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In Defense of Homelessness

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Notes

  1. This quote originally appears in “New Regime to Operate Baloney Joe’s,” The Oregonian, 1 October 1990: B1, B5. It is also referenced by Anthony J. Steinbock, “Homelessness and the Homeless Movement: A Clue to the Problem of Intersubjectivity,” Human Studies 17 (1994): 203–223; quote from 206.

  2. Daniel Quinn, Beyond Civilization (New York: Three Rivers, 1999), p. 122.

  3. David Wagner, Checkerboard Square: Culture and Resistance in a Homeless Community (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993), p. 176.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Of course, I claim neither that the housed necessarily would fare better in American society were they homeless nor that steps should not be taken to house the homeless on terms that they accept. My central point, instead, is that we do a genuine disservice both to the homeless and the housed by ignoring the viability and value of certain modes of living and of making a living that have proven to work for the homeless. I also am well aware that my argument may be viewed as romanticizing the plight of the homeless. Linda Alcoff (“The Problem of Speaking for Others,” Cultural Critique 20 (1991–1992): 5–32) warns of the discursive dangers associated with members of more privileged classes speaking on behalf of the less privileged. She advocates engaging in dialogue, both listening to and speaking with the subjects of our investigation as dialogical equals while acknowledging that we are not equally socially and politically situated. With this in mind, I have intentionally sought out the work of researcher who have engaged with the homeless in their preferred environs and who have attempted to develop an honest assessment of their needs, interests, and concerns by entering into dialogue with them. I cannot deny that my interpretation of the statements by those interviewed is filtered through what, invariably, is my socially mediated lens: in particular my own relationships with the less privileged. But this is a matter we all face, which makes it all the more important that we expand the debate about how to address homelessness to as wide an audience as possible. This essay represents just one voice in this debate.

  6. Talmadge Wright, Out of Place: Homeless Mobilizations, Subcities, and Contested Landscapes (Albany: SUNY, 1997), p. 69.

  7. Uma Narayan, “No Shelter Even in the Constitution? Free Speech, Equal Protection, and the Homeless,” in The Ethics of Homelessness: Philosophical Perspectives, ed. John M. Abbarno (Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1999), pp. 153–169; quote from p. 160.

  8. Teresa Gowan, “American Untouchables: Homeless Scavengers in San Francisco’s Underground Economy,” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 17(3–4) (1997): 159–190; quote from p. 170.

  9. See Stuart Bykofsky, “No Heart for the Homeless,” Newsweek 108 (1 December 1986): 12–13. For a compelling criticism of Bykofsky’s argument, see Anita M. Superson, “The Homeless and the Right to ‘Public Dwelling,’” in The Ethics of Homelessness: Philosophical Perspectives, ed. John M. Abbarno (Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1999), pp. 141–151; cf. p. 144.

  10. This quote appears in Narayan, op cit., p. 163.

  11. See Nel Noddings, “Caring, Social Policy, and Homelessness,” Theoretical Medicine 23 (2002): 441–454.

  12. Quinn, op cit., p. 122.

  13. See David A. Snow and Michael Mulcahy, “Space, Politics, and the Survival Strategies of the Homeless,” American Behavioral Scientist 45(1) (2001): 149–169.

  14. See Superson, op cit., p. 141.

  15. Danielle Steel, A Gift of Hope: Helping the Homeless (New York: Delacorte, 2012), p. 64.

  16. See Noah S. Berger, “The Guardian of the Birds,” in The Ethics of Homelessness: Philosophical Perspectives, ed. John M. Abbarno (Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1999), pp. 15–20; and Michel Foucault, History of Madness, ed. Jean Khalfa and trans. Jonathan Murphy and Jean Khalfa (New York: Routledge, 2006). I do not intend to connote that homeless service providers relish such harsh treatment of the homeless. Rather, they are enmeshed in an institutional framework that heavily constrains their actions. See Jason A. Wasserman and Jeffrey M. Clair, At Homes on the Street (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2010), pp. 172ff.

  17. Arguably, in consonance with the psychological distress associated with the institutional response, its unstated goal is to create a sense of terror at the proposition of becoming homeless, which facilitates adherence to the work and family ethics by the housed. I thank Ian Werkheiser for highlighting this point.

  18. See Francis Piven and Richard Cloward, Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare (New York: Vintage, 1971), p. 34.

  19. Wagner, op cit., p. 46.

  20. See Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), p. 67. Superson argues that characteristics of mental illness—depression, listlessness, anxiousness, and the like—should be considered “natural responses” to the conditions the homeless face. See op cit., p. 42. See also Paul Koegel and M. Audrey Burnam, “Problems in the Assessment of Mental Illness Among the Homeless: An Empirical Approach,” in Homelessness: A National Perspective, ed. Marjorie J. Robertson and Milton Greenblatt (New York: Plenum, 1992), pp. 77–100; Lisa Goodman, Leonard Saxe, and Mary Harvey, “Homelessness as Psychological Trauma,” American Psychologist (1991): 1219–1225; and Patricia Anne Murphy, “The Rights of the Homeless: An Examination of the Phenomenology of Place,” in The Ethics of Homelessness: Philosophical Perspectives, ed. John M. Abbarno (Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1999), 55–61.

