Against the wall: Homeless men in a New York City shelter.
Item
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Title
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Against the wall: Homeless men in a New York City shelter.
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Identifier
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AAI9630484
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identifier
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9630484
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Creator
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Lyles, Charles Frank.
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Contributor
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Adviser: William Kornblum
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Date
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1996
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, Criminology and Penology | Sociology, Public and Social Welfare | Sociology, Individual and Family Studies | Political Science, Public Administration
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Abstract
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Shelters are seen as a principal response of municipal agencies to the proliferation of homelessness throughout the United States. This ethnography presents observations from a two-year field study in the largest men's shelter in New York City. Interviews with focal leaders and notes from focus group discussions, anecdotes, statements from shelter inmates and staff, and illustrations of the social dynamics observed provide the portrait of how a shelter, contrary to its public mandate, provides a congregate home that exacerbates social distress by accommodating family disorganization, chronic unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse, HIV/AIDS, sex, recidivism, and continued criminal behavior.;Inmates are identified as "ex-prisoners" and "ex-workers." Positions in the shelter are based on imported status. Belongingness in the shelter is achieved by belonging to one of two status groups: the "hoodlum/gods" or the "regulars." Resistance to violence among these two status groups has not reduced assaults against the two smaller, lesser groups composed of homosexuals ("queens") or comparatively elderly inmates (the "pops"). The status groups and their activities persist in the process of prisonization-shelterization. Membership in the shelter cliques reverses some of the dislocations experienced in the larger community, and entraps people who have few options. More than 80 percent of the shelter inmates are ex-prisoners on parole, probation, or otherwise affiliated with the criminal justice system. Ex-workers who become shelterized increase their probability of ultimately entering prison, which is often perceived as providing more advantages than the shelter. The shelter provides some limited licit work opportunities, but only for those few who cooperate with the staff in achieving administrative objectives. For those who neither become "clients" or are not co-opted as institutional aides, the shelter erodes work values.;Recommendations for policy changes are made to help released prison inmates improve their limited options in a time of radically changing economic conditions, family deterioration, and widespread societal commitment to violence.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
