Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Larry L. Lawhon / Homelessness is an issue facing numerous communities. Additionally, the increasing number of homeless youth is growing at an alarming rate. One potential solution to combating homelessness is transitional housing programs, and specifically programs aimed at assisting youth. The youth transitional housing program addressed in this research is the Crossroads program located in Lansing, Michigan, serving a tri-county area. This research study evaluates the Crossroads program’s success at preparing youth for independent living. The research questions posed for this study were: 1) What is the Crossroads program doing well to assist youth in transitioning into safe and stable housing? and 2) What does Crossroad’s need to improve upon in order to better help youth prepare for independent living? To answer these questions, data was collected through three one-on-one personal interviews with previous and current Crossroads clients to gather their perspective on the success of the program. Interview participants stated that Crossroads staff is the primary positive aspect of the program. Additionally, interview participants felt the program was good overall and had a positive impact on them, but gave a few suggestions for improvements. Interview responses are summarized and a series of conclusions and recommendations drawn to assist Crossroads in increasing their level of service to future program participants. Recommendations range from beginning the job search earlier, to increasing group activities among clients. Conclusions and recommendations are specifically for the Crossroads program and should not be inferred to be applicable to all youth transitional housing programs.

The aim of this study was to examine discourses of homelessness and how they were represented in Swedish news media. A total of 28 articles from various newspapers were analysed in the study. Eight of the articles were published 1994/1995 and 20 articles were published 2014/2015. Critical discourse analysis was chosen to be the theoretical and methodological framework of this study. The analysis indicates that there are four main discourses that can be seen in the news media regarding homelessness: alienation, homelessness, housing and responsibility.

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Landscape Architecture

An overview is presented of anthropology's interest in voluntary association, from the classical influences and studies to sociological and anthropological work that illustrate recent trends from the last decade. Information is presented from the author's fieldwork with the Tucson Homeless Union and the Southern Arizona Coalition for the Homeless that describes the homeless situation in Tucson and the efforts of these groups, whose members share a dedication to improving conditions for socioeconomically marginal people through activist means of protest and civil disobedience. Marked by fluidity of membership and unique internal dynamics, these groups present a special case-study of voluntary associations as a means of urban adaptation through self-help and as a vehicle for social change. It is demonstrated how and examination of the values expressed by the existence and actions of these associations is useful in understanding the nature of society and the stability of the political system.

Bakgrund: Hemlöshet är ett växande problem i Sverige och idag lever cirka 34 000 personer som hemlösa. Det finns olika faktorer som bidrar till att en person lever i hemlöshet där ett sämre hälsotillstånd med fysiska hälsoproblem är vanligt förekommande. Hemlösa personer lever i närhet till smittsamma sjukdomar med en lägre hygienstandard. Detta leder till att hälsan påverkas negativt och att hemlösa har ett större behov av sjukvård. Sjuksköterskor har erfarenheter av att det är en utmaning att vårda personer som lever i hemlöshet på grund av att de anser att det är svårt att inte ha en dömande inställning grundat i förutfattade meningar. Syfte: Syftet var att belysa hemlösa personers erfarenheter av vårdande och sjukvården. Metod: En litteraturöversikt har gjorts där elva vetenskapliga artiklar valdes. Tio artiklar visade sig vara baserad på forskning av kvalitativ design och en artikel använde sig av både kvalitativ och kvantitativ datainsamling. Resultat: Hemlösa personer hade erfarenheter av att de fick ett annorlunda bemötande jämfört med andra patienter när de sökte sjukvård. De hade erfarenheter av att bli åsidosatta och vara lägre prioriterade än andra patienter i sjukvården. Majoriteten av de hemlösa personerna väntar med att söka sjukvård tills smärtan är outhärdlig på grund av att sjukvårdpersonalen bemöter dem på ett respektlöst sätt. Det fanns också hemlösa personer som hade positiva erfarenheter av vårdande där sjukvårdspersonalen visade engagemang och var vänliga och hjälpsamma mot dem. Diskussion: I detta avsnitt kommer en metoddiskussion att presenteras som utvärderar styrkor och svagheter samt en resultatdiskussion som kommer att diskuteras med Joyce Travelbees omvårdnadsteori samt nytillkomna artiklar. Nyckelord: Hemlösa personer, erfarenheter, vårdande, sjukvårdspersonal.

