discuss the notion that personal choices or behaviours lead to homelessness.

Drake and Murphy (2022, p. 244) write in Section 3 of Chapter 6 that ‘Injecting the idea of personal choice into the issue of homelessness means that those who are homeless are viewed as being solely responsible for their own circumstances’. Write down briefly why some policymakers might endorse the idea that homelessness is a personal choice.

Why is it so difficult to define homelessness? Jot down a few reasons in your own words.

What are some common causes of homelessness, and how do they intersect with human rights?

Results of this study demonstrate that homelessness, although an event, is also aprocess. It is gradual and entails a great deal of loss. The accoutrements (meaningfulwork, relationships, and a place to call one’s own) that are critical to helping indi-viduals define themselves are lost. Homelessness poses a threat to identity. Feltidentity, people’s own subjective perceptions of themselves, is important to thisstudy. Instead of the customary conception of the self as passive and dependent onreflective appraisals, the self is viewed as active and rooted in emotion.Homeless individuals feel devalued, and they cope with that by using otherrelations as negative comparisons. The notion of an identity hierarchy as a copingmechanism and a response to a threat, although it is not present in the theoretical lit-erature, is certainly found in this study. Goering, Paduchak, and Durbin (1990)found that homeless women revealed that they did not want to live with otherhomeless people. Participants in this study demonstrated a disavowal of self withstatements like, “It’s not like me,” and “I’m not like that.” They clearly disowned anegative identity. People make judgments of themselves. The homeless are viewedas being at the bottom of society. Homeless individuals interviewed in this studyput themselves at the top of the homeless strata. Others have found that, over time,people who are homeless make friends with others like them and come to accept ahomeless identity, that is, the general social identity of a street person (Snow &Anderson, 1993). The notion of an identity hierarchy would not be applicable in thiscase.The interview situation was an opportunity for self-reflection on the part of theinterviewees. It, in itself, is a hierarchical situation in which identity is beingrevealed. A high proportion of participants in our study had no one who was closeto them. The extent of their social isolation is important to understanding the inter-view and the presentation of self. We can learn more about the presence of self inthese kinds of interviews, particularly in the absence of close intimate networkswherein people would normally get feedback and affirmation.The importance of work and occupation to the interviewees must be recog-nized. The homeless individuals interviewed were less imbedded in the socialworld, so occupation becomes more important to them. For example, three partici-pants had been truck drivers, and each spoke at length about their work, specificallyabout their perception of being a productive member of society. Many talked aboutBoydell et al. / NARRATIVES OF IDENTITY35finding purpose in using their experiences in helping others in the future. Work wasused to address a past and future self as well as to understand the current devaluedself.With respect to the loss of self, Charmaz (1990, 1994) discusses the chronically illas being involuntarily dispossessed of former attributes and sentiments that com-prise one’s self-concept, and the actions and experiences on which they were based.Like those who are chronically ill, the former identities of those who are homelessbecome questioned, undermined, or negated. Anderson (1991), in her study ofimmigrant women with chronic illness, identifies a devalued self that arises notonly from the experience of chronic illness but also from the definition of self that isconstructed in dealing with the migration experience. Like those who are homeless,Anderson’s sample of women was dealing with social isolation and alienation.The reference to future self in this study is similar to Charmaz’s (1990) notion ofpreferred identities by people who are chronically ill. Their preferred identitiessymbolized assumptions, hopes, desires, and plans for a future currently unreal-ized: the person’s vision of a future self. The individuals in this study talked about afuture self who was involved in meaningful work and further strengthened by thehomeless experience. Breese and Feltey (1996) found that the future plans of theirsample of homeless women revolved around reentering the mainstream of largersociety.Very little research has been done that studies the strengths within the home-less population (Montgomery, 1994). One implication arising from this research isto encourage professionals to focus on the strengths of marginalized people. Thesense of hope and positive outlook regarding the future, expressed by many of thehomeless individuals in this study, suggest that early intervention to capture anduse this motivation to escape homelessness would be useful. Montgomery (1994)capitalizes on the strengths of homeless women and focuses on the sources of per-sonal strength demonstrated by these women. Thrasher and Mowbray (1995)assume that those who are homeless have problem-solving skills to begin with andthat they build on these skills and competencies. Sumerlin and Bundrick (1997)challenge researchers to identify the abilities of homeless people because they typi-cally concentrate on the disease aspects of the homeless, overlooking their assets.They also note that literature on the wellness of homeless people is largely absent.The notion of the identity hierarchy within homelessness requires furtherexploration. Although this identity hierarchy was evident in both the newly andchronically homeless in this study, other studies (see Snow & Anderson, 1993) havefound that, over time, some individuals come to accept a homeless identity. Futurestudies examining those who reject and accept homeless identities and why they doso are warranted

According to scholars, what is the best approach when dealing with homelessness?AManaging itBExploiting itCPreventing itDPolicing it