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Full-Text Articles in Social Work

"My Head Was Like A Washing Machine On Spin": (Improving) Women’S Experiences Of Accessing Support, Jo Neale, Kathryn Hodges Dec 2020

"My Head Was Like A Washing Machine On Spin": (Improving) Women’S Experiences Of Accessing Support, Jo Neale, Kathryn Hodges

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This paper draws on data collected as part of two larger studies to set out the differences, according to women seeking support, between the feminist responses of the specialist women’s sector and the issues-led responses of other agencies. The first study examined the processes by which women enter, endure, and exit relationships with abusive men. The second study explored the barriers to help-seeking for those accessing a service for women involved in prostitution. Taking a feminist poststructuralist approach, the authors point to the gendered nature, both of the experiences that propel women toward help-seeking and of the responses they receive …


Victimization Of The Homeless: Public Perceptions, Public Policies, And Implications For Social Work Practice, Marion M. Turner, Simon P. Funge, Wesley J. Gabbard Dec 2018

Victimization Of The Homeless: Public Perceptions, Public Policies, And Implications For Social Work Practice, Marion M. Turner, Simon P. Funge, Wesley J. Gabbard

Journal of Social Work in the Global Community

Homeless individuals are particularly vulnerable to victimization, sometimes resulting in fatalities. Theories of victimization prove useful to understanding the risks inherent in being homeless as well as the public’s perception of the homeless population. Problematically, public policy that criminalizes this population may exacerbate the victimization of this group. Municipalities have turned to law enforcement and the criminal justice system to respond to people living in public spaces. Programs that ensure adequate income, affordable housing, and supportive services to prevent homelessness and address the needs of those who are homeless are essential. In addition, increased law enforcement training and the implementation …


Barriers To Food Security Experienced By Families Living In Extended Stay Motels, Stephanie Gonzalez Guittar Jan 2017

Barriers To Food Security Experienced By Families Living In Extended Stay Motels, Stephanie Gonzalez Guittar

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Families who are food insecure do not have regular access to food, access to enough food to satisfy their hunger, or have to resort to extraordinary measures to access food such as traveling to food pantries and other emergency food sources. This article focuses on low-income families with children who live in extended stay motels and experienced food insecurity. Families reported several indicators of food insecurity and discussed the barriers to food security they experienced as a result of living in a motel. Families reported that the locations of the motels, lack of transportation, the lack of storage space and …


Zones Of Exclusion: Urban Spatial Policies, Social Justice, And Social Services, Karen H. Bancroft Sep 2012

Zones Of Exclusion: Urban Spatial Policies, Social Justice, And Social Services, Karen H. Bancroft

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Across the United States homeless persons, prostitutes, and drug and alcohol users are subject to policies that severely limit their freedom of movement. These new policies create spatial exclusion zones that deny these groups the right to inhabit or traverse large areas of their cities, particularly in the downtown cores, where treatment centers, shelters, food banks, soup kitchens, government services, and other social services are typically concentrated. In this paper, I examine these new spatial exclusionary policies (with a focus on Washington State's policies), present a brief historical account of socio-spatial practices, contextualize the current spatial laws, and end with …


Perspectives Of Employed People Experiencing Homelessness Of Self And Being Homeless: Challenging Socially Constructed Perceptions And Stereotypes, Micheal L. Shier, Marion E. Jones, John R. Graham Dec 2010

Perspectives Of Employed People Experiencing Homelessness Of Self And Being Homeless: Challenging Socially Constructed Perceptions And Stereotypes, Micheal L. Shier, Marion E. Jones, John R. Graham

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In a study that sought to identify the multiple factors resulting in homelessness from the perspective of 65 individuals in Calgary, Alberta, Canada who were both employed and homeless, we found that participants' perceptions of being homeless emerged as a major theme which impacts their entry to and exit from homelessness. Four sub-themes related to these perceptions were identified: (1) perceptions of self and situation; (2) impact of being homeless on self-reflection; (3) aspects of hope to consider; and (4) perspectives on having a permanent residence. Analytically, these findings help challenge present stereotypes about homelessness and usefully inform social service …


"Like A Prison!": Homeless Women's Narratives Of Surviving Shelter, Sarah L. Deward, Angela M. Moe Mar 2010

"Like A Prison!": Homeless Women's Narratives Of Surviving Shelter, Sarah L. Deward, Angela M. Moe

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Relying on field observation and twenty qualitative interviews with shelter residents, this article examines how the bureaucracy and institutionalization within a homeless shelter fits various tenets of Goffman's (1961) "total institution," particularly with regard to systematic deterioration of personhood and loss of autonomy. Women's experiences as shelter residents are then explored via a typology of survival strategies: submission, adaptation, and resistance. This research contributes to existing literature on gendered poverty by analyzing the nuanced ways in which institutionalization affects and complicates women's efforts to survive homelessness.


Hate Crimes Against The Homeless: Warning-Out New England Style, Sandra Wachholz Dec 2005

Hate Crimes Against The Homeless: Warning-Out New England Style, Sandra Wachholz

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article reports on the hate crime victimization experienced by thirty individuals over the course of their homelessness in a New England city. Indepth interviews were conducted with the participants in order to provide a detailed, contextual account of the nature and forms of their hate crime victimization in public and semi-public spaces. Central to the article is the argument that hate crimes against homeless people function as informal social control mechanisms that impose spatial constraints, not unlike the character and objectives of the warning-out laws that were used to exclude homeless people from the public and private space of …


Maine’S Homeless Families: An Interview With Helen Hemminger, Helen Hemminger Jan 1999

Maine’S Homeless Families: An Interview With Helen Hemminger, Helen Hemminger

Maine Policy Review

Since 1991 Helen Hemminger has been director of The Tedford Shelter, a homeless shelter serving adults and families in the Brunswick, Maine area. In this interview, Hemminger provides a first- hand account of Maine’s changing homeless population. The good news, she reports, is that the percentage of people with mental illnesses staying at the shelter has gone down. The bad news is that since 1994 the shelter has experienced a steady increase in the number of homeless families. As Hemminger notes, there are more Maine families today working very hard to make ends meet. Living on a precarious edge, one …