Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Homelessness as lack of capability in an ecological systems framework
I started to think about CA from Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. I was reading an empirical paper comparing parenting practices of homeless mothers and housed mothers (Koblinsky, Morgan & Anderson, 1997 – cannot give a hyperlink, not open access!). It was a pretty dull, boring, and conventional paper, but I was struck by their comparisons of physical environment of these children (homeless shelter vs. home). The children of homeless mothers in shelters, compared to the housed, poor mothers, had significantly less resources for learning stimulation (i.e. fewer toys, chaotic environment noise etc.), also fewer resources for academic and language stimulation (i.e. books). This emphasis on the physical environment suggests a broader understanding of poverty – these families do not only lack housing (instrumental goods), but they also lack the resources associated with regular housing (substantive goods). For example, being housed may mean belonging to a certain community, and even having social support via neighbors. They also lack structure in home environment with toys and books for children. This makes me think there are levels of poverty – on one hand, families may be poor and inadequate resources, and housed, on another hand they may be unstable moving from one shelter to another. The key is, as Sen argues, they do not only have low levels of income, but they also suffer from social exclusion and deprivation. They are deprived in the sense that they do not have basic functionings – i.e. basic needs for learning, connecting and relating to others. For instance, a family in a homeless shelter lacks privacy in that context where the physical environment is shared by many families/adults. They are also isolated from society, almost become socially invisible by surviving in shelters, they are outside of our reach, and we do not interact with them in our daily lives. This makes me think that CA and provision of basic functionings are pretty much multilayered in the ecological contexts of the disadvantaged populations. In the macro level, the current social policy restricts shelter stays to 30 days at most, exacerbating the instability of the families. In the exolevel, the shelter staff is overinvolved in parenting practices of these women, taking it for granted that they ‘cannot’ parent adequately. In the mesolevel, the child-mom interaction is limited via other factors i.e. mom seeking a job and has many stressors to deal with on top of parenting. Taken together, the experience of the homeless child in the microsystem is lack of capabilities we observe, not only in physical environment, but also in educational, cognitive and social development.
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Gizem,
ReplyDeleteI was just about to post the beginnings of a general paper when I read the post and it really made me think. This idea of defining poverty more in terms of capabilities than a single attribute is really important, as well as the way we engage in interventions. As you say poverty and homelessness have different levels because being homeless in one circumstance, or not having a home, is very different from being homeless in another circumstance. A family with children that is homeless is a very different homeless than a family without children or a single person. How can we define them under a single category. The same is possibly true of youth. A youth who might have a family to go home to or a couch to sleep on is very different from a youth who does not have these types of failsafes.
It also made me think that so many of our interventions are instrumentally based, and as you said almost never substantively based - leading me to think that our definition of poverty is overly instrumentally based. We make the assumption that if we can just get the homeless person some type of housing, or if we can teach them certain types of skills, then their lives will be happier. But as you said people don't simply have homes to protect themselves from the elements (instrumentally based) - we have homes so we have some place safe to go to, a place where we feel belonging. Just like having a job allows you to be a full human being in your own right, having a home allows you also to be a full human being, to feel as if you have a sense of belonging in the world around you, to feel as if you earned a place to be in the world. This is going to sound way to abstract but I wonder if one of the substantive goods that comes from working, that comes from having a home is a capability for "Being in the World."
You cannot just give somebody housing, just like you cannot just give somebody money. There has to be a way to make it a home, a place for the person to Be and feel safe. How do you do this?
How can we develop effective interventions for the homeless people if poverty is more than just being housed, but also a deprivation from a healthy environment? This question was in my mind while writing this previous post and made me think that we only measuresoutcomes' on the individual (i.e. substance use), but we do not take into account the changes in one's ecology: Did we succeed to have them basic functionings? Do they develop relationships in their communities where they live? (or are they more alienated from the neighborhood becuase everybody know that came from shelter already?) Do they have toys, books, movies for their kids?
ReplyDeleteIt seems like the real challenge is to 'measure' substansive goods they acquire as part of the intervention. Another question becomes 'what happens to them when the therapy ends?.' Termination of therapy id determined by number of sessions and alleviation of presenting symptoms. But the symptoms we are measuring are very instrumental, they may be still socially deprived in their ecology...
We don't take nearly enough into account either how interventions impact capabilities and future functioning, but also the degree to which they limit freedoms. I think the idea that we take liberty completely away from those who are marginalized, even in policy efforts to help them, is really key. Then do these policy efforts make their lives better or make their lives worse. First we are saying achieve this attribute, which we have determined based on aggregate numbers is important for your well being, and you will be in a better condition based on this achievement. But how does this achievement impact other capabilities. For example if we get a homeless mother shelter, what is the ability for the mother to keep her child well fed with high nutritional value, affordable food in that neighborhood? What is the mortality within that neighborhood? Is there access to healthcare in that neighborhood. On a number of capabilities the mother may actually feel as if she is worse off. And if she fails she may feel ashamed which might impact her willingness to show herself in public. In the homeless youth project how often did we lose youth because they are ashamed because they did not live up to the promise of the interventions?
ReplyDeleteA second issue though is that interventions often times have a cost in terms of unfreedom. We will allow you to achieve on this one attribute if you give your freedom over to us. You must show up at appointed times, you must meet proconceived goals, you must parent in a certain way. Maybe the biggest unfreedom is a lack of information. To what extent does the intervention increase the marginalized person to information that they achieve on their own. Shouldn't an important part of any intervention be buying a person a laptop and broadband capability. You might laugh, but this is exactly what we do when we send college students out into the world on their own.
Regarding Michael's last paragraph -
ReplyDeleteI am unable to see how this problem can tangibly be tackled – how do you begin to provide an intervention, possibly instrumentally based and substantively based, without “preconceived goals” or the necessity of having a schedule? Reality for all of us is that we exist with some element of unfreedom – if I want to go to the dentist I must take off work (or class, etc.) because they are only open 9-5, Mon-Fri. How can you begin to address unfreedom without first acknowledging that it will never truly ‘disappear’?
Perhaps it could begin by leveling, or having some amount of honesty/humility/meekness to speak to those involved in the intervention as equals – acknowledging that despite being equals their current level of unfreedoms are currently greater than our own and opening up *dialogue* where the ‘researchers’ and ‘subjects’ make their agendas known, and work together to come to a reasonable approach to increasing freedoms? I have not yet finished Pedagogy of the Oppressed, but I think that the teaching philosophy (if that’s what it is) could impact our approach to moving CA into the understanding of human development, in this particular case homelessness.
I think part of, well I won't say our, but at least my problem, when approaching homeless youth, is that I am not being honest with them - when they say they are going to apply to CSCC, I say great, go for it... all the while thinking (without saying) that without stable housing, food, social/familial/romantic relationships, and income, at least a GED and a reading level over grade 10... his/her dreams of a college education are currently, and really forever, out of reach. Honest dialogue could produce tangible, reasonable goals, which could enable that same youth to eventually walk out of The Ohio State University as an alumni. I think that Friere's approach to dialogue could fit very well with Sen's understanding of increasing freedoms.