’ in society, that in effect, more systematic barriers are set up to keep the homeless, homeless (or in poverty.) Works including “Push” by Sapphire, “Something Left to Lose” by Gwendolyn A. Dorick, and “Nickle and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich support this notion.

The Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was formulated in 1965 due to the movement towards federal intervention on the issue of homelessness. The 1960’s was also a time for Johnson’s Great Society, the Civil Rights Movement, and Deinstitutionalization.

The emphases behind all of these movements were human rights, ethical discourse, and freedom. Deinstitutionalization is a term that is defined by the discharge of long-term residents in psychiatric institutes, mainly due to the unethical conditions that these institutes housed their patients in. It was said that around that time, advances in medical research allowed for disorders such as Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder to be maintained outside of the hospital. It was during this time that former residents were released out into the real world and for many, out on to the streets. Stereotypes all of the sudden came to life: “the typical homeless white middle-aged, alcoholic man” as the racial, multi-cultural, and familial term. (Cronley (2010), p.322)

This transition activated a response from both government and society, and media began to take its’ ground on a political forefront.

Though the ideologies behind the human right’s movements were great in so far as they attempted to correct the unethical realities for these individuals, the financial and housing realities still remained in question. Housing was handled by the HUD for skid-row communities and single-residency occupancies (SRO) however closer towards the 1990’s, the individual perspective began to gain momentum. This meant that government funding was decreased close to 80% between 1980 and 1989 due to policy’s decisions strongly endorsing the perspective that homelessness is an individual’s personal failure. (Cronley (2010), p. 323) Eventually, gentrification and urban renewal led to the entire destruction of skid-row communities and SRO’s, furthermore increasing the structural problem behind homelessness.

The individual perspective holds the belief that homelessness is more of an individual factor’s issue (e.g, incarceration, health status, education, substance abuse, minority status.) The structural perspective holds the belief that homelessness is more of a structural issue (e.g, family house instability, loss of jobs, loss of public benefits, housing costs/availability, discrimination.) (Nooe & Patterson, 2010) These perspectives make up the two differing sides in the ongoing debate on homelessness. As stated before, the momentum for the individual perspective increased in the 1990’s , which around 1987, it became even more clear that this was the case when President Reagan signed the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, which was ultimately in line with the individual perspective, providing “short-term emergency relief and social programs to address individual level problems.” (Cronley (2010), p.323) This was the movement from something that was federal, public and fighting for human rights, ultimately straight into the hands of privatization.

In order to define homelessness before analyzing its’ media counterparts, it is important to understand the risk factors that lead one into a state of homelessness.

Nooe & Patterson (2010) state that, “From an ecological perspective, homelessness can be understood as the result of interactions among risk factors ranging from individual conditions to socioeconomic structures and environmental circumstances.” (p.105)

Among some of the risk factors for homelessness are: (1) lack of employment, (2) shortage of affordable, rental housing, (3) minority status, (4) mental illness, (5) substance abuse and (6) incarceration. The first risk factor, lack of employment, *may be* a structural issue due to the fact that there has been a decline in manufacturing jobs, “a corresponding increase in low-paying service employment, globalization, decline in union bargaining power, and increase in temporary work…” (Nooe & Patterson (2010), p. 108) The second risk factor, shortage of affordable, rental housing, *may also be* be a structural issue further supporting the structural perspective on the account that housing is not even available for some of the poor. Spaces have been demolished (i.e. skid-row communities) and have been replaced by condominiums or businesses. The third risk factor, minority status *may also be* directly tied to inability to find work due to discrimination. Although many people would argue against this, statistics show that approximately 21% of Hispanics and 24% of Blacks are in poverty. Nooe & Patterson (2010) states that, “minority status may not only increase the risk for homelessness but increase the barriers to escaping homelessness.” (p. 120)

The fourth risk factor, mental illness, is both an individual and structural issue. Mental illness can develop from heavy substance abuse and wrong life choices, but they may also be inherent and uncontrollable for an individual. With deinstitutionalization, although the movement was meant for positive gains rather than negative ones, led many mentally ill individuals straight out onto the street with no means of survival both financially and medically. Substance abuse, likewise, leads to a loss of money, physical health and mental health, putting an individual at risk to becoming homeless. Furthermore, incarceration is heavily tied to both mental illness and substance abuse.

