The production of homelessness: From individual failure to system inadequacies

Abstract

The paper is concerned with an exploration of images, definitions and debates about the nature of homelessness in capitalist societies, its causes and consequences. The paper begins by considering images of homelessness and whether homelessness is a private individual trouble or a public issue and the result of inadequacies not of individuals but of the housing system. The paper then reviews the debate over definitions of homelessness examining material from New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. The debate over definition demonstrates the necessity to reorganise research and analysis around a continuum of housing needs to place homelessness within a broader framework and prevent the marginalisation of the homeless both within society and within housing research. Further research should also examine the manner in which the homeless as a social group have been managed and therefore controlled. The paper then moves to a discussion of the characteristics and incidence of homelessness within the New Zealand population and shows how this group has emerged as a consequence of failures within the production, allocation and consumption of housing rather than as a result of individual inadequacies.