Hemlöshet är ett mångfacetterat begrepp och socialt problem som funnits i århundraden, trots detta finns ingen samsyn kring fenomenets orsaker eller lösningar. Denna studie har ämnat bredda kunskapen kring konstruktioner av hemlöshet och särskilt inriktat sig på svenska statens syn på, och anspråk om, personer i hemlöshet och hemlöshet som socialt problem. I studien har en dokumentstudie utförts för insamling av empiriskt material och därefter har en kvalitativ textanalys genomförts. Med ett socialkonstruktionistiskt perspektiv och Losekes teori om anspråk har två utredningar som anses vara representativa för respektive tidsperiod analyserats. Dessa är SOU 1929:9 och SOU 2001:95. I analys av utredningarna framkom att hemlöshet har konstruerats på två olika sätt. I den tidigare utredningen anses personer i hemlöshet ha förorsakat sin egen situation och ses som ett problem som samhället lider av. I den senare utredningen ses personer i hemlöshet som offer för primärt strukturella omständigheter och förtjänta av samhällelig uppslutning för problemets lösning. Analysen resulterade även i att belysa hur anspråk formulerade om problemets orsaker var avgörande vid formuleringen för givna anspråk om problemets lösningar. Denna studie kan ses bidra till kunskapsutvecklingen om hemlöshet genom att belysa vikten av att inte glömma historien för att kunna utveckla det framtida sociala arbetet ytterligare.

Att utarbeta effektiva arbetssätt för att hjälpa människor ifrån hemlöshet är en angelägensamhällsfråga. Vår undersökning genomförs i samverkan med Socialförvaltningen i Uppsala kommun. I studien har vi intervjuat klienter och handläggare om deras upplevelser och syn på hur en boendekedja för klienter med missbruksproblematik fungerar. Resultatet av vår studie visar att boendekedjan förenklar arbetsprocessen med denna klientgrupp och leder till att fler klienter snabbare kan få ett bostadssocialt hyreskontrakt. Det framkommer också att det finns en diskrepans mellan hur handläggare och klienter uppfattar tydligheten i processen.

The aim of this thesis, which is based on one-year participant observation in Petřín (a public park in the centre of Prague), is to approach key processes for creating and maintenance of this space in symmetrical-anthropological way. The park is not consider to be mere static background for human interaction, but, reversely, hybrid dynamical process created through a wide actor-web of both material and immaterial matter. The park is not just a public, thus human, space but a space shared by a great variety of actors. Among this hybrid actors human is the one who holds the power over park management, who can include, or reversely, exclude chosen actors from participation and maintenance of this space. The author of this thesis tries to answer the question: What is the basis for this kind of decisions? Who shall be given the "right to Petřín"? From which power position? The author argues that these decisions are politicised in all cases because there is no possibility to describe the complicated reality of Petřín in exhaustive scientific way and make ever-lasting claims about it. For this reason, all those decisions originate in historically particular context. As a consequence of some actors exclusion there is a threat of dissolution of both cultural and biological diversity of this space. Key words:...

This phenomenological qualitative study explored the parenting role of nonresidential fathers of children living in shelters. Special attention was paid to the perceived contributions of these fathers to the overall health and general well-being of their children residing in shelters. Often separations of nonresidential fathers from their children in shelters decreased their contributions to their children's health and well-being. Increased knowledge of these parental roles and contributions can enhance programs and policies to support these fathers in improving the health and well-being of their children. In-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with 6 demographically diverse nonresidential fathers living in Philadelphia. The health-belief model, in conjunction with the revised health-belief model, was used as a theoretical framework for this study. The research questions were designed to explore nonresidential fathers' parenting roles, perceptions of their contributions, and the facilitators of and barriers to their parenting while their children resided in shelters. An inductive approach to data analysis informed study findings of nonresidential fathers' active participation and engagement in their children's lives, including involvement in their healthcare and health promotion. Perceived facilitators to their parenting role included internal and external motivators, whereas perceived challenges and barriers to their parenting role were externally based. Finally, study findings showed these fathers to be present and making significant contributions to the improved health and overall well-being of their children while they resided in homeless shelters.

