Costs and benefits of adapting to homeless life'

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Costs and benefits of adapting to homeless life.

• Maja Flåto Katja Johannessen
• Norwegian institute for Urban and Regional
  Research
• Homelessness and Poverty, 18th September 2009.

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Adapting to the changed circumstances

• The informants in this study can be characterized
  as both houseless and roofless according to
  ETHOS definition.
• They are in the poorest part of the population,
  and moves between the streets and public and
  private shelters.
• A contention in this paper is that as homeless
  persons spend more and more time in the streets
  and shelters, their previous bonds with main
  society becomes looser.

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• The paper focus on three themes which illustrates
  some of the changes that occur in homeless
  persons lives regarding their perception of
• Social life
• Economy
• Time

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Socio material structures 1

• Socio material structures are important because
  they constitutes the space in which homeless
  people live.
• Our informants moves between different living
  arrangements.
• Street life
• Life in a shelter

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Socio material structures 2Street life

• Regulation of public space both deliberately and
  unintentionally affects homeless people.
• Increased surveillance and control limits the
  space in which homeless people can live.
• A struggle to find good places to sleep.
• Homeless persons move around the city to avoid
  police and security guards.

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Socio material structures 3Shelter life

• Homeless persons can live in the shelter from a
  few days to several years.
• The residents signs a contract when moving in to
  the shelter, but can be evicted on one days
  notice.
• All of the residents have their own room with a
  key.
• Once a week the personnel does room checks to see
  if the rooms looks okay.

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Social networks 1

• Several social relations within the homeless
  environment.
• Few social relations outside the homeless
  environment, with exception of people working in
  the homeless service provision.
• Short and intensive friendships

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Social networks 2

• Informants speaks of us and them.
• Social networks and economy was closely related.
  It was expected that goods were shared between
  friends.
• Is there a difference between friendship and
  partnership?
• What characterized all relations was lack of
  confidence and continuous break ups.
• However, the informants relied on their social
  networks to manage daily life.

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Different economic strategies

• Few homeless persons manage to keep a day job.
  Daily life in the streets or in a shelter is not
  compatible with a regular job.
• Adapting to homeless life can involve adaptation
  of new economic strategies within the informal
  economy.
• The economic strategies fit the nomadic lifestyle
  many homeless persons live.

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Harvest economy 1

• Harvest economy is a concept used to describe the
  economic strategies of homeless persons.
• Harvest economy is an informal economy and is
  characterized by the short distance between
  production and consumption. It is not common to
  cultivate the resources, but use them as they
  exist.
• Within the harvest economy the participants moves
  according to where the resources can be found.

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Harvest economy 2

• When harvesting, hunting and gathering you need
  only one thing and that is mobility.
• The informants move from place to place and
  shelter to shelter, and every time they move they
  have to bring all of their belongings with them.
  Thus when using the term harvest economy to
  analyze the life of longtime homeless people we
  see that most of their economic strategies evolve
  around their nomadic lifestyle.
• This nomadic lifestyle also seemed to have an
  impact on their social lives.

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Harvest economy 3

• What maybe seems irrational in the formal economy
  can be the most rational things to do in the
  informal economy.
• Spending money at once
• Helping friends and aquaintances but also
  letting them down when necessary.
• Loan money

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Time perception

• Harvest economy does not only affect how economic
  strategies are made, it also affects other parts
  of life such as the perception of time and space.
• Changing towards a cyclic perception of time.
• Fail to make long term plans
• Perspective of the future fades

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Concluding remarks

• By adapting to homeless life our informants
  manage to get by on the streets and in shelters.
• The harvest economy and a cyclic perception of
  time is a functional adaptation to the homeless
  way of life.
• The paradox of this adaptation is that on the one
  hand it makes life on the streets more
  manageable, but on the other hand it contributes
  to a continuation of life in a homeless situation.