Between Poverty and a Lifestyle: The Leisure Activities of Homeless People in Las Vegas

Abstract

Housed people judge homeless people, and in particular their leisure activities, as indicators of whether that person has chosen a “homeless lifestyle” and therefore deserves homelessness. To achieve a more complex understanding of contemporary homelessness, the author conducted ethnographic fieldwork over ten months in Las Vegas, Nevada, interviewing and participant observing dozens of homeless men and women, including observations of their leisure activities and “free time.” The author argues that homeless people’s pursuit of leisure activities helps explain the popularity of both Las Vegas as a destination for homeless people and why it is a difficult place for homeless people to end their poverty. A consideration of homeless people’s lifestyles in such a postmodern tourist environment also shows how such environments both sustain homeless people and produce homelessness.