The numbers of homeless adolescent mothers have been increasing over the past decade. Previous studies have focused on homeless individuals, but no studies examined late adolescent mothers' homelessness and pregnancy experiences while living in transitional housing. Using a phenomenological methodology, this study explored the lived experiences of 7 adolescent mothers, 18 to 24 years old, who were homeless, pregnant, and living in transitional housing. The social construction of reality theory provided the framework and interpretive lens for this study. Social networking and snowball sampling were used for participant recruitment. Through in-depth interviews, data coding and analyses were conducted to identify 6 major themes: (a) unknown risk and coping, (b) improved outcomes, (c) hopes, dreams, and goals, (d) rules, rules, and more rules, (e) strain, mental illness, and abuse, and (f) good and bad family relationships. Two primary public policy and social change themes were examined in depth: (a) improved outcomes and (b) hopes, dreams, and goals. These 2 key themes illustrated the importance of implementing sustainable social service public policy and the influence of transitional housing access on the lived experiences of adolescent mothers' homelessness and pregnancy. Southeastern Florida policymakers, in conjunction with public and private sector collaboration, can facilitate positive social change by creating and funding proactive and preventive initiatives to help reduce adolescent pregnancy, reduce homeless, and provide sustainable, skill-building transitional living centers.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Virtually every society can, at some point, be affected by homelessness. In recent years in the United States, homeless rates have hovered around three percent of the entire population. Although this marginalized population has been studied before, little is known regarding the possible characteristics that can keep an individual in homelessness or affect their living conditions while being homeless. This thesis provides an in-depth look at specific characteristics that could be factors in the length of the homeless experience, as well as how these same characteristics could impact the shelter status while an individual is homeless. The study reveals that homelessness in Indianapolis was mostly experienced by those who were male, African-American, and between the ages of 31-50. Furthermore, the majority were found to live in shelters and be homeless for twelve months or less.

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Meeting the healthcare needs of the homeless continues to be a significant challenge in the United States. Homeless individuals suffer a disproportionately high burden of both communicable and non-communicable diseases and are at increased risk of dying prematurely. Additionally, this population faces barriers to receiving healthcare that are less prevalent for non-homeless persons. These include difficulties physically accessing care, underinsurance, and highly comorbid mental health and substance use disorders, all of which contribute to nonadherence and loss to follow-up. As such, homeless individuals report unmet needs across multiple types of healthcare services. Homeless people’s perceptions and attitudes towards healthcare also affect their propensity to utilize services. As with all patients, homeless individuals articulate a desire for compassionate, person-centered care involving meaningful engagement and trust. Yet, this is often not the case. Stigma and perceived discrimination from healthcare providers on the basis of poverty, race, mental illness or substance use have made the homeless feel unwelcome in many healthcare settings. Homeless people often describe being treated less compassionately by providers, feeling invisible, dehumanized, or reduced to objects. Perceived prejudice may contribute to poorer adherence and more frequent utilization of acute care or emergency services compared to routine ambulatory care. In this thesis, I explore homeless individuals’ attitudes of trust or mistrust towards the healthcare system using qualitative methods. I interviewed participants who identified as homeless at Philadelphia FIGHT and Broad Street Ministry, two healthcare and social service organizations that serve the homeless community in Philadelphia. I conducted interviews using a semi-structured interview guide. Below, I discuss my rationale for doing this study, my study methods, and results through five participant narratives elucidating key themes that arose during interviews. In the last chapter, I discuss why these results matter and how they can be used to inform future practice and policy aimed at reducing healthcare disparities for the homeless. / Urban Bioethics