  21. See Katherine Coleman Lundy, Sidewalks Talk: A Naturalistic Study of Street Kids (New York: Garland, 1995), p. 80.

  22. See Steel, op cit., p. 3. See also Jennifer Toth, The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City (Chicago: Chicago Review, 1993), p. 5.

  23. There are exceptions, including the now defunct Baloney Joe’s in Portland, OR, and Fountain House in New York City.

  24. See Mike Yankoski, Under the Overpass: A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah, 2012), p. 32.

  25. See Harold Garfinkel, “Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies,” American Journal of Sociology 61 (1956): 240–244. Offering a similar perspective, hip-hop artist Jay-Z suggests that “to some degree charity is a racket in a capitalist system, a way of making our obligations to one another optional and of keeping poor people feeling a sense of indebtedness to the rich” (Decoded (New York: Spiegel & Gray, 2010), p. 220).

  26. Wright, op cit., p. 215.

  27. See Dennis P. Culhane and Randall Kuhn, “Patterns and Determinants of Public Shelter Utilization among Homeless Adults in New York City and Philadelphia,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 17(1) (1998): 23–43.

  28. See James C. Scott, “The Infrapolitics of Subordinate Groups,” in The Global Resistance Reader, ed. Louise Amoore (New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 71f.

  29. Rachel Solnit highlights numerous instances in which natural disasters and comparable events have led those most adversely affected to band together for mutual support. For example, while it was widely reported that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005, residents were routinely accosting one another, comparably few such incidents actually occurred. Far more commonly city residents and boat owners from outlying areas offered whatever assistance they could provide in the absence of state support. Solidarity, not engagement in a Hobbesian war of all against all, was the most common reflexive response to their travails. See A Paradise Built in Hell (New York: Viking, 2009).

  30. See also Gwendolyn A. Dodrick, Something Left to Lose (Philadelphia: Temple University, 1997), p. 27.

  31. See also Wasserman and Clair, op cit.

  32. See Wagner, op cit, p. 148; Toth, op cit., p. 16; and Steel, op cit., pp. 28f.

  33. See Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010).

  34. Wagner, op cit., p. 77.

  35. Gowan, op cit., p. 170.

  36. Ibid., p. 161.

  37. See Manuel Castells and Alejandro Portes, “World Underneath: The Origins, Dynamics, and Effects of the Informal Economy,” in The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries, ed. Alejandro Portes, Manuel Castells, and Lauren Benton (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1989), pp. 11–37.

  38. Gowan, op cit., p. 169.

  39. Ibid., p. 170.

  40. Mark Boyle, The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living (Oxford, UK: Oneworld, 2010), p. 42.

  41. See Grace Yang, “US Media Ignores Sharp Increase in ‘Tent Cities’ in 2012,” Examiner.com, 2 August 2012; http://www.examiner.com/article/us-media-ignores-sharp-increase-of-tent-cities-2012.

  42. Wasserman and Clair do note that a good number of encampments replicate wider cultural dynamics when it comes to self-selection. Racial segregation is commonplace. Moreover, authorities are more likely to raid and shut down predominantly African-American encampments than predominantly white encampments. This permits the latter to become more established and comfortable, thus replicating wider trends of differential and asymmetrical treatment by the state on the basis of race. See op cit., p. 103.

  43. At the Shanty in New York City, Gwendolyn Dodrick also found huts that had heat, electricity, and locks. There was just one entrance into the encampment, which made it easy to monitor. And the sanitation department collected garbage on a regular basis. Residents, who also embraced an ethic of sharing, were better off in the “flexible market” that they created for themselves “than in the more expensive and less yielding market of the outside world,” op cit., p. 200.

  44. See Wright, op cit. p. 270.

  45. Ibid., p. 269. See also Megan Ravenhill, The Culture of Homelessness (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008). For more on basic needs, see Wasserman and Clair, op cit., p. 109.

  46. See ibid., pp. 280f.

  47. Ibid., p. 282.

  48. Ibid., p. 291.

  49. See Jason Motlagh, “Slab City, Here We Come: Living Life Off the Grid in California’s Badlands,” Time, 3 February 2012.

  50. Toth, op cit., p. 252.

  51. Quinn, op cit., p. 126. See also Peter Marcuse, “Neutralizing Homelessness,” Socialist Review 18 (1988): 69–96; and David Lovekin, “Technology and Culture and the Problem of the Homeless,” The Philosophical Forum 24(4) (1993): 363–374.

