Preserving and Protecting Well-being among Homeless Men

Abstract

In this study, we began with Snow and Anderson’s insight that the physical deprivation and extreme poverty of homelessness not only have negative effects on the health and mortality of homeless people but also present challenges to their well-being. The data are derived from 287 men living in downtown Atlanta. Applying and extending identity theory, we found support for the expectation that positive identity meanings, even a stigmatized identity such as being a homeless person, may provide support for a more general sense of self-esteem. Furthermore, homeless people can negotiate the subjective importance they attribute to the identity (homeless identity centrality) and the situations and social setting in which they invoke the identity (homeless identity salience). Findings reveal that lower homeless identity centrality increased self-efficacy but not self-worth, and homeless identity salience did not influence either self-worth or self-efficacy. Our study supports and extends the emerging recognition that homeless people do not passively, inevitably, and uniformly accept a deprecated and devalued sense of self.