homelessness

(noun)

The condition of a person or persons living without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are most often unable to acquire and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing.

Related Terms

Examples of homelessness in the following topics:

  • Homelessness

    • Homeless people are those who lack a regular, adequate residence.
    • Although most homeless people are single men, in tough economic times, families are at increased risk of homelessness due to unemployment.
    • In the United States, 23 percent of homeless people are families with children—the fastest growing segment of the homeless, due largely to the economic collapse in 2008.
    • Social stigma also contributes to homelessness.
    • Rather than stigmatizing or criminalizing homeless individuals, a long-term approach to combat homelessness must focus on meeting the needs of the homeless.

  • The Dynamics of Poverty

    • Finally, poverty increases the risk of homelessness.
    • People who are homeless or live in slums have low access to neighborhood resources, high status social contacts, or basic services such as a phone line.

  • Deviance and Social Stigma

    • Homeless people are regularly stigmatized by society for being unemployed while living in the streets.

  • Sociological Perspectives on Urban Life

    • Along with this expansion came many of the era's emerging social problems, ranging from issues of homelessness and poor living conditions to the low-wage and long-hour work periods that many European immigrants faced upon arrival in the city.
    • Subcultural theories popularized the idea that segments of society, such as gangs and homeless populations, had internal systems of value and order.

  • Poverty

    • People who are homeless, hungry, or ill without access to treatment are examples of people who do not have access to the material resources they need to survive.

  • Change in Household Size

    • This has played a role in the displacement of lower-income people who once lived in these properties; it has also been cited as a reason for the visible rise in homelessness across America since the early 1980s.

  • Stages of Socialization Throughout the Life Span

    • Context: In earlier periods, the socializee (the person being socialized) more clearly assumes the status of learner within the context of the initial setting (which may be a family of orientation, an orphanage, a period of homelessness, or any other initial social groups at the beginning of a child's life), the school (or other educational context), or the peer group.

  • Measuring Poverty

    • Someone living in economic poverty may be homeless; someone living in social poverty may be illiterate.

  • Theories of Deviance

    • ., a homeless person who is homeless more by choice than by force or circumstance or a commune established separately from dominant social norms)

  • Poverty

    • People who are homeless, hungry, or ill without access to treatment are examples of people who do not have access to the material resources they need to survive — they live in poverty as the term is used colloquially, and likely fall under formal income thresholds that designate individuals as officially poor.