Identifying the Precipitants of Homeless Protest Across 17

During the 1980s, homeless people formed social movement organizations and mobilized collective action events in cities across the U.S. From the vantage point of social movement theories and scholarship on homelessness, it is surprising that homeless protest was so prevalent in the 1980s. Yet we find evidence of homeless protest events across no fewer than 50 U.S. cities in the 1980-90 period. Drawing on social movement theories about the precipitants of mobilization, we examine the extent to which city-level contextual factors, and their change over time, affect variation in the frequency of homeless mobilization across 17 of these cities. Our findings reveal that a mix offactors congruent with strain and resource mobilization theories helps to account for variation in the frequency of homeless protest across U.S. cities in the 1980s. During the 1980s, many u.s. cities witnessed the rise of insurgency by homeless people who engaged in protest rallies, marches, housing takeovers, and encampments on government property to express their collectivegrievances about their dire situation. While many readers will recall national events-i-such as the "The research wassupported in part by a grantfrom theNationalScience Foundation (SES 9008809, David Snow, principalinvestigator). Thefirst draft of the article wasinitiatedwhile thefirst author was a fellow at the Centerfor AdvancedStudy in the Behavioral Sciences. We thank the centerfor the financial supportprovided by its general funds. We also thank Kelly Smith for her assistance in the initial coding of the data; Martha Burt of the Urban Institute for access to the institute's 1987nationaldata set on homelessness; David Meyer, Susan Olzak,and Su Yang for their incisive comments; and especially Susan G. Baker, who helpedassemble a portion of the data employed in this article and providedfeedback on its earlier drafts. Directcorrespondence to David A. Snow