Ethnography Study: Personal Identities of Homeless People
This paper is an ethnographic study of the personal identities of people who are homeless and living in Chicago, Illinois. People who are homeless are portrayed in and thought of in negative light. Much too often do people group homeless people into one category in terms of judging their background before meeting them; their state of homelessness has been offered as informative of who they are. Their voices and perspectives rarely contribute to broader knowledge about who they are as people. As such, the forced ‘homeless identity’ has resulted in placing them as ‘different’ than the ‘normal’ people with homes.
An August 2014 analysis by Chicago Coalition for the Homeless estimates that 138,575 Chicagoans were homeless in the course of the 2013-14 school year. This is 19.4% more than the 116,042 people who were homeless a year earlier . With the recognition that homelessness is continuously increasing every year come important questions about how this happened, what could be done about it, and who are the people experiencing homelessness. This ethnography is concerned with this last question.
This thesis centers on the personal identities of people experiencing homelessness. I want to understand how they see themselves on an individual level. Identities matter. Identifying people on the basis of their homelessness influences how they are thought about, and thus responded to by policy makers, service providers and the public. Therefore, the primary aim of this study is to explore and understand the personal identities of people who are homeless. My intention was to hear and document how homeless people, which at times I refer to as research participants, describe their lives. I seek to understand how they see themselves. This includes learning about their aspirations, their worldviews, their values, and the aspects of life that are important to them. Despite the vast research literature about homelessness in the United States including that of Chicago, little attention has been paid exploring how people without homes perceive themselves.
The significance of this study, to understand personal identities, is based on the assumption that people experiencing homelessness are often misperceived. This misperception stems from most research being about the homeless, rather than hearing from people who experience homelessness and thus taking their perspectives seriously. The restrictions of literature and media portrayals of people without homes have imposed false and misleading identities upon the homeless. This study enabled people experiencing homelessness to speak for, and about, themselves. It is only through the open dialogue with homeless people that a true understanding may occur to aid in policy making decisions and services geared toward homelessness combatting efforts.
Over the course of four weeks I conducted interviews and observations of homeless people who used services provided by Franciscan House of Mary & Joseph on Chicago’s West Side. The 257 bed Franciscan House is an overnight facilities with showers and a kitchen. Guests are served supper when they arrive in the evening and breakfast in the morning before departing. There is a free medical clinic and scheduled visits by mental health workers as well. Being that the shelter is in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood and bordering East Garfield Park, the majority of its guests are African Americans. The shelter operates on a first-come, first-served basis, however I met a few regular guests who have been allowed to reserve a bed. In a given year, Franciscan House can provide 98,000 shelter nights, 200,000 meals and 40,000 showers to guests .
In this study, I used the ethnographic methods of participant observation and interviewing to obtain data. Participant observation involves the observation of people’s behaviors, mannerisms, interactions and relationships. I conducted 13 observations in total, but only 6 will be used for the purpose of the analysis due to the later discovery of reporting error. As I discovered, it is beneficial to not assume that a person is homeless based on their visit of a shelter. On day one of my visit to Franciscan House I observed a group of three people who I assumed were homeless. After approximately thirty minutes of observing and reporting their interactions and behaviors I decided to wrap up my findings and approach them to introduce myself. In doing so, I revealed that the married couple and their adult son had a nearby home in which they lived in, but due to recent financial hardship they used the kitchen provided services of the shelter to receive meals until they were able to increase their income. After briefly discussing the situation with one of the full-time staffers I discovered that it was not uncommon for people with homes to use the meal services provided by the shelter.
To initially be allowed access to the shelter for the purpose of this ethnography, I scheduled to volunteer at the Franciscan House during the evening meal service. I would report to the shelter every Monday evening in mid-October to mid-November. My visit was scheduled to end after meal service, however after realizing my observation error I asked the Program Assistant, Mrs. Ervin if I could be allowed into the dorm areas to observe and interview the actual homeless people. I was grateful that Mrs. Ervin would allow me an additional thirty minutes after supper each visit to gain access into the men’s dorm to yield accurate results in my reporting; I was not allowed into the women’s dorm.
In the three remaining visits I observed three participants and interviewed three participants; with interviewing predominately taking an unstructured form. Additionally, I created a questionnaire survey which I handed out to 30 people during the supper service. Questions on the survey asked included: are you homeless, do you have friends who are homeless, do you think you’re the same as other people who are homeless, do you think the way other people see you effects how you are treated, how do you think other people who are homeless see you, how do you think other people who are not homeless see you, how do you see yourself; to name but few. The questions on the survey had multiple choice answers and included positive, neutral, and negative responses. Out of the 30 surveys that I handed out, I received 24 back and out of those 21 answered that they were homeless. These 21 responses were used in the analysis along with the data collected from the observations and interviews.
I observed people who I both knew to be, and assumed to be, homeless at Franciscan House. While my initial observation focus was broad, in that I did not know in advance what information I needed, I did pay particular attention to observing people’s social interactions. Initially, observations were focused towards the social interactions between people who were homeless, however it quickly became apparent that social interactions between people who were homeless and those engaged in service delivery to them were especially important. I paid particular attention to observing how research participants’ behaviors and interactions changed in accordance with whom they were associating with and for what intention. This quickly became a focus area of mine which contributed to the analysis of the homeless people’s social identity.
