Homelessness - No where to go....

Homelessness is not, in general, a political movement; it is reasonable to assume that most of the actions of homeless people are simple strategies of survival (Cresswell, 1996)

As I walked down High Street in San Fernando, camera in hand, scouting for vagrants, an unprovoked, untidy and soiled vagrant suddenly attacked a vehicle driving down the street. The angry driver stopped his vehicle; the clearly unstable man violently charged the car and began kicking the driver’s car door, Jet Li style. Thank God that there were two armed police officers nearby, who intervened and saved the vagrants from being beaten by the driver and his companion. This scenario is not unusual to the country’s capital city and other urban areas. Luckily I was a safe distance away and quickly disappeared into my parent’s vehicle, unfortunately I was in too much shock to record it and much less take pictures. However, on Court Street, I managed to discretely capture this shot, without awaking the homeless man, in order to prevent provoking him. I saw many other homeless people that day, not as crazy as the first, instead begging on the sidewalks, lying in cardboard boxes and like this man in the picture lying calmly as if without a care in the world. As I see the sad and depressed looks on their faces, my heart went out to them and a feeling pity and despair overwhelmed me. I just wish I could give them all a home and a place to shelter, seek refuge and a feeling of a sense of security.

Housing is an important determinant of personal security, comfort, wealth and status and ownership of housing can also be important in structuring access to other scarce resources within the city such as employment opportunities, education and healthcare facilities. However, it is clear that the ability of people to secure a home in the city is highly unequal, with the problems of lack of access to adequate and affordable housing for many urban dwellers most starkly illustrated in the world’s biggest cities in the form of homeless people on the streets (Hall and Barrett 2012).

Globally, the scale of the problem is enormous with the United Nations estimating that over 100 million people lack any home (UN HABITAT 2003). The presence of homeless people on the streets of a city is a highly visible manifestation of housing affordability problems. Homelessness is an issue for cities of both the Global North and South; within cities of the Global South the presence of large numbers of homeless people on the streets has been an enduring concern, while in the Global North although numbers are lower they have increased significantly in recent years (Daly 2008; Pacione 2009). Broadly speaking the homeless are those who cannot afford shelter by themselves and most often consist of marginalized groups such as unemployed, recent migrants, substance abusers, mentally ill people, ethnic minorities, battered women, runaway youths and street children (Gottdiener and Budd 2005).

A photo I took of a vagrant ironically and smartly sitting at the entrance of Royal Bank of Canada on High Street San Fernando. Ironically because this man has no money while the bank is the epitome of capital and smartly since he knows that people will be exiting the bank with money and may have enough to spare him some. 

The causes of homelessness are as diverse as those people who are homeless and are the result of a combination of personal and structural factors. Key structural factors which have resulted in increased homelessness are global economic changes, leading to increased migration and unemployment, decline in welfare help as a result of rolling back the state and deindustrialization of groups such as the mentally ill, linked to welfare changes (Dear and Wolch 1987; Daly 2008). Attitudes to the presence of homeless populations is highly variable between city authorities, ranging from hostility and forced removal to more compassionate strategies of providing shelter and support. However, recent research into the nature of homelessness and homeless populations has stressed that the problem needs to be viewed through the eyes of the homeless, otherwise there is a concern that strategies in place will fail to meet the needs of homeless groups (Daly 2008; De Verteuil et al. 2009).

Hall, Tim, and Heather Barrett .2012 Urban Geography. London and New York: Routledge Publishing.

Here are some articles on

• Politicising vagrancy http://www.guardian.co.tt/businessguardian/2011/11/02/politicising-vagrancy
  
  Vagrancy is not suitable for a major city in our country which is focusing on rising through development. Hopefully it will soon be minimized since the Ministry of the People has introduced a programme to help these homeless people and re-integrate them into society. 

• Helping the Homeless - http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,131140.html
• Getting involved to help the homeless - http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Let_s_get_involved_to_help_the_homeless-183666651.html?m=y&smobile=y#

Here is a video entitled -Homelessness - No where to go........Food for thought...

See you soon!

Nirvana