FEATURES OF HOMELES DEVIANT CAREER

Abstract

In the last decade the research interest in problems and opportunities of social support of the homeless became topical. It relates to two key points. On the one hand, despite the development of assistance and support system for the homeless in Russia, expanding the range of social services for rehabilitation of this population group, the number of homeless people remains consistently high and causes a number of obvious and latent risks for the society in general. On the other hand, we are dealing with a new ideology of the welfare state that aimed at the recognition of the rights, interests, requirements of all social groups, regardless of their social status. Purpose. Analysis of the main stages of homeless deviant career, revealing mechanisms leading to homeless people social exclusion. Methods of the research are narrative interviews with homeless people held during 2014 in «Mercy bus» belonged to the Orthodox mercy service in the large industrial city of Russia. The choice of high-quality research strategy is determined by the purpose of the research and specific features of the object. The closeness of this social group does not involve large-scale sociological researches. At the same time, investigation of individual life trajectory for revealing the main stages of deviant career determines the selection of narrative interviews as a method of the research. Further to the research we used the method of incomplete sentences, which allows to fix the respondents’ ideas about their own situation, the emotional relation to themselves, to the society, past and future of the respondents. Results. In the research stages of deviant career were denoted. The start point of deviant career is violations in the process of primary socialization of a child, the origins of which are in the family. The family becomes an initiator of social exclusion, limiting child’s access to the social resources and reducing child’s opportunities of implementing his self-empowerment. An important stage of deviant career is person’s acquaintance with street subculture. The subculture of homeless people offers the person concrete mechanisms of survival in a deep crisis situation. This process is accompanied by the interiorization of new values and valuable orientations, updating of other needs. The further movement on the deviant career ladder is connected with the fact that a person starts testing subculture practices. Subculture of the homeless, according to our research, is characterized by uniformity and the scarcity of daily events with the absence of motivation on any changes in the structure or content of his life. Conclusion: deviant career of homeless people relates to their limited social resources and a number of social barriers that prevent them from social inclusion and returning to more favorable living conditions. Increasing the availability of public services and recruiting the help and support of non-profit organizations can significantly enhance the resources of homeless people and reduce their rates of deviant career. Knowledge of development mechanisms of deviant career increases the possibility of timely implementation of preventive and rehabilitation of social work with the homeless.