The three interviews were audio recorded on my cellular phone which hung on my serving apron while I took short hand written notes on a detailed questionnaire printout. These interviews were relatively unstructured. I had several areas of discussion I was interested in having interview participants respond to, but I equally attempted to have them lead the interviews in aspects about their lives and beliefs important to them. I believe that an unstructured interview approach eased research participants’ engagement in the process and willingness to talk about themselves. Both methods, observations and interviews, were required of the project and provided an appropriate means to learn about how people interacted through observing and listening to them, and how they saw themselves through directly asking them. I acknowledge that due to the limitations of this mini-ethnography, I am unable to grasp the entirety of homeless peoples’ personal identity. Had I been able to observe people as they slept, ate breakfast, and had intimate discussions within a six month or longer period, I would have been better equipped to portray their identities on a larger scale. Since that was not the case the subsequent analysis is of the data I was able to acquire.
Through the data I collected I can concluded that life experiences prior to homelessness contributes the way in which a homeless person views themselves. Twenty-two out of the twenty-five respondents answered that their lives prior to homelessness were characterized by negative and traumatic experiences ranging from abandonment at birth to sexual assault in adolescence. When discussing negative life histories, respondents nearly always reported their experiences as children and adolescents. Sixteen out of the twenty-five explicitly stated that they had negative experiences of foster care and adoption. Only one respondent described his overall childhood as positive. Clarence whom I had the pleasure to meet and interview conveyed a feeling of not belonging as a child:
I’ve always felt out of place. And um, like I was fostered when I was very young. Like I didn’t know, but I always felt different. Like even before I knew that they wasn’t my family, I felt like I don’t know, like, left out or something. Then when I found out that I wasn’t theirs, it just confirmed that I was strange. ~Clarence
Negative family experiences were also common when interview participants commented on their own children or families as adults. Many people lost their children to child protection services, or their former partners. All interview participants were estranged from at least some of their significant family members. However only three spoke about the negative family experiences as immediately attributing to homelessness. Instead their experiences of what they deemed a dysfunctional family and the estrangement from their own children proved influential in the type of lives they wanted for their children:
I don’t want my kid turning out like me. Down on the street and shit. I’ll make sure my kids get a way more better life than what I ever had man. ~Devon
Devon’s remarks and others alike, are not only expressive of how their experiences have shaped their aspirations for their children, but also these comments suggest they perceived their experiences of homeless in negative ways and want better for their children. An overwhelming number of respondents reject the link that alcohol and illicit drug abuse lead to their homelessness; this offers insights into their views of individual responsibility. Instead like Clarence, a majority described lives where they had never, or rarely felt like they fitted in.
Additionally, I document how my respondents recognize that their current ways of living, their homelessness, were at odds with what they thought was ‘normal’ society. Nonetheless, they wanted a normal life and they perceive having a home and employment as normal. Seventy-two percent also expressed aligning themselves with mainstream society by entering the workforce, although many stated that their age or lack of experiences and education keep them from finding employment. When speaking about a ‘normal’ life, the respondents outlined a clear understandings of what constituted this life and society. Their experiences of homelessness were not expressed as a rejection of the mainstream. On the contrary, it was their experiences of homelessness that made ‘mainstream’ society look appealing.
All my interview and survey participants blame themselves for their homelessness. This self-blame, expressed as individual choices, and explains why people were able to say that they were choosing something that they did not like. They took responsibility for their actions which were primarily substance abuse.
Consistent with a desire to exit homelessness and live a ‘normal’ life was their self-perceptions and values. While they experienced the state of homelessness as making them feel inadequate, they felt like ‘ordinary’ people who held what they considered to be ‘mainstream’ values no different from mine or yours. I gained a small understanding of their values and how they thought about themselves through the interviews and casually conversing with them, and by listening in on their conversations during observations. With the three formal interviewers, I specifically asked questions such as: “Who are you as a person”? “What things are important to you”? All three of their responses to these questions clearly stressed how they were not only ordinary, but they would like others to see them in this ordinary light:
Easy going, helpful. I’m not a troublemaker, never have been, you know I’m not out to cause trouble or nothing. Just try to be normal and average I guess. But um, yeah just see me like everyone else yeah. ~Jordan
Just an average everyday person, that’s trying his best to get along with life. Um and to work his problems out the best way he can … yeah all I want in life is to be treated with respect like everyone else gets treated. ~Clarence
In addition to this emphasis on their ‘averageness’, people highlighted more positive aspects of themselves. In fact, in response to my direct question: “Can you tell me about what type of person you are”, all three interviewees and 23 of the 25 participants surveyed gave examples or listed attributes of their caring and generous side:
Yeah I think I am pretty caring, pretty caring giving, you know considerate to my fellow brother. ~Devon
I know I would be a good father and um… pretty compassionate person um. I will help anyone out, give anyone a hand. ~Clarence
I would say I believe, and I have been told by other people that, I’m a good person at heart, but I make a lot of stupid decisions … Yeah I’m a drug addict, but I see myself as a good person, I just do bad things, but not bad to people. ~Jordan
As the analysis exhibited, prior to homelessness people spoke about feeling alienated and disconnected from family and society. Homelessness in adulthood therefore, did not constitute a transformation in identity. Understanding personal identities, and why their present state of homelessness did not constitute a part of their identity required understanding the lives and indeed personal identities of research participants prior to homelessness. With the limited time that I spend observing and interacting with my research participants I was able to grasp that their personal identities are important to them.
Further to this, individual identities were expressed as ‘ordinary’ or ‘average’; ordinariness was explained as wanting to exit homelessness and participate in ‘mainstream’ society. Obtaining employment and housing is recognized as central to participating in the ‘mainstream’. Through the process of engaging with them in this ethnographic research, however, an appreciation of their commonalities was realized. People in this study were not only aware that how they lived was different, but they strongly argued that this difference did not characterize who they were. They saw themselves as ‘normal’ individuals in ways unrelated to the experiences of homelessness, but they held a view that their experiences of homelessness were far from ‘normal’.