Space, Politics, and the Survival Strategies of the Homeless

Abstract

This article sheds conceptual and empirical light on the ways in which urban physical space and homelessness intersect by considering three focal questions: (a) What are the key spatial concepts necessary for understanding the relationship between urban space and homeless survival strategies and routines, (b) what are the central strategies used within communities to control the homeless spatially or ecologically, and (c) how do the homeless respond to these constraints and impositions? These questions are explored conceptually and empirically with data on spatial contestations drawn from the local newspapers of a southwestern city between 1992 and 1997. The findings illuminate the sociospatial dynamics of homelessness and underscore how a thoroughgoing understanding of the everyday routines and adaptive strategies of the homeless requires consideration of how different types of urban space affect the homeless and of the ways in which the homeless negotiate and respond to the spatial constraints with which they are confronted.