The outcome for being homeless in our society today leads to maltreatment and community discord. Maltreatment is when a society labels a homeless individual as dysfunctional, quite typically ‘a drunk’, and inevitably ostracizes them for its community. Many people also tend to believe that the homeless should just “get a job.” The limited availability to work and the extremely low and unstable wages that come with work, prove to be barriers, rather than solutions, for individuals to rise out of homelessness. Community discord is the society’s negative response to homelessness.

Nooe & Patterson (2010) state, “Newspapers reflect these conflicts in stories such as “Atlanta Puts Heat on Panhandlers”; “Pressed on the Homeless, Subways Impose Rules; and “Church Sued for Housing Homeless.” (p.129) The authors also state that “compassion fatigue” is something that dwindled overtime in many industrial cities, especially with the rise of the individual perspective, the public turned to anti-nuisance laws which prohibited sleeping, feeding and begging in public spaces. (p.129)

Poverty and homelessness are intertwined, which, in fact, the homeless are often referred to as the “poorest of poor.” (Nooe & Patterson (2010), p.125) A study in 1999 showed that the median income for the working homeless was about 44% of the federal poverty line. (Nooe & Patterson (2010), p.112) In the contemporary, non-fiction novels “Push,” “Something Left to Lose,” and “Nickle and Dimed,” the theme of poverty is consistent throughout. Surprisingly enough, though, each novel brings something different to the grand scheme of things. Each of the authors emphasizes individual factors and structural factors in a systematic way. Poverty, in particular, is important to overview in this case because poverty is a contributing factor, if not a causal factor, to homelessness.

The novel “Push” by Sapphire (1996) examines the life of a young black female (Precious) living in a post-industrial city (Harlem, New York,) facing sexual abuse from her father and welfare-dependent mother, poverty and low level of education. In the novel, Precious frequently dreamt of being a white girl that was loved by everyone, as opposed to the reality of her situation. The reality was Precious was in a poverty-ridden community, in a household that made no means besides welfare. Precious also faced a deteriorated health status (she transmitted HIV from her father that rapped her,) further putting her at risk to end up on the streets. Essentially, Precious was facing some of the “structural” risk factors mentioned earlier for homelessness, further showing the intertwined nature between poverty and homelessness. Ironically enough though, due to the welfare support, Precious was very unlikely to ever end up on the street. In order to examine what differentiates being poor and not homeless from being poor and homeless is to imagine the life of a character such as Precious, without the benefits of welfare. Although this gives rise to an abundant array of possibilities, one of the outcomes undoubtedly may be homelessness. This shows how the role of government plays a pivotal role in preventing homelessness but, it is not enough in certain circumstances, especially in ones where mental illness and substance abuse are the main contributors.

The exposé “Nickle and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich (2001) further shows how living in poverty puts individuals at risk for becoming homeless, due to the fact that low-wages jobs do not even provide the necessary means to afford proper housing and nutrition. Nooe & Patterson (2010) state, “Lack of employment is often identified as a major cause of homelessness; however, many homeless persons report being employed or having occasional work. The difficulty is that many of these jobs do not provide adequate wages and benefits of self-sufficiency.” (p. 108) Ehrenreich (2001) shows evidence in this phenomena when she sets out to work low-wage jobs and to survive only off those means in three cities (Florida, Maine and Minnesota.) Not only does she find that housing was often impossible to come across, nor afford, off the money that she made, but also the stress from the strenuous work that non-skilled laboring required was overwhelming and taxing on her overall well-being. The traditionalist view of working oneself out of poverty was refuted by the fact that Ehrenreich’s experiment kept her working each daily solely to survive, and not “find herself out of poverty.” This is something that is directly related to homelessness and shows how maintaining a job does not provide the “safety net” for someone to not end up on the streets.

