HOMELESSNESS – a personal choice or a social problem?


Introduction

One feature that is prominent in cities all over the world is the presence of homeless people. Dressed in layers of clothes, carrying plastic bags containing their worldly belongings along with pieces of cardboard to shelter them from the cold, they form an easily distinguished and seemingly homogeneous group.

As I find the matter of homelessness interesting and poignant, I have decided to find out more about it, and I will try to shed some light on the matter and discuss possible causes and solutions to the problem. As it is a problem of international character, I will keep the discussion on a fairly general level and I will not make a distinction between countries unless the context demands it. I will also give a brief outline of how homelessness is portrayed in literature, film and music. To accomplish this purpose, I have used the following references:

Literature 
·        Sub City: Young people, Homelessness and Crime by Julia Wardhaugh.
·        Hemlöshet an anthology by Weddig Runquist and Hans Swärd.  
·        De bostadslösas situation i Sverige published by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare.  
·        The Keys to the Street by Ruth Rendell.

Film
·        Trading Places starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Acroyd.

Web
·        The Big Issue http://www.bigissue.co.uk/
·    AHS http://sananda.tripod.com/homeless/ahs1.html

Music
·        Another day in Paradise written and performed by Phil Collins.

Defining the homeless

One of many problems concerning homelessness, is how to define a homeless person. We tend to see the drunken dosser who actually sleeps on the street as the typical example, when he/she really is a representative of homelessness at the extreme. The reality is that homelessness is a question of degree rather than something absolute: it ranges from the above-mentioned extreme to a mere temporary lack of accommodations. Click here for a more detailed account of homeless situations.

Another problem with this kind of categorisation is well described in Swärd and Runquist's anthology Hemlöshet, where they state that the definitions are often lacking in objectivity and contain presumptions of a presence of both abnormality and asocial tendencies within the homeless community, which obscures the fact that homelessness might be a symptom of an infected housing market and a poor social policy. Homelessness is not a personal quality or flaw but a housing situation and symptoms such as drug-abuse and mental illness are more likely to be caused by the extreme situation the homeless are in, rather than being the reason for the homelessness. The fact that many surveys show a connection between drug-abuse/mental illness and homelessness, show that what you search for is what you find. That is, if the researcher is convinced that the connection drugs – homelessness exists he is very likely to find it, which shows that impartiality is of the utmost importance in conducting such surveys.

Prejudices and preconceived ideas

A number of 'standardised stories' which are often romanticised and based on generalisations have, for lack of knowledge, come to function as the 'truth', to a large extent. This makes us to think in stereotypes, and since the authorities' knowledge of homelessness and its causes and effects is insufficient too, the result may be that measures taken to improve the situation for the homeless are based on these half-truths and preconceived ideas. This may in turn create a situation where the homeless peoples' real needs cannot be met. The American Homeless Society (AHS) is actively trying to refute these 'stories' since they feel that they counteract the purpose of their work. Click here for a list of common prejudices.

Brendan, a homeless second-generation Irish man who sells the Big Issue to make a living, gives evidence of another kind of prejudice that the homeless are exposed to: "[...] since I've shaved off me beard, found a clean T-shirt and don't look so scruffy I've lost half me customers... They think that to be homeless you've gotta go round in ten anoraks and a goatee beard, right?" (Wardhaugh 2000:4) What he is talking of here, is a kind of 'catch 22' for the homeless. In order to make a living on the streets – begging, selling The Big Issue or playing some instrument – they must look like victims of circumstance to arouse sympathy, but if they do, they are subjected to physical abuse and harassment from people who use them as scapegoats, to displace blame and discharge tensions on to. (Wardhaugh 2000:4)

Homelessness represented in popular culture  

The film Trading Places (Click here for a review) is based on the perpetual theme 'rich man becomes poor man' and vice versa. Eddie Murphy plays a homeless man (Billy Ray Valentine) trying to make his living posing as a blind disabled war-hero. By means of a bet between two elderly upper-class gentlemen, he is given the opportunity to trade places with the managing director of their company (Louis Winthorpe III), an utterly spoiled upper-class brat played by Dan Acroyd. It is to be an experiment as to whether environment or heredity is the determining factor in a person's future, but the guinea pigs are not let in on the secret. As you probably have already guessed, the homeless man was as successful in his new position, as the upper-class brat was a failure in his.

