Political Participation of the Homeless

This paper was written for a class taught by Janet Key in the nonprofit administration program at the College of Charleston in December of 2012.

Political Participation of the Homeless

The plight of the homeless in the United States has been one of frustration and disenchantment and is largely characterized by dissociation of this community from the mainstream of society.  The various institutional structures that have been put into place to assist the homeless, including nonprofit organizations,  have brought about a myriad of  results.  Many of these outcomes have not been effective as solutions to the problems at hand.  Nonprofits involved with the homelessness debacle are continually frustrated and continue to be unable to arrive at satisfactory resolutions to these issues here in the United States, the wealthiest country in the world.

One of the primary conceptual difficulties of dealing with the homelessness problem lies in the apparent inability of experts and other interested parties to define the phenomenon with any level of confidence or satisfaction.  If the problem cannot be defined, it is difficult to determine a solution for lack of a satisfactory “starting point” for the complex sociological analysis needed to begin to unravel the causation components.  The situation is somewhat analogous to trying to effectively solve a quantitative mathematics problem without the necessary starting values of the variables in a given equation.  The mathematician in question might know something about the mechanics of the problem but be entirely unable to produce a satisfactory solution due to insufficient information.

Attempts to define homelessness have been made by scholars and organizations, including by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has identified four broad categories of homeless persons which may effectively encompass a large portion of this community: 1) those who live in places not meant for human habitation, 2) people who do not have a nighttime residence, 3) families or youth with unstable housing situations, 4) those who are fleeing the violent behavior of others that has been directed against them (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2012).  Yet even here we are delineating the visible results of the homelessness problem; our view of these situations does not include a core cause of the plight of the homeless and only lends itself to a partial illustration of all aspects of the problem.

Nevertheless, we can proceed with a tentative and non-empirical conception of what homelessness is based on the above HUD definitions.  Arising from the demarcation of these four groups are several possible avenues for analysis, including the explication of numerous political factors that are contributive to the condition of homelessness.  The politics surrounding the various actors in the homelessness milieu are a substantial piece of the puzzle that must be assembled in order to understand some of the quandary at hand.

Perhaps the most troubling of these political factors has to do with the “political will” of all the non-homeless actors visible in the homelessness panorama.  In other words, why, in a nation as wealthy as the United States of America, do the institutions, organizations, governments, and businesses of this country allow the problem to exist at all in any form?  Financial capital seems to be the key to solving a great deal of the homelessness problem, at least as it relates strictly to making housing and shelter available and usable to everyone who needs it.

Simply put, even though the amount of financial investment to simply put a roof over the head of each homeless person would be a minimal part of overall governmental outlay, politicians stay away from the issue of housing the homeless due to the powerlessness and political inertness of the affected population.  Politicians can avoid servicing the homeless population in general due to negligible electoral consequences stemming from this highly indigent and unregistered population, altering the political landscape substantially against the homeless.

Compassion is apparently eschewed in acts of apparently cold legislative fiat concurrent with a void of political services for the transient homeless population.  Although there may be occasional exceptions, the political world is largely inaccessible to homeless persons.  This, along with vacuum of accountability, leaves the homeless largely bereft of more powerful forms of political advocacy.

But the “shutting out” of the homeless from access to political power structures is not the only political issue at hand.  Even when an interest is taken by a politician in the homeless, usually the first instinct of the official is to “hand off” the problem to a much less well-funded nonprofit community (Daly, 1996, p.192).  Politicians may not be able to sell homelessness remedies to typical constituents who are in possession of housing (Daly, 1996, p.39).  These constituents may regard the housing situation of the homeless as being due to factors controllable by the homeless rather than being characterized by a victimology related to various social, financial, health, or other issues.  In this sense, the homeless are seen by many as being completely responsible for the genesis of their situation and should not receive a “bail-out” or other assistance (Wagner, 2012, p.17).  Indeed, in some jurisdictions, homelessness and concurrent activities were made increasingly illegal, particularly in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s in California and New York City. Adding insult to injury, the homeless were persecuted during this time period much as they have been, although sometimes intermittently, throughout the course of the modern era (Wagner, 2012, pp. 121-131). 

Since the expense of solving the salient housing issues involved with homelessness may not be an item which can be appended to the agenda of all of voting citizens and thus some politicians, the nonprofit community is largely left on its own to attempt to surmount the homelessness issue.  Public funding, particularly from local governments, is substantially less in this scenario than in a conceptualization of a predominantly civilly-funded and -administered solution, a circumstance which is not often if ever achieved in the United States.  Public and private donations to various forms of homeless care-providers have also substantially decreased during the economic downturn in the United States that began in 2008 and persists in some form at the time of the writing of this paper (Fang, 2009, p.18).

