Elusive reconciliations: ideological conflict in youth homeless shelters

Abstract

This paper explores an important contradiction in the operation of youth homeless shelters: while employees may champion autonomy, stringent regulations constrict independence. Inherent in shelter life is a struggle between more symbolically powerful staff members, who exercise authority and judgment over residents in accordance with societal norms, and youth, who are compelled to feel at once independent and subject. Power differentials and the transmission of messages about worth, deservingness, and compliance should be scrutinized by shelter staff members and top leadership. Understanding how the most effective staff-resident collaboration can be initiated will require sincere consideration of the extent to which “necessary” limitations of personal liberty within an environment that pushes autonomy actually represent manifestations of symbolic processes of power.

Keywords:

• homeless shelters
• youth
• autonomy
• regulation
• ideological conflict

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Philippe Bourgois, my undergraduate advisor at the University of Pennsylvania, whose guidance, encouragement, and constructive criticism led to the completion of the thesis this paper is based on and to my betterment as a scholar; and to Ariel Smith for her technical, logistical, and moral support throughout my tenure as a student in the Department of Anthropology. I also wish to thank Anjali Fulambarker for her incredibly helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.