On a rainy summer afternoon a woman turns up on Bernadette's doorstep. Her long, floral dress and brown leather boots tell a story of illfittedness, of shifting in and out of places. Her baby-fine ginger hair spills around her shoulders, too slippery for knots. Her eyes are restless. Flighty like a sparrow. My name is Georgia, she says. I saw you in town and I knew it was you. Bernadette's solititude is punctured for good. Bernadette's sister Andrea sometimes wonders whether they've come from the same stable. Bernadette never had disconnection notices stuffed in her drawer, never spent a night passed out in someone's backyard, got sunburnt, lost track of time, ate so much that she felt like throwing up. There were cracks, no corners where damp was creeping up. But it also made her easy to be with. There were no surprises. And visiting her felt like coming home. Andrea has been singing at the top of her lungs for years and now her voice is hoarse. So she drops in on Bernadette and it's there that she meets Georgia. Shelter is a story about people taking cover from pain and the lengths that they go to, to protect themselves / Master of Arts (Hons) Communication and Media

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In recent years, cities worldwide have employed various tactics to control homeless people's use of urban space. Yet such measures never fully accomplish their goal, because homeless people develop ways to adapt the hostile landscape. In so doing, they not only respond to tactics of spatial control but they also create their own conceptions of urban space that serve to compensate for the structural systems that fail or even punish them. Thus, just as legal categories of property ownership leave homeless people without access to private spaces, they in turn create their own concepts of ownership and continually seek to privatize public space. Whereas legal restrictions are passed that criminalize homelessness in order to protect housed urban residents' "quality-of-life," homeless people develop tactics to protect themselves from the dangers of street life. Just as municipal authorities remove various amenities and add deterrents to try to prevent the use of certain locations, homeless people are attracted and repelled by features that are often beyond the control of authorities. While social services are relocated to encourage either spatial dispersion or concentration, homeless people build internal support networks that often serve their short-term needs better than social services. In short, homeless people not only respond to spatial control tactics in a variety of ways but also create their own landscape that often frustrates attempts to control their use of space. Drawing on interviews with 60 homeless people in Tucson, Arizona, this dissertation attempts to shed light on both these facets of street life, revealing that homeless people constantly strategize to find or make private, safe, functional, comfortable, and supportive places for themselves in a landscape designed to exclude them. Findings indicate that restrictive urban polices aimed at controlling the movements and actions of street people are not only ineffective but also exacerbate the problem of homelessness. These policies have the greatest impact on newly homeless individuals, pushing them toward existing street community in order to access vital information and support networks.

Among the negative societal consequences of homelessness, its potential environmental impacts are largely unconsidered. This study examines the impacts of trash and riparian zone alterations associated with a homeless population inhabiting the area surrounding the Guadalupe River in San Jose, California. Literature was reviewed to determine the environmental effects of elevated trash and sediment loads in rivers, estuaries, and the marine environment. Building upon existing trash assessment protocols, a methodology was developed to increase the accuracy of source identification. Sampling of four predetermined areas took place between November 2012 and May 2013. Results showed elevated volumes of trash and occurrences of anthropogenic alteration in the areas of the riparian zone most heavily used by the homeless population. Using existing research, inferences were made regarding the environmental effects of these disturbances. It is subsequently recommended that new mitigation measures be empirically evaluated, including long-term benefit-cost analyses regarding permanent housing of homeless populations.

Housing First is a psychiatric intervention model that addresses homelessness among people with mental illness. First adopted in New York City in the 1990s, the model has achieved the status of an international experiment. Most recently, the Mental Health Commission of Canada launched the At Home project as a pilot to test the effectiveness of ‘Housing First’ in five Canadian cities, including Winnipeg. The project was aimed at informing broader policy debates around homelessness, realizing its unique contextual dimensions in Canadian cities, including issues surrounding Aboriginality. Using the Winnipeg site as a case study, this thesis sought to examine the Aboriginal experience of the intervention. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with Aboriginal participants, key informants, and a focus group. After 2.5 years (average) stay in housing, interviewees reported a renewed sense of ontological security. However, the project’s dependence on private rental housing limited its creation of Aboriginal-specific therapeutic settings.

Housing First is a psychiatric intervention model that addresses homelessness among people with mental illness. First adopted in New York City in the 1990s, the model has achieved the status of an international experiment. Most recently, the Mental Health Commission of Canada launched the At Home project as a pilot to test the effectiveness of ‘Housing First’ in five Canadian cities, including Winnipeg. The project was aimed at informing broader policy debates around homelessness, realizing its unique contextual dimensions in Canadian cities, including issues surrounding Aboriginality. Using the Winnipeg site as a case study, this thesis sought to examine the Aboriginal experience of the intervention. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with Aboriginal participants, key informants, and a focus group. After 2.5 years (average) stay in housing, interviewees reported a renewed sense of ontological security. However, the project’s dependence on private rental housing limited its creation of Aboriginal-specific therapeutic settings.

Women who experience homelessness are faced with a myriad of challenges and struggles. Compared to women with housing, they endure higher than average rates of physical illness, mental health challenges, and substance use issues. They are often victims of physical and sexual violence and are subjected to daily experiences of deprivation, isolation, powerlessness, and marginalization. Given the immensity of these struggles, it is essential to better understand those aspects of their experiences and beliefs that promote endurance and resilience. Hope is readily acknowledged, across disciplines and across diverse populations, to be an experience that offers strength to individuals when faced with difficulty. It is understood to be a key component of well‐being and quality of life and has been shown to provide protection from despair, grief, and harmful behaviours. In this research, women who have recently experienced homelessness were asked to speak to their unique understanding of hope. The study participants were also asked to discuss what prevents and supports hope in their lives and finally, were requested to speak of how registered nurses foster or prevent hope. The approach used to guide this research was interpretive description. The use of this approach ensures that the generated knowledge not only addresses the study research questions but also that the data analysis is contextually placed within the clinical setting. This study involved interviews with nine women who had experienced homelessness within the preceding twelve months. Four major themes and multiple subthemes emerged through the process of analysis. Three major themes describe the complexity of living with hope for these women: ‘balancing on the edge’, ‘pushed to the edge’ and ‘pulled from the edge’. ‘Nursing on the edge’ captures the multiple understandings of how registered nurses impact the experiences of hope and hopelessness. Findings from this research explicate the unique struggles, strengths, capacities, values, and beliefs of women who are homeless. Furthermore, the findings shed light on the delicate balance of hope and how easily, often without thought and attention, registered nurses can upset this balance. These findings have implications for nursing practice and nursing education and provide considerations for policy development and future research. / Graduate / 0453 / 0569

Thesis (M.T.S.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 1988. / Vita. Bibliography: leaf 46.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in Geography. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 166-171). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR19639

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-210).