This project utilized an interdisciplinary approach to explore what harm and harm reduction meant during intersecting public health emergencies, the opioid crisis and the coronavirus pandemic. Using thematic and historical analysis, I analyzed interviews with frontline workers, news coverage, and municipal government documents to understand how people conceptualized the opioid crisis during coronavirus (and vice versa). On the whole, I found that harm reduction was a central aspect of the efforts against the opioid crisis in Hamilton. However, there were discrepancies in how it was practiced and understood. Generally, harm reduction was presented in municipal government documents as a medical intervention that involved, for example, the provision of new needles and naloxone kits to prevent disease and death. Such a practice was indeed important to address the unique harms at the intersection of COVID and the opioid crisis. However, to frontline workers and activists, harm reduction was a much broader term: it included services that were crucial to daily life, such as food and washrooms; the right to safe housing; and broader social and structural interventions, such as the decriminalization of opioid use. The context of the coronavirus pandemic, which exposed people who use opioids to unique harms, exacerbated the disparity between these definitions: harm reduction was simultaneously presented as a narrow, medical practice and a broad, political intervention. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Les personnes en situation d’itinérance (PSI) font face à plusieurs défis pour (sur)vivre dans l’espace public dont la judiciarisation, la criminalisation (Bellot et Sylvestre, 2017), les demandes de déplacements et la saisie de matériels (Herring, 2019) qui se manifestent aussi dans les espaces de soins (Dej, 2020). D’ailleurs, les intervenant.e.s de première ligne en itinérance opèrent avec des tensions complexes dans le cadre de leur travail, iels doivent assurer le bien-être de leurs usager.ère.s et répondre à des tâches de contrôle, en négociant leur mandat avec d’autres organisations telles que la police (Stuart, 2016). Les crises ont pour effet d’exacerber la discrétion individuelle des travailleur.euse.s en première ligne, soutenant les collaborations, mais aussi les résistances dans la rue (Brodkin, 2021). Au Québec, la gestion de la COVID-19 a été qualifiée de « punitive » (Fortin et al., 2022), visant démesurément les quartiers pauvres et racisés (Luscombe et McClelland, 2020a). Bien que le profilage social est largement documenté à Montréal, jusqu’à maintenant peu de connaissances ont été produites quant aux conséquences des crises sur les organisations participant à la gouvernance de l’itinérance. Les travailleur.euse.s de première ligne ont largement été mobilisé.e.s, toutefois, peu de recherches se sont penchées sur leurs rôles (Alcadipani et al., 2020). Suite à 42 entretiens réalisés avec des intervenant.e.s de première ligne en itinérance, j’ai utilisé la méthodologie de contre-histoire pour confronter une narrative-maître de collaboration. Les entretiens suggèrent que les intervenant.e.s ont plutôt chercher à limiter les interactions avec la police alors que différentes crises convergent et vulnérabilisent leurs usager.ères. Iels ont mis en place différentes stratégies pour limiter ces interactions et assurer le bien-être des PSI. Autant lorsqu’iels limitent les interactions que lorsqu’iels en viennent à collaborer avec la police, les intervenant.e.s font face à des dilemmes plus complexes qui engendrent des conséquences amplifiées sur leurs usager.ère.s. Ces résultats permettent de discuter des conséquences de la crise sur leurs pratiques d’intervention et du contexte dans lequel opère cette gouvernance de l’itinérance. / People experiencing homelessness (PEH) face many challenges including judicialization, criminalization (Bellot & Sylvestre, 2017), banishment and seizures (Herring, 2019) while they survive in the streets. Studies show they also experience this punitive governance in spaces of care (Dej, 2020). Frontline workers (FW) have to work with complex tensions in the context of their work, they have to insure wellbeing of PEH, while also negotiating tasks of control alongside police public forces (Stuart, 2016). Scholars that study disasters and crisis help us appreciate how such exceptional times can exacerbate discretion bringing both collaboration but also resistance in the streets (Brodkin, 2021). In Quebec, the resolution of the pandemic has been qualified as ’’punitive’’ (Fortin et al., 2022) while some scholars found disproportionate patterns of control in poor and racialized neighbourhoods (Luscombe & McClelland, 2020a). The social profiling and punitive control of PEH has been widely documented and studied in Montreal, yet little is known about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on key issues that matter to practitioners who have been widely mobilized (Alcadipani et al., 2020). Following 42 interviews realized with frontline workers in the homelessness sector, I used a counter-story methodology to challenge the master narrative of collaboration. Results suggest that FW rather limited their interactions with police officers in many amplified situations of overlapping crisis that marginalized their clients, bringing strategies to insure PEH wellbeing without relying on police interactions. Both, when they rely on or avoid police support, they faced more complex dilemmas that have amplified consequences for their clients. Finally, I discuss the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on their practices considering the context in which takes place homelessness governance.