On Homelessnes

Random notes on Homelessnes (with an Industrial modern society context.)

Social Exclusion and Poverty Reduction Theory and Practice Class.

MGS, Spring 2010

According to the Stewart B. McKinney Act, 42 U.S.C. § 11301, et seq. (1994), a person is considered homeless who "lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence; and... has a primary night time residency that is: (A) a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations... (B) an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized, or (C) a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings." The term “homeless individual” does not include any individual imprisoned or otherwise detained pursuant to an Act of Congress or a state law." 42 U.S.C. § 11302(c).

The education subtitle of the McKinney-Vento Act includes a more comprehensive definition of homelessness. This statute states that the term ‘homeless child and youth’ (A) means individuals who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence... and (B) includes: (i) children and youth who lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, and includes children and youth who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; are abandoned in hospitals; or are awaiting foster care placement; (ii) children and youth who have a primary nighttime residence that is a private or public place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings... (iii) children and youth who are living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings, and (iv) migratory children...who qualify as homeless for the purposes of this subtitle because the children are living in circumstances described in clauses (i) through (iii). McKinney-Vento Act sec. 725(2); 42 U.S.C. 11435(2).

Other federal agencies, such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), interpret the McKinney-Vento definition to include only those persons who are on the streets or in shelters and persons who face imminent eviction (within a week) from a private dwelling or institution and who have no subsequent residence or resources to obtain housing. This interpretation of homelessness serves large, urban communities where tens of thousands of people are literally homeless. However, it may prove problematic for those persons who are homeless in areas of the country, such as rural areas, where there are few shelters. People experiencing homelessness in these areas are less likely to live on the street or in a shelter, and more likely to live with relatives in overcrowded or substandard housing.

The following are factors which contribute to social exclusion and homelessness:

1. Family breakdown, disputes with parents, step parented families;

2. Low educational achievement or learning difficulties;

3. Child abuse;

4. Time in local authority care;

5. Poverty;

6. Unemployment;

7. Domestic violence;

8. Divorce or relationship breakdown;

9. Loss of a local network of friends and social support networks;

10. Alcohol or drug addiction;

11. Mental health problems;

12. Shortage of low cost social housing units and housing association properties.

13. Contact with the criminal justice system especially during childhood (Randall and Brown, 1999; Smith, Gilford and O’Sullivan, 1998; Dane, 1998; Ravenhill, 1999).

Homelessness and social exclusion are rarely caused by one single factor. It is the accumulation of several factors and the way these factors interact that results in people becoming socially excluded from the society they live in.

Source:

1. Who is Homeless?, NCH Fact Sheet #3 Published by the National Coalition for the Homeless, August 2007

2. Megan Ravenhill, Homelessness and Vulnerable Young People: A social audit of KeyChange Charity’s supported accommodation, The ESRC Research Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE).