D. Levinson – Encyclopedia of Homelessness

Автор: D. Levinson
Название книги: Encyclopedia of Homelessness
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Политология и Социология
Страницы: 908
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

The Encyclopedia of Homelessness is the first systematic effort to organize and summarize what we know about this complex topic which impacts not only the homeless but all of society. The Encyclopedia focuses on the current situation in the United States, with a comparative sampling of homelessness around the world. The Encyclopedia contains entries on Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, France, Guatemala, Japan, Nigeria, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Zimbabwe, Tokyo, Calcutta, London and others from around the world. The Encyclopedia of Homelessness meets the needs of a broad audience, offering a rich history and the data, views, and perspectives of experts from different disciplines and perspectives

There is nothing new about homelessness. There have
been homeless people for some 10,000 years—from the
time when humans built their first permanent homes in
the first towns of the Fertile Crescent. The historical
record, novels and poems, and sacred texts tell us the
stories of beggars, wandering ascetics, penniless friars,
displaced peasants, lost soldiers, street youths, vagrants,
new arrivals in the city, and displaced workers.
Homelessness has changed over the years. In the
United States, during the late nineteenth century, it was
hoboes and tramps who drew the attention of the public,
the police, and then the social reformers of the Progressive
Era. From the 1920s through the Great
Depression, attention shifted to the skid rows, home to
transient workers and retired single men. The decline of
skid rows in the 1970s was followed by a new era of
homelessness with many formerly institutionalized
people—who had untreated or poorly treated emotional
disorders—winding up on the streets of America. In the
1980s, the nature of homelessness changed again.
Growing economic inequality, racism, a permanent
decrease in the number of well-paid unskilled jobs, and
a lack of affordable housing combined to make several
million people—many of them African-American
women and their children—homeless on America’s
streets, in shelters, in motels, and in substandard and
temporary apartments. This pattern continues in 2004.
Homelessness is not just a U.S. problem, although
when viewed cross-culturally, it becomes a more complex
issue. In many developed nations, homeless families,
many of them immigrants, are the major issue. In
the developing nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin
America, the homeless are often women and their children,
youths, and migrants from rural areas who have
come to cities looking for work and opportunity. The
emergence of many cities in developing nations as
major regional or global commercial centers has made
the problem even worse, by increasing the appeal of
cities as employment centers to the rural poor while at
the same time providing less and less affordable housing
and support services for immigrants.
The goal of the Encyclopedia of Homelessness is to
summarize our knowledge of homelessness. This
includes describing the patterns of homelessness in the
past, focusing on the recent and current situation in the
United States, and sampling homelessness around the
world. Entries cover causes; history; legal issues,
advocacy, and policy; legislation and programs;
lifestyle and health problems; organizations; research;
services and service settings; size and perceptions;
subpopulations and lifestyles; and world issues and
perspectives. Descriptive articles cover homelessness
today in eight major American cities and more than
thirty cities and nations around the world. These
entries allow for quick and easy comparisons.
Homelessness is one of the least understood social
issues. The public image of homelessness and public
perceptions of the nature and causes of homelessness
have little relation to the reality of the situation. Most
Americans have little or no contact with homeless people.
Encounters on the street are quick and awkward
and immediately pushed out of one’s consciousness. I
vividly remember that when I was doing anthropological
research posing as a panhandler near the Bowery
in the early 1970s, passersby simply did not seem to
know that I existed. In that guise, I had no place and therefore no existence in their social and physical
world. This avoidance of the homeless has made it
easy for misconceptions to develop and persist—misconceptions
that are routinely reinforced by the depictions
of the homeless by the news media, on television,
and in film.
Homelessness in the United States has changed
dramatically since my research in 1971 on the transition
of skid rows like the Bowery. This was a time
when skid row was just about gone, and a few years
before the homeless population went from being single,
old men to younger men, the deinstitutionalized
mentally ill, and the working poor who could not find
affordable housing. Still, there are commonalities
from the past to the present, including health problems,
violence, inadequate housing, lack of jobs, difficulties
with law enforcement, and a continuing
avoidance of homeless people by most of American
society. At the same time, as this encyclopedia
shows, there are solutions and potential solutions at
hand, and our understanding of homelessness in its
various forms is more complete and more policydirected
than in the past.
Despite the changing nature of homelessness, when
I tell people about this encyclopedia, they are usually
surprised to hear that it is not mainly about drunken
old men on the Bowery. They are even more surprised
to hear that it contains much about families and children,
African-American women in the United States
and other Western nations, street children, and immigrant
families in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And,
they think the homeless is an issue only in poor neighborhoods