Ce mémoire porte sur les processus de catégorisation et les modes de prise en charge des populations sans logement par l’État français à deux époques que sont la fin du XIXème siècle et la fin du XXème siècle (1880-1910 et 1980-2008). Au cours de ces deux périodes charnières, les transformations socio-économiques brouillent les dispositifs traditionnels de prise en charge de populations sans logement et conduisent progressivement l’État à une redéfinition de ces populations sur le plan administratif ainsi qu’à un resserrement sur le plan juridique. L’analyse met en évidence la résistance des discours juridiques et politiques face aux transformations sociales avant d’étudier l’émergence de nouvelles catégories et de nouveaux dispositifs pour appréhender et contrôler ces populations. Les sources utilisées (juridico-politiques et médicales) permettent de nuancer l’analyse dominante proposée jusqu’alors par Castel, qui néglige les sources médicales dans son étude des bouleversements sociaux et de la prise en charge des populations marginalisées aux deux époques. Enfin, le travail de catégorisation des populations marginalisées de la part de l’État s’oppose à une résistance de la part des populations elles-mêmes qui débordent les catégories et les dispositifs mis en œuvre pour les appréhender.

This project examines the effects of the homeless body and the threat of homelessness on constructing a national imaginary that relies on the trope of locatability for recognition as a citizen-subject. The thesis argues that homelessness, the oft-figured specter of public space, functions as bodies that are “pushed out” as citizen-subjects due to their inability maintain both discursive and material location. I argue that figures of “home” rely on the ever-present threat of dislocation to maintain a privileged position as the location of the consuming citizen-subject. That is, the presence of the dislocated homeless body haunts the discursive and material construction of home and its inhabitants. Homeless then becomes the uncanny inverse of home, functioning as an abjection that reifies home “place” as an arbiter of recognition in a neoliberal national imaginary. The chapters proceed to examine what some consider homeless “homes,” focusing on the reduction of the homeless condition to a place of inhabitance, or the lack thereof. This attempt to locate the homeless body becomes a symptom of the desire for recognition as a placed body. The thesis ends on a note of political possibility, figuring the uncanny as a rupture that evacuates language of signification and opens up space for a form of recognition without an over-determined identity.

This dissertation investigates factors that facilitate effective collaboration of networks functioning within the context of a federal homeless policy—the HEARTH Act of 2009. While the federal legislation encourages networked collaboration to address the incidence of homelessness, not all networks are effective in achieving their intended purpose. Using a nationwide sample of homeless networks, this research explores the role that nonprofit organizations play in the collaborative process and models the effect of individual leadership, nonprofit-led network, and community nonprofit capacity on two levels of network effectiveness—network and community—using multivariate regression modeling. Results indicate that nonprofits play a significant role as participants of the collaboration process and as leading agents of homeless networks. In addition, the variation in network effectiveness is explained by multidimensional factors.

In America today, many people have fallen into sub-standard housing situations. Domestic violence, drug abuse, and lack of educational and employment opportunities are a few of the myriad reasons for this. On average the number of homeless people in the greater Richmond area is 5,200 individuals.1 These are people specifically in need of a re-integration into society.This thesis examines the role that the built environment can play in this process, by providing a sustainable, affordable and flexible site for a program that encourages people to rise above their current state by "recycling" them into better more productive citizens. The intent of this design is to provide a program that will be flexible enough to become a prototype for future housing plans involving upward mobility.The existing structure lies in the Manchester district of Richmond, Va. This community is comprised of many gentrified warehouses and expensive artist lofts, skirted by poverty and the very compromised Blackwell neighborhood. Specifically this project will serve the needs of the Richmond, VA. Community. Richmond, like most American cities, houses simultaneously houses both affluence and poverty.

Degree work "The Possibilities of Work Rehabilitation For Homeless People Within the Area of the Capital City of Prague" brings forward a practical survey of possibilities of the work rehabilitation for this target group. The literary - survey part consists of a concise introduction into problems of the homelessness phenomenon, deals with the welfare state relationship towards the homeless people plus the relevant legislature and, last but not least, it mentions a list of services and organizations rendering help to homeless people. The most important part of the work focuses on personal investigation of work rehabilitation. It provides a detailed description of each organization and project rendering work rehabilitation with their final comparison based on information given to the author by experts working in these organizations.