Homelessness, Rights, and the Delusions of Property

Abstract

Property, the legal relationship between persons in regard to valued resources, is of both analytical and ethical significance to many social issues. Yet homelessness is not often thought of in relation to property. As cities increasingly regulate the behavior of homeless people, such an analysis takes on a heightened urgency. The work of Jeremy Waldron is an important exception, however. He offers a geographically informed analysis that condemns the regulation of homeless people as a denial of fundamental liberal norms. I argue that his argument, though powerful and insightful, is flawed. Whereas it is helpful in making sense of the particular plight of the homeless in relation to dominant property relations, Waldron's treatment does not explain the ways in which homelessness itself may partly be produced, regulated, and legitimized through property. Put more simply, the predicament of the homeless, for Waldron, is that they are outside property; I suggest that their problem may be that they are utterly entangled within property. Waldron relies on a liberal geography of rights; I offer a more critical reading.