Certain populations are more vulnerable to the cycle of homelessness. We conducted a systematic review to identify studies on autistic individuals within the homeless community, who are a ..."hard-to-reach" sub-population. Eight Internet-based databases were used, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses guidelines. After completing the screening process for 870 articles, 17 were included in the review. We used a critical appraisal skills program to evaluate the risk of bias for these studies. Five articles estimated prevalence rates, thus suggesting an elevated rate of autistic traits in the homeless community of up to 50%. The remaining 12 (two literature reviews and 10 qualitative or mixed-method) reported that the homelessness risk factors amongst autistic individuals are co-occurring conditions, rigidity, and a lack of familial relationships and opportunities. The conclusions of the study are limited by the lack of qualitative data. Future research should focus on rigorous comparative studies of homeless populations with and without autism.
Homelessness became a conspicuous facet of Russian cityscapes only in the 1990s, when the Soviet criminalization of vagrancy and similar offenses was abolished. In spite of the host of social and ...economic problems confronting Russia in the demise of Soviet power, the social dislocation endured by increasing numbers of people went largely unrecognized by the state.
Being homeless carries a special burden in Russia, where a permanent address is the precondition for all civil rights and social benefits and where homelessness is often regarded as a result of laziness and drinking, rather than external factors. InNeeded by Nobody, the anthropologist Tova Höjdestrand offers a nuanced portrait of homelessness in St. Petersburg. Based on ethnographic work at railway stations, soup kitchens, and other places where the homeless gather, Höjdestrand describes the material and mental world of this marginalized population.
They are, she observes, "not needed" in two senses. The state considers them, in effect, as noncitizens. At the same time they stand outside the traditionally intimate social networks that are the real safety net of life in postsocialist Russia. As a result, they are deprived of the prerequisites for dealing with others in ways that they themselves value as "decent" and "human." Höjdestrand investigates processes of social exclusion as well as the remaining "world of waste": things, tasks, and places that are wanted by nobody else and on which "human leftovers" are forced to survive.
In this bleak context, Höjdestrand takes up the intimate worlds of the homeless-their social relationships, dirt and cleanliness, and physical appearance. Her interviews with homeless people show that the indigent have a very good idea of what others think of them and that they are liable to reproduce the stigma that is attached to them even as they attempt to negotiate it. This unique and often moving portrait of life on the margins of society in the new Russia ultimately reveals how human dignity may be retained in the absence of its very preconditions.
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People experiencing homelessness often present to social service providers with trauma histories. As they seek services, their service providers may be secondarily exposed to their clients' trauma, ...thereby impacting the level of care these service providers are able to offer. Unfortunately, little research examines the stress burden carried by homelessness service providers, nor the factors that contribute to their stress burden. The purpose of this mixed methods study, therefore, is to characterize the secondary traumatic stress (STS) reported by individuals who provide direct services to people experiencing homelessness, and to explore the workplace experiences that may underlie, influence, or mitigate this stress. The study relies upon a sample of direct service providers and program managers who work with people experiencing homelessness. The authors collected data on STS and workplace stress via a web-based survey (n = 122) and focus group interviews (n = 21). The results of this study suggest that homelessness service providers carry a substantial stress burden. Findings further point towards administrative strategies that may improve service providers' stress burdens, and potentially improve the service quality provided by agencies serving homeless populations.
AbstractIn the accompanying article, Mosites et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2021;190(11):2432–2436) evaluate data sources that enumerate people experiencing homelessness in the United States with respect to ...their strengths and limitations for conducting epidemiologic research in homeless populations. We largely agree with their key arguments, yet offer additional points that provide important context about these data for researchers and other stakeholders. Overall, we believe that it is possible to address many of the noted shortcomings of these data, and once addressed, the data could be more effectively leveraged to improve the health, housing stability, and quality of life of people experiencing homelessness.
