Marginalization and the Homeless: A Prescriptive Analysis

Abstract

The author discusses marginality in relation to homelessness, emphasizing marginality's appearance as a psychosocial phenomenon which contributes to homelessness while facilitating the environmental forces responsible for it. After examining the marginality of homeless populations and reviewing relevant theory, the author explains how dichotomies arising from false distinctions between homeless and housed populations restrict a society's options in confronting homelessness by obscuring the forces that produce it. These dichotomies constitute a fundamental form of marginalization, a veritable social psychology, which results in the institutionalization of systemic forces. Though the role of the social psychology is recognized in some programs, there are as yet few programs for which this psychology is the explicit target. Based upon the theory elucidated herein, the author traces the implications of the social psychology of marginalization and makes substantive policy recommendations to counter it.