This “safety net” argument comes up in Gwendolyn A. Dordick’s (1997) book, “Something Left to Lose.” Dordick visits four different homeless shelters throughout New York City to show the diverse nature of each setting, as well as the residents occupying these settings. The theoretical basis behind her book touches base to the fact that society perceives the act of providing shelter as the sole means to “fixing” the homeless problem. In reality, there is more than shelter that the homeless need. It is the reintegration into society in a way where the fundamentals of social adherence, trust and relationship are reconstructed for people who’ve lost that and have learned to survive on the streets as their living. Dordick explores these differing responses from the individuals that she encounters throughout her book. In her conclusion, she quotes sociologist Christopher Jencks (1995) stating:

“In the case of homelessness, conservatives want to blame the homeless, while liberals want to blame the conservatives. Both explanations are correct. If no one drank, took drugs, lost contact with reality, or messed up at work, homelessness would be rare. If America had a safety net comparable to Sweden’s or Germany’s, homelessness would be rare. It is this combination of personal vulnerability and political indifference that has left people in the streets.” (p.190)

It is important to understand that both structural and independent factors are at play in reintegrating the homeless into society. So let me explain the tendencies for conflict that the homeless have in the reintegration process, known as “repetition compulsion.” (Farrell (2010), p.244) Such a conflict can lead to something known as “chronic homelessness.”

The HUD (2003) defines chronic homelessness as “an unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who had either been continuously homeless a year or more or had had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years.” (Farrell (2010), p. 240) The statistics for 2009 showed that 30% or all homeless adults were chronically homeless. (p. 242) The chronic homeless population have a certain familiarity with the streets that they’ve managed to survive, giving themselves a sense of power and normalcy “in the seemingly chaotic world of homelessness.” (p.244) Sigmund Freud coined a term for this, calling it “repetition compulsion.”

Additionally, the ones that do find shelter among the chronic homeless population tend to leave after a short amount of time to go back out on the streets. (p.241) This is an interesting phenomena because it forces one to consider why someone would choose to be homeless and without shelter. In his paper, Farrell (2010) proposes the strengthening of the therapeutic relationship between the social worker and their client in order to instill trust first and foremost in the pre-engagement stage. Later, the goal is to introduce the positive and secure aspects in being able to obtain medical care and benefits and not revert back to the streets. The problem with this was many of the homeless clients would “subvert” the treatment process, which was common due to the fact that “the person who is chronically homeless may be unfamiliar with someone taking an active and sustained interest in their situation.” (p.243) This, again, ties in with outcomes of homelessness, such as maltreatment and community discord, that homeless individuals have more or less familiarized themselves with and no longer are capable of trusting individuals actively attempting to help them.

With the risk factors and outcomes involved in homelessness, it almost seems as if societal expectations and treatment towards the homeless cycles around to introduce risk factors to individuals susceptible to homelessness. In other words, the stereotypes that are portrayed in media today lead to society’s depiction of the ‘homeless drunk,’ which leads to less compassion, less involvement and more maltreatment. This all somehow leads back to media portrayal and the lack of research that goes into representing the structural issue behind homelessness. Best (2010) examines this lack of research in journalism by explaining an example scenario for a news-gathering strategy. The strategy that Best (2010) described consisted of journalists heading out to the streets to ask the homeless why they were not in shelters. She states, “Interviewing individuals meant presenting causes and solutions at the individual level, without thematic context.” (p. 87)

The homeless individual constructs his own social reality on the streets. Their understanding of panhandling is a means of survival, whereas panhandling for the rest of society is a nuisance. In observation though, a personal experience on the subway changed my understanding on perhaps why it is people find panhandling so bothersome. It was an eight o’clock morning N train heading uptown from 8th street to 57th street and two white males in their mid-20’s entered the train to play the violin in hopes of making a few dollars. They stated that they were both homeless. At the end of their performance, the people on the subway ride were filling their money jar without a doubt in their minds that the money they were giving them was going towards nothing but their aid out of homelessness. Taking this particular experience and comparing it to a black, homeless and disabled man begging for food or money, yet not engaging the audience in any particular performance, one would notice a sharp contrast.

Society doesn’t trust the homeless that does ‘nothing but beg” and the homeless, due to neglect and trauma, do not trust society. This leads to less action to fight against homelessness from both parties, inevitably leading to the media portrayals on homelessness and poverty as “individual problems” when…let’s be honest — this a structural problem, and it starts with mending mental health issues at the core, to instill trust back into the system.

Takes two to tango.