On the reverse of the cover, the film is described as a "sharp and amusing attack on the values of the modern society" (my translation) and even if I do not agree in calling it a 'sharp attack', it does touch upon some important questions, one of them being the question of environment vs. heredity. I myself believe it to be a mixture of them both. No matter how well-bred you are, you can not disregard the fact that circumstance play a great part in forming your future.

The artist Phil Collins, has written a song called Another day in Paradise in which he describes a homeless woman and her every-day struggle. Click here for the whole text. In the following lines "/he walks on, doesn't look back/ he pretends he can't hear her/starts to whistle as he crosses the street/ seems embarrassed to be there/", Collins touches upon the important subject of denial. Julia Wardhaugh says in her book "such embarrassment has little to do with being caught in the act of staring and a lot to do with the shocked realisation of the human agency of the deviant Other." By this she means that by not looking and interacting with the homeless people, we can keep their problems separated from our own lives, but if a meeting takes place, we are embarrassed because to see is to know, and then it becomes more difficult to stay oblivious.

Ruth Rendell's novel The Keys to the Street is set on the streets among the homeless people and her description of their situation, partly displays a sound knowledge of the street life and partly some of the common prejudice I mentioned above. Click here for an analysis of The Keys to the Street.

Homelessness and language

Since the homeless people are by no means a homogeneous group, it is impossible to give a comprehensive account of any particular language feature. What can be said without going into detail, though, is that the level of education among the homeless is low, compared to the great majority of people. Ellie, an 18-year-old homeless woman from a middle-class home, gives evidence of that: "[...] they sometimes get sneaky and get undercover cops walking past, and then if you beg them they can arrest you [...] That happened to me [...] The thing is I'm lucky, you see, because unlike lots of people around here [...] I'm very good at blagging, 'cause I've got a posh accent." (Wardhaugh, 2000) This quote also serves as evidence that people are treated according to what social-class they are thought to belong to. In Ellie's case, her 'posh' accent saved her from going to prison. In The Keys to The Street written by Ruth Rendell, her protagonist Roman Ashton – homeless by his own choice – has similar thoughts: "All calls could be quickly traced, he was sure of that, but he had his voice to rely on. An anonymous call made in the accent of Westminster School and Cambridge would hardly lead the police to the vagrant with his barrow." (Page 91)
 

Causes?

In their book Hemlöshet, Runquist and Swärd argue that the increased rates of homelessness in Sweden (and from what I have learned Great Britain and other parts of Europe too) can partly be seen as a result of the deregulation and decentralisation of liability that has taken place. The state has to a great extent transferred what used to be their responsibility, to being the responsibility of the municipality and civic initiatives. This has created a situation where the boundaries of responsibility are unclear, which is most unfortunate since it tears holes in the social safety net that is supposed to save people from falling. The voluntary organisations' increased engagement in the homelessness-issue is a blessing but it can also be a curse, since their commitment makes it easier for the public sector to withdraw from their duties. There is a social tendency of not regarding social rights as universal but instead as something that should be means tested.

Solutions?

The homelessness problem  is one that is not easily solved, partly because it is so difficult to understand the underlying causes. What has become clear to me while I have been researching this subject, is how important it is to see the whole picture. The problem cannot be solved by curing the symptom e.g the actual homeless situation, and it cannot solely be solved by preventive actions either. It is necessary to see the problem as a whole in order to understand it, and to eventually find a solution

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Written by: Weronica

Posted: May 28, 2001

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