I read two peer reviewed articles having to do with homelessness. The first one is titled Who’s Homeless and Whose Homeless by Ingrid Sahlin. This article is a report on research taken from Swedish Parliament transcripts containing mentions of homelessness and policy. Sahlin’s aim was to find a definition of which houseless populations were considered homeless and therefore Sweden’s responsibility, and which populations the government didn’t claim as theirs. She defines homeless as a person who is without a home, living in an emergency shelter, short term lodging, an institution, or in a “sublease contract with social services” (2020). Refugees and undocumented migrants are excluded from this definition, and therefore are not considered homeless and are not under the care of the Swedish government.
The conclusion found was that, for Swedish Parliament, “the term ‘our homeless often refers only to Swedish citizens…” (2020). Anyone who is houseless but without citizenship is seen as a possible threat to the economy, and to what is considered the “deserving poor” and homeless.
Sahlin’s research displays a clear association between homelessness and individual problems, such as mental health issues, drug abuse, and economic problems. This line of thought coincides with the research conducted by Vázquez et al. They performed a study questioning what attributes people believe to be likely causes of homelessness.
The study was performed in Madrid, Spain. These people were separated into two groups and were asked to complete a questionnaire on if they agreed or disagreed with a series of causes of homelessness, also known as causal attributes. One group was comprised of homeless people. The other group, called the domicile group, was made up of people “who had housing, were not using services designed for the homeless, and were not at risk of becoming homeless” (2018).
The causal attributes belong in three categories: individualistic, fatalistic, and societal (2018). Individualistic attributes are things like mental or physical illness, drug use, and being lazy. An example of a fatalistic attribute would be someone saying that they just have bad luck, or that it was fate that they ended up where they were. Societal attributes are outside an individual’s control, like economic crisis or being born into poverty.
The study found that both the homeless group and the domicile group agreed on similar reasons for homelessness. The consensus was that homelessness was most likely to have been the result of individualistic causes. The study also found that most viewed homeless people as “victims of circumstance”, seeing the negative individualistic attributes in a paternalistic light (2018).
While Sahlin and Vázquez et al both set out to discuss homelessness, they approached the topic from differing angles. Sahlin’s report showed how a societal entity view the homelessness, while the study in Madrid was done with individual people’s views in mind.
Sahlin, I. (2020). Who’s Homeless and Whose Homeless? Social Inclusion, 8(3), 43–53. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v8i3.2818.
Vázquez, J. J., Panadero, S., & Zúñiga, C. (2018). Attributions About Homelessness in Homeless and Domiciled People in Madrid, Spain: “Why Are They Homeless People?” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 88(2), 236–247. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000246.