U kontekstu ugroženoga stanovanja (beskucništva i stambene iskljucenosti), perspektiva životnoga tijeka, koncept stambenih karijera i putova stanovanja stavlja naglasak na razlicita životna ...iskustva, diferencijalne okolnosti i na društvene kontekste dolaska u takvu situaciju, ovisno o životnoj dobi. Na tom tragu, u istraživanju su identificirani dominantni dogadaji i okolnosti koji su obilježili dolazak osoba u neku od ugroženih stambenih situacija u: a) mladosti i ranoj srednjoj životnoj dobi, b) kasnoj srednjoj životnoj dobi i c) starosti. Istraživanje je provedeno od prosinca 2021. do veljace 2022. godine na podrucju grada Novog Sada (Republika Srbija). U istraživanju je sudjelovalo 35 ispitanika koji se nalaze u nekoj od ugroženih stambenih situacija. Primijenjeno je prigodno, namjerno i tzv. snowball uzorkovanje, a potrebni podaci prikupljeni su polustandardiziranim, dubinskim intervjuom. Dobiveni rezultati upucuju na višestrukost i kumulativnost nepovoljnih obilježja u životnim putanjama osoba u ugroženom stanovanju, kao i specificnost nepovoljnih okolnosti, ovisno o životnoj dobi. Zakljucno, istraživanjem su potvrdeni nalazi prijašnje literature u domeni životne povijesti ugroženoga stanovanja i upozoreno je na moguce pravce unapredenja razumijevanja ove tematike. Kljucne rijeci: životni tijek, ugroženo stanovanje, višestruka deprivacija, individualna obilježja, strukturni faktori In the context of vulnerable housing situations (homelessness and housing exclusion), the life course perspective, the concept of housing careers and housing pathways emphasise different life experiences, differential circumstances, and the social contexts of arriving at such a position, depending on age. Keeping this in perspective, the research identified the dominant events and circumstances that marked people's descent into one of the vulnerable housing situations across: a) youth and early middle age, b) late middle age, and c) old age. The study was conducted between December 2021 and February 2022 in the city of Novi Sad (Republic of Serbia). 35 respondents who are in one of the vulnerable housing situations took part in the research. Convenience, purposive and snowball sampling were applied, and the data was collected through a semi-standardised, in-depth interview. The obtained results indicate the multiplicity and cumulativeness of adverse events and characteristics in the life trajectories of persons in vulnerable housing, as well as the specificity of unfavourable circumstances depending on age. In conclusion, the research confirmed the findings of previous literature in the domain of the life history of vulnerable housing and indicated possible directions for improving the understanding of this topic. Keywords: life course, vulnerable housing, multiple deprivation, individual characteristics, structural factors
Across the Western world, full membership of society is established through entitlements to space and formalized in the institutions of property and citizenship. Those without such entitlements are ...deemed less than fully human as they struggle to find a place where they can symbolically and physically exist. Written by an anthropologist who accidentally found herself homeless, The Ethics of Space is an unprecedented account of what happens when homeless people organize to occupy abandoned properties. Set against the backdrop of economic crisis, austerity, and a disintegrating British state, Steph Grohmann tells the story of a flourishing squatter community in the city of Bristol and how it was eventually outlawed by the state. The first ethnography of homelessness done by a researcher who was formally homeless throughout fieldwork, this volume explores the intersection between spatial existence, subjectivity, and ethics. The result is a book that rethinks how ethical views are shaped and constructed through our own spatial existences.
The paper addresses the political and cultural problem underpinning mainstream narratives on homelessness. The absence of data, in conjunction with the misconceptions associated with homelessness, ...translate into the criminalization and stigmatization of homelessness, both at the local level and in fragmented policies at national and international levels. Section one presents an overview of homelessness as a cultural and political problem; section two then introduces the Italian situation and Bologna as a case study. After a presentation of the method followed in section three, sections four and five describe and then discuss two projects initiated by a political collective in the city of Bologna that directly involve homeless people in the deconstruction of imageries and narratives around homelessness. Finally, section six draws conclusions about the need to generate new narratives capable of accounting for the intersectional and complex nature of the phenomenon of homelessness: new narratives capable of restoring to the homeless their articulate human identity.
With the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic and concern regarding the subsequent vulnerabilities of houseless populations, countries have sought to adapt and enhance emergency housing policies with a view ...of better protecting this population. Drawing on the poverty management perspective, this article focuses on local government and its role in managing houselessness during the COVID-19 pandemic. It achieves this by treating local council meetings as sites of problematization, in which the management of houselessness is rationalized and solutions negotiated. We transcribed local council meetings in Bristol, England and Edmonton, Canada, for an 18-month period from March 2020. Our analysis found that a common set of ‘problem spaces’ - systems, strategic opportunism and power - were evoked by municipal officials in both cities. Under the umbrella of ‘doing what we can’, local councils: conceptualized houselessness as complex and systemic; identified what does and does not work; discussed jurisdictional limitations and their impact; and defended new forms of accommodation. Significantly, despite the discursive desire to ‘build back better’, and a slightly rebalanced poverty management landscape in terms of care and control, local governments alone were unable to end houselessness within the post-COVID city.
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