| Chapter 1: | Background and Significance of the Study |
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Question Form
I attempt to answer the question, “Do print and electronic media, as well as homeless service providers, present a misleading picture of America’s homeless to the public?”
Education and Culture
It is important to remember that homelessness is a subculture. As John Doughty wrote in his paper (1995) “Anomie and Homelessness: An Ethnography of Rural Nomads,” “Homelessness, like anomie, has a cultural definition … Robert Merton saw anomie as a difference in the goals of society and some individuals and in the difference in the way society and some individuals achieved those goals” (Hilbert, 1989, p. 47).
Here is additional evidence that the homeless constitute a subculture in the larger American culture:
The homeless often are ostracized from conventional society because of their lifestyles; the lifestyle of homelessness may be chosen in some instances, but in other instances it seems forced on some people who must claim that lifestyle in order to obtain resources offered only to the homeless. Many homeless people lack the resources to keep themselves and their clothes clean at all times, making them objectionable to many members of mainstream society, which constitutes the dominant culture.
The homeless often beg for handouts, putting them at odds with mainstream society where the Puritan work ethic allegedly still is valued.
The homeless often consume alcoholic beverages and illegal and illicit drugs to excess, causing them to commonly present themselves in public view in an intoxicated state, which is objectionable to many members of the dominant culture and often constitutes a violation of the laws passed by the dominant culture.
Homeless people commonly associate with other homeless people with whom they share information about resources for food, housing, medical care and other needs.
The face-to-face interaction of the homeless helps them build a common knowledge of resources available to them and encourages the development of a specialized vocabulary and syntax that can be used to describe, typify and talk about resources available to the homeless.