  52. Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All too Human, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (New York: Cambridge University, 1986), p. 224.

  53. Lawrence J. Hatab, Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality: An Introduction (New York: Cambridge University, 2008), p. 47.

  54. Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Douglas Smith (New York: Oxford University, 1996), p. 112.

  55. Wright, op cit., p. 295.

  56. Quinn, op cit., p. 125. See also Wagner, op cit., pp. 34 and 68; and Survival Guide to Homelessness, “How to Solve Homelessness,” 23 April 2011; http://guide2homelessness.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-solve-homelessness.html.

  57. See Wilkinson and Pickett, op cit., p. 67.

  58. Ibid., p. 33.

  59. Ibid., pp. 4–5.

  60. See Hacker and Pierson, op cit.

  61. See David Callahan, The Cheating Culture (New York: Harcourt, 2004).

  62. Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics (New York: Aldine-Atherton, 1972), p. 38.

  63. Wasserman and Clair, op cit., p. 105.

  64. See Lisa Gray-Garcia, Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America (San Francisco: City Lights Foundation, 2006), pp. 213ff. Wasserman and Clair comment on the vociferous rejection by encampment residents of “regulating,” or a single person or group seeking to control the distribution of resources. This displays that encampment residents remain highly sensitive to any attempt to subvert their equality and autonomy.

  65. Quinn, op cit., p. 65.

  66. Ibid, p. 69.

  67. Ibid, p. 61.

  68. Gowan, op cit., pp. 171–172. See also Michael Katz, The Undeserving Poor (New York: Pantheon, 1989).

  69. Wright, op cit., pp. 190 and 216, respectively.

  70. Wagner, op cit., p 180. By contrast, the anonymous author of the “Survival Guide to Homelessness” calls for providing the homeless with access to affordable capsule hotels like those developed in Japan, clean public toilets, and safe single occupancy showers. Additionally, squatters in Chicago have set about restoring abandoned houses, or so-called “abandonominiums,” that perpetuate blight. See Ben Austen, “The Death and Life of Chicago,” The New York Times, 29 May 2013; http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/magazine/how-chicagos-housing-crisis-ignited-a-new-form-of-activism.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all&_r=4&.

  71. Bill McKibben, Eaarth (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2010), p. 133.

  72. See Bill McKibben, Deep Economy (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2007), p. 103.

  73. McKibben, Eaarth, p. 133.

  74. See David Holmgren, Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability (Hepburn, AU: Holmgren Designs, 2002).

  75. See Jeffrey M. Jones, “Americans Most Confident in Military, Least in Congress,” 23 June 2011; http://www.gallup.com/poll/148163/Americans-Confident-Military-Leact-Congress.aspx. See also Jeffrey M. Jones, “Approval of Labor Unions Holds Near Its Low, at 52 %,” 31 August 2011; http://www.gallup.com/poll/149279/Approval-Labor-Unions-Holds-Near-Low.aspx.

  76. See Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1965).

  77. See David Harvey, The Enigma of Capital (New York: Oxford University, 2010), p. 252.

  78. See Sahlins, op cit., p. 14.

  79. Henry David Thoreau, Walden (Lexington, KY: Empire Books, 2013), p. 67.

  80. Boyle, op cit., p. 25.

  81. Thoreau, op cit., pp. 130–131.

  82. See Rebecca Smithers, “Almost Half of the World’s Food Thrown Away, Report Finds,” The Guardian 10 January 2013; http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/10/half-world-food-waste. See also World Hunger Education Service, “2012 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics,” 2012; http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm#Number_of_hungry_people_in_the_world.

  83. See Alisha Coleman-Jensen, Mark Nord, Margaret Andres, and Steven Carlson, “Household Food Security in the United States in 2010,” Economic Research Report (ERR-125), 2011; http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/121076/err125_2_.pdf.

  84. Toth, op cit., p. 26.

  85. David Giles, a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Washington studies dumpster diving culture. He got his monthly grocery bill down to $100 per month and knows many people who spend no money on food whatsoever. See Gillian Tett, “There’s No Time to Waste,” FT Magazine, 2 December 2011; http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/3c78c6ac-1bca-11e1-8647-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2b0mqJbF4.

  86. Boyle, op cit., p. 139.

  87. Daniel Quinn, My Ishmael (New York: Bantam, 1997). p. 201.

  88. I remain skeptical, for example, about children experiencing homelessness. Trevor Smith (no relation) also has suggested to me that my thesis speaks more to the plight of homeless men than to homeless women. Given that Wright notes that some men acting as protective figures in encampments exhibited what he perceived to be hypermasculine behavior, I do not take Smith’s suggestion lightly. Whether a defense specifically of female homelessness is viable is a matter for future investigation.

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    Andrew F. Smith

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Smith, A.F. In Defense of Homelessness. J Value Inquiry 48, 33–51 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-013-9405-x

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