Faced with these substantial budget cuts, the economic downturn has reduced services in nearly all non-profit arenas, including among homeless care-providers.  As well, the downturn initialized in 2008 has increased demand for shelter and other services substantially as new homeless have been created by the shifting sands of the American financial system and the runaway malevolent effects of gross mismanagement of that system.  Already overworked nonprofits have had additional demands placed on them as a result of the recent financial chaos and struggle from a place of attempting to fulfill a mission largely abrogated by the government, which also has its financial difficulties at the risk of gross understatement.

 “Occupy Wall Street” and subsequent demonstrations have grown in part out of this dilemma (Ehrenreich, 2011).  Nearly every economic interest, including individuals and families, has been pushed further toward the margins, and some of these financial actors have been pushed into insolvency, which can cause an increase in the rate of homelessness in the general population.

Further dislocated from the assets that facilitate modern life, the homeless have become more distant from political loci of power.  As has been mentioned earlier in this paper, the homeless lack electoral voice in general.  The mechanisms for this disenfranchisement are often as simple as lacking a permanent address which to offer for voting registration.  While jurisdictions have increasingly allowed homeless shelter addresses to be used on government and other official documents, still there are barriers to registration and voting as simple as unavailable or limited transportation to government offices and polls, illiteracy affecting both the administrative prerequisites to voting, the actual casting of ballots, and the generally inferior state of health of the homeless decreasing their turnout on election days (Levinson, 2009, p.280). 

Actions of political parties and nonprofits have increased homeless participation in the voting process in recent years, particularly through the work of Democratic and liberal-leaning groups (Levinson, 2009, p. 309). Yet it is hard to imagine that the homeless population receives the same amount of political attention per capita as the suburban or wealthy urban populations do individually or through corporations.  The recent case of Citizens United vs. FEC  heard and ruled on by the US Supreme Court in 2010 strongly facilitates the virtually unlimited amount of wealth that can be poured into politics by those of means, effectively dwarfing the indigent person or the hourly worker and further entrenching a plutocracy that is strongly contrary to the interests of the homeless and their recovery from a highly disadvantaged situation. 

Other political difficulties that the homeless may experience include a considerably compromised ability to stand for office.  It is easily observable that campaign funds would not be easily forthcoming to someone without any geographical establishment whatsoever.  Equally daunting would be the production of a “political image” given cosmetic and nutritional constraints as well as the modification of personal physical appearance brought about by the continual stress of being homeless.  Over time, the often emaciated and disheveled appearance of the homeless would act against gaining political strength through image production, a crucial element for securing public office in the United States. 

The advancement of personal knowledge necessary to be a “political player” is also considerably more difficult without a base of operations or the funds to enable continued gathering of such information.  The homeless are frequently more educated and intelligent than the average citizen might think, but it is the compromised ability to accrue knowledge in the homeless condition due to critical distractions related to material state of being that would tend not to inform political ability and knowledge.

Other such political disadvantages exist, including proximity of the homeless to many of the illegal activities associated with “the street” disrupting any campaign or civic political efforts; difficulties of politically-oriented nonprofits in contacting homeless persons to develop their participation given the general lack of a location to solicit during the day; and the inability or difficulty in accessing the text of state and federal law and records of public and current affairs, except possibly in public libraries where the homeless may or may not be welcome.

This analysis of how politics affects the homeless and the nonprofits that attempt to benefit them cannot be completed in a paper of this length.  As long as individuals have political imperatives, they will be expressed, whether it be at the highest or lowest tiers of American society.  The issue becomes problematic when the nonprofits that attempt to facilitate the lives of the homeless are not financially or structurally empowered to bring realistic levels of political participation to the affected population.

Whatever a person’s plight might be in our society, the human voice should not be silenced by the circumstances of homelessness.  The interaction of the homeless with the political forces that affect them is a “two-way street”; the homeless should be empowered to affect the system so that structural changes can be made not only by institutions but also by homeless and formerly-homeless persons.  The real-life experience that potential leaders from the homeless population possess can be exploited to lead to better solutions to the homeless problem and to better ways for the homeless to interact politically with their environment.

The beginning of the preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America reads: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . .” (1787).  The inexorable conclusion of these statements is that the rights of a homeless person are identical to the rights of a person with a home.  There is no leeway to remove homeless persons from the political mainstream or for them to be treated differently politically due to plutocratic or elitist influences.  Principles of social justice must be applied to facilitate the constitutional equality of the homeless population to be in compliance with the bedrock of our public sphere, our remarkable constitution, without regard for their current circumstances.  The empowerment of the homeless toward political action will certainly speed the end to this great shame of our great nation.

The author is a former board member of two homeless shelters in the Charleston, South Carolina metropolitan area, the Good Neighbor Center and Palmetto House, serving in both capacities in the early and mid-1990's.