•Applies intergroup conflict to unhoused users in public parks and greenspaces.•Equitable management requires an understanding of conflict.•Park users described both social values and interpersonal ...conflict.•Negative attitudes towards unhoused people was related to greater conflict.•We describe strategies to address conflict in this context.
Like other user groups, people experiencing homelessness utilize parks and other public spaces for a variety of reasons, including recreation/leisure, physical activity, socializing, and to enjoy time in nature. However, unlike other user groups, unhoused park users also often rely on parks as a setting to engage in a variety of necessary metabolic and biophysical functions. Despite the centrality of these places to both unhoused and housed members of the public, there is little research focused on managing them for equitable outcomes between these two groups. We situate our work in this context, and specifically apply intergroup conflict as a framework for our analysis and discussion. Our results indicate that housed park users felt both interpersonal and social values conflict related to specific scenarios involving unhoused users. In general, those with more negative attitudes towards people experiencing homelessness were more likely to report conflict with unhoused park users. The greatest levels of conflict were perceived in the context of non-normative park use by unhoused users (activities that would be unacceptable by any user group). We suggest a variety of passive and active management strategies to reduce perceived conflict between unhoused and housed park users, including specific zoning, amenities, enforcement, and educational strategies.
The purpose of this study was to explore (1) the prevalence of physical and mental health conditions among veterans stratified by homelessness and unstable housing (HUH) in several Midwestern states, ...and (2) the correlation between HUH and sociodemographic, military, financial, risky behavior, health, and geographical characteristics. The study cohort consisted of 7260 HUH veterans and stably housed veterans in 2018-2022 in Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 23. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed which revealed the strongest associations with HUH were any incarceration experience (adjusted odds ratio AOR = 0.21) and rural location (AOR = 0.33). Frontier and remote location scores (AOR = 1.23) were associated with increased risk of HUH among veterans. Our results suggest potential differences in risk for HUH among veterans living in rural versus frontier and remote locations, which may be important to consider to provide care to the many veterans in these areas.
There is significant research evidence which demonstrates that LGBTQI+ young people experience higher rates of homelessness than their straight and cis peers. However, estimates of the scale of their ...over representation in homelessness vary significantly. This partially reflects difficulties in identifying and researching LGBTQI+ homeless youth due to their invisibility within homeless services. Drawing on in-depth interviews with homeless LGBTQI+ youth in Dublin and other Irish cities and with policy makers, homeless service providers and advocacy group representatives, this article reflects on the causes and implications of this invisibility. As its title suggests, the article identifies four interrelated causes of the invisibility – the unreal, unsheltered, unseen and unrecorded nature of LGBTQI+ youth homelessness. The article examines how these factors individually and collectively perpetuate the invisibility of LGBTQI+ homeless youth, impede their access to services for homeless people and reduce the likelihood that homeless services will be tailored to meet their needs and enable them to successfully exit homelessness.
•Interventions for pregnant youth and young mothers facing housing instability or homelessness primarily focus on offering housing alongside support services.•When housing interventions incorporate ...supportive elements like case management, notable enhancement in health and employment outcomes for the youth are noted compared to housing-only initiatives.•Interventions offering in-home or school-based parental support yield positive outcomes for participants.•Interventions for pregnant youth and young mothers facing homelessness are crucial, not only for their well-being but also to reduce the intergenerational risk of homelessness for their children.
Pregnant youth and young mothers facing housing instability or homelessness encounter unique challenges that result in adverse health, educational, and employment consequences for both them and their children. This systematic review aimed to consolidate the available evidence on effective and promising interventions to prevent homelessness amongst youth who are pregnant or young mothers with children under 6 years old and assist those facing homelessness. This review encompassed 10 studies that revolved around two primary themes: housing and supportive services, such as case management (n = 6), and parental services, including childcare provision or parenting classes (n = 4). We found that housing strategies incorporating counselling and case management notably enhanced participants' substance use patterns, mental health, healthcare access, and employment trajectories. Comparatively, housing services without supportive services did not lead to improvements within the participants. Parental services such as family home visits significantly reduced homelessness for participating families. School-based programs that offer childcare and supportive services improved maternal academic outcomes, reduced the incidence of subsequent pregnancies, and fostered positive parenting practices. Mobile technology also appeared promising in enhancing the emotional and behavioural capabilities of the youth. In conclusion, interventions targeting young expectant individuals and mothers, whether at risk or already experiencing homelessness, primarily emphasize housing combined with supportive services and parenting assistance.
The Ethics of Homelessness is a compilation of essays analysing the philosophical, legal and social implications of the seemingly intractable condition that people endure without a home, where their ...fundamental human rights, autonomy and privacy are compromised. Authors use literature and arguments to demonstrate the failings of public policy.
Being homeless in one's homeland is a colonial legacy for many Indigenous people in settler societies. The construction of Commonwealth nation-states from colonial settler societies depended on the ...dispossession of Indigenouspeoples from their lands. The legacy of that dispossession and related attempts at assimilation that disrupted Indigenous practices, languages, and cultures-including patterns of housing and land use-can be seen today in the disproportionate number of Indigenous people affected by homelessness in both rural and urban settings.Essays in this collection explore the meaning and scope of Indigenous homelessness in the Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They argue that effective policy and support programs aimed at relieving Indigenous homelessness must be rooted in Indigenous conceptions of home, land, and kinship, and cannot ignore the context of systemic inequality, institutionalization, landlessness, among other things, that stem from a history of colonialism."Indigenous Homelessness: Perspectives from Canada, New Zealand and Australia" provides a comprehensive exploration of the Indigenous experience of homelessness. It testifies to ongoing cultural resilience and lays the groundwork for practices and policies designed to better address the conditions that lead to homelessness among Indigenous peoples.
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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