Blog Post

With an estimated 2.3-3.5 million people affected each year homelessness is a growing issue within our society. Homelessness is described as an individual who does not have a fixed, constant, and sufficient night-time residence. Homelessness has been an issue since the 1700s and has just gotten worse. The biggest debate about homelessness is whether it results from structural or individual factors. Interactionists and conflict-theorists cover why they believe it is structural or individual factors that cause the issue of homelessness.

Symbolic interactionists believe that the homeless population is ostracized from higher levels of society--which is any other level of society when compared to homelessness. This can come from the homeless feeling as though they are looked down upon, have different values, not wanting to be a charity case and many other things. However, ostracism comes from the upper-classes, for the majority of American's see the homeless as deviant or dysfunctional--which can be true--but is not true for a large number of homeless. Because the homeless population is often seen in a very negative light other issues are addressed from a symbolic interactionists view. One of the largest things that they focus on is that the homeless often have a very hard time getting out of homelessness, because they are unable to get jobs. This is because those hiring see the clothes the individual is wearing, their cleanliness, etc. and turns them down, even though the best way to change that situation is for a homeless individual to have a source of revenue. They also believe that just the belief in homeless communities that they will be unable to get a job, discourages many from even looking.

This makes it seem as though Symbolic Interactionists believe more in the individual view of homelessness in a way, which places more blame on the individual. For they are based in symbols and a homeless individual will find it much more difficult to be viewed in an equal light of any other class.

Conflict theorists definitely follow the structural view of homelessness. A conflict theorist would place the blame of homelessness on social classes of capitalistic nature, for they are oppressive to the homeless population who are unable to find a steady job or a constant address. Because employers often do not hire homeless individuals a conflict theorist would state that instead of rising up to try to fight the injustice--with almost no likelihood of winning when going against power--they instead continue to live their nomadic lives. One of the biggest issues that conflict theorists point out is that we live in a capitalistic society--homelessness is not the problem. And this type of society often leads to a much lower class such as the homeless population, because not everyone can have money.