Sociology Commons^™

Newspaper Representations Of Homelessness: A Temporal Comparative Analysis, Sarah Werman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This research focuses on the ways in which homelessness is discussed in two newspapers in a major city in the intermountain United States. I analyzed newspaper articles with the goal of understanding public discourse in two ideologically distinct newspaper venues. I examined the news media portrayal of the homeless in 752 articles in these two newspapers during two distinct six­-month time periods, one during which the city was nationally recognized as a major advocate for “Housing First,” or “solving homelessness,” and a more recent period during which urban gentrification has challenged the location of homeless services. Specifically, I addressed the …

The Influence Of Neighborhood Cohesion On Homelessness In Cache Valley, Utah, Madison Elliott

Research on Capitol Hill

• The 2017 Utah Point in Time Count reported that 2,852 Utah residents were identified as being homeless (Utah Housing and Community Development Division, 2017).
• There is a large gap in research that explores one’s likelihood of becoming homeless and its relation to community integration and neighborhood cohesion. Community integration can be defined through the feelings of acceptance within one’s social network(s), sharing common norms and values with those around you. (Sayer, et al., 2011) Neighborhood cohesion is the sense of shared morals and trust within a neighborhood community.
• Current bodies of knowledge in social science literature discuss other causes of …

Homeless Social Service Workers As Street-Level Bureaucrats, Curtis Smith

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Social service outreach workers serving homeless populations exemplify what Michael Lipsky calls street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) who exercise discretionary power in the performance of their professional roles. This dissertation draws on over 200 hours of ethnographic fieldwork in an urban center in the Mountain West to examine the challenges faced by homeless outreach workers and case managers in serving the needs of homeless clients and the practices they use to manage those challenges. Using a grounded theory analysis of participant observation and interview data, this dissertation focuses on what is termed “aggressive advocacy” in which social service SLBs creatively and actively …