Survival Hospitality: An ethnographic study of

the relationship between homelessness and service

providers
Anthropology 317
Keenan Plate and Kathleen Lantto
Introduction Methods Findings
In its annual Homeless Point-in-Time Count & - Sites: Barriers for service providers
Survey Report, the City of Chicago counted - Franciscan Outreach Shelter Service providers, such as shelter employees,
5,889 people sleeping in shelters, on the street, - Pacific Garden Mission have a severe lack of funding which in turn
and on public transportation on the night of - StreetWise Headquarters exaggerates issues within agencies of having
January 26th 2016. In spite of a homeless - Streets of the Chicago Loop no substantial provider networks, having an
population numbering in the thousands, the City - Methods: overburdened staff, and a reliance on
of Chicago does not issue a comprehensive and - 40 hours of participant observation
- 18 interviews community derived resources. This then
tangible human services guide for homeless impacts the ways that people in need of
- 11 unstructured with people
people in the Chicago area. Our research will service can access these resources, and the
in shelters or on the streets
present results from a semester-long project - 7 semi-structured with quality of resources that can be provided.
that used ethnographic models to explore how providers
people experiencing homelessness seek access - Asset Map of social service Barriers for the homeless
StreetWise February 20 2017 Issue
to organizations that provide food, shelter, agencies and other similar The homeless face barriers to resources that
clothing, and other human services. Cities like resources on the Chicago North include a lack of comprehensive resource
Portland, Oregon, and Nashville, Tennessee have Side information, an inability to access preventive
combatted this lack of accessible information by Asset Map resources prior to becoming literally homeless,
developing pocket-sized resource booklets that and failing outreach programs. Other barriers
contain a comprehensive guide to the cities include systematic failings such as a poor
human service organizations. These booklets housing market in urban center like Chicago,
contain resources such as: medical care, legal segregation and disproportionate racial
care, employment services, shelters, soup representation in impoverished living
kitchens, and addiction recovery services. The conditions, and inadequate government
goals of this research were to better understand funding for social services and housing
Chicagos homeless population and to subsidies.
determine whether or not the city of Chicago
and its homeless population would benefit from Lack of comprehensive resource
a similar resource guide. information
We found that people in need of resources are
often unable to gain access to quality
Franciscan Outreach Shelter Pacific Garden Mission resources, on their own or through agencies
alike. Internet access is a requirement for
Defining Homelessness finding resources independently, and the
quantity of incomplete resource lists on the
In our research, we found some controversy in
internet are Limitations
hard to sift through.
the very definition of homeless. A widely
Individualcaseworkers take on the burden of
accepted distinction in the term homeless Chicago is a massive city with hundreds of
creating networks and referral lists on their
comes from Peter Rossi who proposed a social service providers. We did not have the
own, feeding into their own burnout as well as
definition that distinguished between the literally Discussion and Next Steps time or resources to conduct a thorough
the usage of incompleteresource
homeless and precariously homeless (1987). assessment of all Chicagos resource providers.
Literal homelessness or visible homeless is Recommendations Discussion Another limitation in our work is the small sub-
defined by those who have no access to set of homeless people we were able to
permanent conventional dwelling.. Precariously Push for preventative Establish social safety nets interview and observe. Our work focused on
homeless describes those with limited and measures Destigmatize of social services the reality of the literal homeless in small areas
temporary access to conventional living spaces, of Chicago.
such as those living with friends or family, or in StreetRoots
Outreach from providers Place greater emphasis on outreach
low-income temporary housing facilities. pocket-sized
Source: Rossi, Peter H., James D. Wright, Gene A. Fisher, and Georgianna Increase networking between booklet of
Causes of
Willis. "The Urban Homeless: Estimating Composition and Size." Science 235,
homelessne
providers Portland
no. 4794 (1987): 1336-341.
ss, list Directly-accessible Create comprehensive, physical social
taken from services and
information about resource guide resources.
Franciscan
Outreach resources Address failures of 3-1-1
Keenan Plate Kathleen Lantto Supervisor
Association
intake form.
Philosophy: Social Justice Anthropology BA Ruth Gomberg-Muoz
Emphasis Loyola University Chicago, Department of
Loyola University Chicago, 2017
2017 Anthropology
kplate@luc.edu klantto@luc.edu rgombergmunoz@luc.ed