GSU Library Research Guides: Hot Topics: Housing Crisis: Background Information

Homelessness Update

Mapping Homelessness: Visualizing Trends and Challenges
By Julia Park. This refreshed dataset provides essential insights into homelessness, helping communities and policymakers better understand and respond to the ever evolving challenges faced by homeless populations.

Background Information on Housing Insecurity

In the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing (2000), the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights describes the experience of homelessness as "not having stable, safe and adequate housing, nor the means and ability of obtaining it." However, definitions and terminology relating to the concept of housing instability vary by region, time, and discipline.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights also emphases that "reducing the matter to putting a roof over one’s head, would fail to take into account the loss of social connection — the feeling of 'belonging nowhere' — and the social exclusion experienced by persons living in homelessness."

In the Healthy People 2020 Social Determinants of Health archive, the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion states that housing instability "encompasses a number of challenges, such as having trouble paying rent, overcrowding, moving frequently, staying with relatives, or spending the bulk of household income on housing."

How do you define housing instability? And why?
What places, people, or policies impact/are impacted by housing instability?
How is housing instability addressed in and around Atlanta?

Homelessness and Housing Advocacy by Curtis Smith
- Explores the housing process through the direct experiences and perspectives of social service workers, including the barriers they confront and the creative workarounds and methods they employ to provide services to their clients. - Features the perspectives and accounts of direct-care providers working within the larger homeless services system in its exploration of street-level bureaucracy among homeless service providers. - Portrayal of "fitting stories" and the challenges imposed by SPDAT offer timely and vivid detail that capture the obstacles and workarounds navigated by case workers. - Coverage of the experiences of the unhoused being re-housed fills a gap by focusing on the perspective of case workers and direct-care providers, which should directly interest both students and social service providers.
Homeless Voices by Mary L. Schuster
Homeless Voices: Stigma, Space, and Social Media argues that the best sources for how to address issues of homelessness are people experiencing homelessness themselves, particularly as they express their experiences through personal blogs and memoirs. Mary L. Schuster discusses how space and land have been historically denied to marginalized communities who still feel the effects to this day, along with examining the conditions and limitations of common spaces often assigned to those experiencing homelessness, culminating in an analysis of how the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has impacted homelessness. Schuster focuses on two vulnerable groups that often experience homelessness: victims of domestic violence and unaccompanied youth, particularly those who struggle with gender identity and unstable housing. This book includes a variety of case studies, examining public meetings and court decisions, public policy symposiums, and personal interviews, and ultimately finds that intersectionality--specifically age, race, gender identity, and ethnicity--plays a large part in understanding and experiencing homelessness. By shifting our attention to the diverse voices who experience homelessness themselves, Schuster claims, we can finally begin to remedy this crisis. Scholars of media studies, sociology, and urban development will find this book particularly useful.

Documentaries

Docuseek This link opens in a new window
Provides access to over a thousand documentaries from renowned leaders in documentary film distribution.

Kanopy Streaming Video This link opens in a new window
Kanopy is an on-demand streaming video service for educational institutions that provides students and faculty access to a large collection of documentaries and independent films in a wide variety of subjects.