in large cities. Sure, they know about Construct,
Inc,. in our small town of Great Barrington,
Massachusetts, and its annual Walk for the Homeless,
but they never realized that their donations actually
help provide food and shelter for homeless people in
our affluent community. They are also unaware that
the rapidly rising housing prices in response to the
housing boom created by well-off second-home owners
and retirees has produced an affordable housing
crisis and more homelessness in the rural Berkshires
of western Massachusetts.
A major purpose of this encyclopedia is to correct
these false images and misconceptions and beliefs
from the past by providing readers with a comprehensive,
accurate, and up-to-date description of homelessness
in the twenty-first century.
AUDIENCE
As a topic of considerable current urgency, with a rich
history and drawing the attention of experts from different
disciplines and perspectives, the Encyclopedia
of Homelessness meets the needs of a broad audience.
This includes sociologists, anthropologists, economists,
historians, and other social scientists; social policy
analysts and planners who develop control and
prevention programs; program administrators; physicians,
social workers and lawyers who provide advocacy
and services; journalists; and students in high
school through graduate school in history, social studies,
and the social sciences.
SCOPE AND BREADTH
Homelessness is a complex topic, and experts have yet
to agree on a single definition or criterion to measure
homelessness (see entry on Homelessness, Definitions
and Estimates of). To some extent, this is because the
nature and severity of homelessness as a social issue
has changed over time, has varied over place, and has
been studied or dealt with by different groups of
experts. Homelessness has been a topic of interest for
religious organizations, journalists, social reformers,
public policy analysts, filmmakers, photographers,
poets, novelists, songwriters, anthropologists, sociologists,
psychologists, historians, geographers, physicians,
government officials, law enforcements agents,
attorneys, and social workers.
The contributors to this work come from many of
these disciplines and several others, and they bring different
perspectives to homelessness. These varying
perspectives are apparent in many of the more focused
entries, while a broader, interdisciplinary perspective
defines the more general overview entries on topics
such as prevention, health, and services.
The issue of homelessness cannot be addressed apart
from the related issue of housing. This is true everywhere
today, but especially so outside the United States
where homelessness is often defined as a lack of housing
or suitable housing. In the Western world, it is clear that a lack of affordable housing is one the leading contributing
causes to homelessness today, and solving homeless
will require providing affordable housing for all.
Global coverage is a hallmark of Berkshire Publishing
encyclopedias, and this one is no different. Two general
overviews—Homelessness, International Perspectives
on, and Housing and Homelessness in Developing
Nations—address the major patterns and issues of
homelessness. These are supplemented by several dozen
focused entries on international organizations and
homelessness in a sample of nations and cities. In addition,
information on homelessness beyond the United
States is provided in each of the five appendixes.
The entries cover the following eleven general topics.
Homelessness in the United States
These entries examine the nature of homelessness in
the United States in the late twentieth and early twentyfirst
centuries. Covered are the number of homeless,
characteristics of homeless populations, subgroups,
lifestyles and lifestyle issues, and perceptions of the
homeless.
Homelessness in U.S. History
These entries cover homelessness in the past including
hobo, tramp, and skid row culture, with an emphasis
on social history and within the context of key events
and processes in American history.
Research on Homelessness
Studying homelessness is not easy, and multi-method
approaches often produce more trustworthy and richer
conclusions than do single-method approaches such as
a questionnaire. These entries cover research strategies
and methods used in studying homelessness. The
strategies and methods are defined and described, and
much space is given to their role and contribution to
our understanding of homelessness.
Causes of Homelessness
These entries cover the factors and processes that are
commonly cited as leading causes of homelessness.
The editors recognize that homelessness has multiple
causes, which may vary over time, place, and form of
homelessness. The entries define and describe causal
factors or processes, review evidence relating them to
homelessness, and discuss controversies and implications
for preventing homelessness.
Health Issues
The homeless experience high levels of social, emotional,
and physical problems. These entries define and
describe these problems, discuss their effects on the
homeless, and review the causes of the problems and
efforts to eliminate or treat them.
Organizations
For many centuries, there have been organizations
whose missions and activities have an impact on homelessness.
The number of such organizations today, their
missions, and the issues they address are broader than
ever. More than a dozen organizations are covered here,
with an emphasis on the issues they address and the
services and programs they provide. Inclusion here is
not meant to imply that these are the “most important”
organizations. While we do include major organizations,
the goal is also to include a sampling of organizations
that deal with a wide range of issues.
Cities and Nations
These entries provide summaries of the nature of
homelessness in a sample of nations and cities around
the world. The entries define homelessness in the
national or urban setting being discussed, describe the
key features of the homeless population, review
causes, and discuss prevention and service initiatives.