Environment oncl Planning D: Society and Spnco, volumo 10, pngon MB-468 Home and homelessness in the United States: changing ideals and realities

Abstract, If meaningful change is to take place with regard to homelessness, future research must take on the difficult task of critically examining and evaluating the cultural ideal of home. For it is against that tnken-for-granted, progress-driven idealization that our definition and management of homeiessness begin. In this paper the historical contexts within which home and homeiessness have been defined in the United States arc traced, and the degree to which they are conceptually and functionally connected is shown, It is argued that we must examine the basic premises embedded in the home ideal, because this ideal is used as the standard against which homclcssness is observed and treated. At root, the home ideal is found to be exclusive, arbitrary, ambiguous, and open to manipulation. Hence, contemporary homelessness must be understood within the culturally guided and historically contingent contexts that home and homelessness have been defined in the United States. A steady stream of articles has appeared about the problem of homelessness in the United States over the last few years. There is as much disagreement about the size and common characteristics of the homeless population as there is controversy about the causes of and solutions to homelessness. In effect, the figures, facts, an