6.1.1 Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

1. Describe how houselessness is a social problem.
2. Describe how social stratification can help sociologists to explain the causes and consequences of housing instability.
3. Analyze how social location impacts houselessness.
4. Discuss how the sociological explanations of housing insecurity changed over time.
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of interdependent solutions to housing as a way of expanding social justice.

6.1.2 Chapter Overview

With deep gratitude for the Spring 2022 Sociology 206 students at Tillamook Bay Community College for your feedback on the draft of this chapter and holding space for its development. And to Kandi, for never giving up.
– Nora Karena

Figure 6.1. Every year over 4 million young people experience houselessness, like this youth who might be couch surfing. How does this make houselessness a social problem?

Kandi (her street name) was 12 the first time she ran away from home. She had read about running away in books like My Side of the Mountain. These stories were supposed to be cautionary tales, but they showed Kandi a path out of an abusive home. She just wanted out. Rather than stay in one place for very long, she hitchhiked cross-country. She spent a lot of time in truck stops and bars. She used a lot of drugs. Every once in a while she got arrested, and there were close calls with dangerous people. She experienced sexual harassment daily and was sexually assaulted and exploited many times.

As she got older and tougher, she learned how to make people respect her no and pay for her yes, at least most of the time. She got her first bartending job at the age of 15. It was easy to find work, but she never stayed anywhere for long. She told people that she chose “the road.” Given the options, it seemed like a rational choice.

People she met shared spare pieces of their lives. She encountered art, music, and big ideas. She went to a lot of parties and listened to many stories around many fires. Sometimes, she had fun—once she got picked up because a group of whitewater rafters needed one more person to paddle. She learned how to survive, but dreamed of more, and spent long hours constructing a better life in her imagination. Eventually, in fits and starts, she began to move towards a life that was safer and softer.

It took years to get stable, but eventually, in her 20s she landed in a small coastal town and fell in love. She stayed put long enough to find a chosen family and make a home. Home was hard for Kandi to hold on to, and she continued to experience housing insecurity into her 40s until she went back to school for a better-paying career. Kandi is in her 50s now, stable, and happy with her family and work. She knows how lucky she is.

Kandi is one of an estimated 26 million people in the United States who have been unhoused during their lifetimes (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine et al. 2018). While Kandi now maintains stable housing, an estimated 11.4 million people in the United States reported housing insecurity in the summer of 2021. People experience housing insecurity when they are behind on rent and/or likely to be evicted in the next month (Pagaduan 2021). If you want to learn more, please check out this chart of Homelessness Statistics by State .

Figure 6.2. Watch this 2-minute video about a comic book series Portland State University students created about their experiences of houselessness. Do these stories sound familiar? Transcript

Statistics about houselessness don’t tell the whole story, though. As a student, you may be housing insecure. You may know other students who couch surf, change addresses frequently or sleep in their cars. In 2022, the station KGW featured a student-created comic about unstable housing. As you watch Comic Book Profiles 10 Portland State University Students’ Struggles With Housing Instability [Video], please consider how housing instability has impacted these students.

Kandi, college students, and others experience the social problem of houselessness, the condition of not having a place to live. As the cost of housing increases and wages stay the same, more and more people find themselves losing their housing or at risk of losing their housing. Stable housing also becomes one of the factors that can help resolve some of the other social problems we discuss throughout this book.

In this chapter, we will define homelessness, houselessness, and housing insecurity and consider the individual and collective impacts of the current housing crisis. Then, we will apply an intersectional lens to discover how social location can increase risks for housing insecurity and houselessness. We will also consider older theories of houselessness that examine individuals’ characteristics to explain the problem. These theories don’t hold much explanatory value today, but we see these ideas arise in how we talk about problems of houselessness. Finally, we look at community-based interdependent solutions that create housing stability and social justice for people who need a home.

You may notice that we use the words houseless, unhoused, or housing insecure instead of homeless in most cases. As you’ll remember from Chapter 1, a characteristic of a social problem is that it is socially constructed. One way we can recognize that a social problem is socially constructed is because the language used to define a problem changes over time. Sociologists and community advocates currently prefer the terms houseless, unhoused, or housing insecure to define the social problem. This language helps emphasize structural problems that may cause someone to be without a home rather than the stigma associated with the word homeless.

6.1.3 Focusing Questions

As we explore what it means to have a stable home, the following questions will guide us:

1. How can we see houselessness as a social problem?
2. How does the sociological concept of social stratification help sociologists explain the causes and consequences of housing instability?
3. Who is likely to experience housing insecurity or houselessness, based on their social location?
4. How have sociological explanations of housing insecurity changed over time?
5. Which interdependent solutions to houselessness can create housing stability, a measure of social justice?

As you consider these questions, you might start by thinking about what home means to you. If you want to, you can compare your vision to those of the people in this video, What Does Home Mean to You? [Video].

There’s no place like home. Let’s find out more!

6.1.4 Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Overview and Learning Objectives

Open Content, Original

“Chapter Overview” by Nora Karena is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Open Content, Shared Previously

Figure 6.1. “Photo” by Rex Pickar is licensed under the Unsplash License.

All Rights Reserved Content

Figure 6.2. “Comic Book Profiles 10 Portland State University Students’ Struggles With Housing Instability [Video]” by Bryant Clerkley, KGW8 is licensed under the Standard YouTube License.