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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Homelessness Past And Present: The Case Of The United States, 1890-1925, Ellen Bassuk, Deborah Franklin
Homelessness Past And Present: The Case Of The United States, 1890-1925, Ellen Bassuk, Deborah Franklin
New England Journal of Public Policy
An examination of the professional, political, and popular literature on the nature and extent of homelessness from 1890 to 1925 affords a comparison of the economic and social characteristics of the homeless population at the turn of the century with that of today. The discussion covers the ensuing debates over the causes of homelessness, the various subgroups among the homeless during both periods, and the relative rates of homelessness, the context of extreme poverty and dislocation, and the prevalence of individual disabilities. Except for the growing numbers of homeless families over the past decade, the homeless populations during both eras …
Counting The New York Homeless: An Ethnographic Perspective, Kim Hopper
Counting The New York Homeless: An Ethnographic Perspective, Kim Hopper
New England Journal of Public Policy
Significant ambiguities inhere in the operational definitions of "site" and "selected components of the homeless population" used in the 1990 S-Night Count. Ethnographic methods offer a useful corrective. This article, covering research that was part of a larger project evaluating the S-Night count, describes a brief ethnographic inquiry into the ecology of public spaces occupied by the homeless poor in New York City. Problems in implementation, surprising ease of access, patterns of mobility and prevailing norms from site to site, and the tenuous character of the street sites are reviewed, as are implications for future enumeration efforts.
Homelessness: An Overview, Jim Tull
Homelessness: An Overview, Jim Tull
New England Journal of Public Policy
The homelessness crisis in the United States has reached epidemic proportions as the diversity of the homeless population expands to the point where it resembles the general population. The deepest and most long-standing cause of homelessness is poverty, but there are other forces as well, including the severe shortage of affordable housing (particularly due to urban renewal); deep funding cuts at the federal, state, and local level; the policy of deinstitutionalization; the Vietnam war; and unemployment. A new public policy approach to homelessness is needed, one which addresses these multiple forces and is grounded in the assumptions that housing and …