****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
This is not only the best book on homelessness I have found, it is a highly creative and reflective piece of postmodern sociology.Clair and Wasserman’s highly original ethnography on the “street homeless”--defined as those who generally shirk shelters and homeless services for de-institutionalized life on the streets--goes beyond explaining homelessness to an examination of the deep ironies in our culture that both produce homelessness and criminalize the very phenomenon for which they are responsible.The authors’ core critique is that mainstream homelessness discussions become reductionistic when locating all under the same generic, individualized causes of addiction and mental illness. Their analysis is grounded in homeless people’s self-understanding and from there moves outward into critique of official definitions, causes, services and policies.Which way does cause and effect flow? Is homelessness caused by mental health issues or do mental health issues emerge through homelessness? Does alcoholism result in homelessness or does the boredom and depression of being homeless lead one to drink? Furthermore, do the homeless really drink more than the rest of us or are they simply perceived as such due to their constant relegation to public places? Are people homeless because they are lazy or because a capitalist economy based on unchecked competition for limited resources naturally disenfranchises a portion of the population?These lines of inquiry allows the authors to provide a highly successful upending of homelessness orthodoxy. They argue that most services available in the “continuum-of-care” model which emerged in the past thirty years are predicated on two presuppositions: 1) homelessness is a result of disease (either mental illness or addiction), and 2) the cause of homelessness rests primarily in the homeless individual’s personal deficiencies. Thus, if one desires to move off the streets, one must acquiesce to these assumptions. However, as the cause and effect critique demonstrates, this fails to serve many homeless for whom addiction, mental illness or personal shortcomings are not the primary roadblocks. The range of acceptable solutions are thus narrowed and exclusionary, reiterating the same oppressive elements of society that produce homelessness in the first place and neglecting the social structures that need the greatest degree of critique and transformation.Following Jacques Derrida and Paulo Freire, Clair and Wasserman argue that we must begin with the homeless not by seeking to end “it” with predetermined solutions based on the advice of “experts.” Rather, we begin by simply befriending the homeless and allow a plurality of approaches to emerge in dialogical communication which is honoring to the perspectives and wishes of the homeless themselves.The authors’ experiences led them to claim, “Those who are street homeless are not only on the margins of society but also on margins of homelessness” (54). Though homeless friends were my initial guides me into social issues, I have stepped back from these relationships over the past few years. Jaded by a lack of innovation and “effectiveness” in the field, I have placed my energies elsewhere. Clair and Wasserman re-stoked my passion and provided fresh lenses for contemplating the issue.
