Presenter(s): Violet Fox
Faculty Mentor(s): Lamia Karim
Oral Session 1 SW
Why is there such an increase in homelessness, particularly among women, in the United States? I propose to study this phenomenon among homeless women in Eugene, OR. Recent scholarship and federal counts of homelessness show that the number of homeless people has been steadily increasing since the 1980s, with a sizable increase in women and their children. Research from Europe, Canada, and large U.S. cities show the insecurities that women face living on the streets are different than men’s and in the last 10-20 years frameworks have emerged to better understand their lives. Oregon, however, has one of the largest homeless counts in the country, currently ranking fourth in the nation but has little to no targeted qualitative or ethnographic research on women. Women’s unique social vulnerabilities and responsibilities make their experiences an important site of study in order to understand the causes of homelessness, as well as to offer pragmatic solutions. This is an urban anthropological research project that is composed of (a) archival research on public policy changes from 1980s onward in Eugene as well as existing relevant theoretical literature; (b) oral histories from 5 homeless women as to the causes and experiences of homelessness: and (c) interviews with the directors of three homeless shelters in the city of Eugene.
The objectives are to examine the causes of women’s homelessness in America, Oregon, and Eugene, as well as analyze and give voice to the gendered experiences and impacts of homelessness on women. My preliminary reading of the literature shows that women experience homelessness due to domestic violence, inability to pay medical and rental bills, and mental illness. However, there are also women who never expected to be homeless due to middle-class lifestyle that they lost unexpectedly.
My research will explore key reasons for homelessness in Eugene, OR as expressed by the interviewed women and shelter personnel, as well as compare how homeless women navigate between the unstructured street life and the highly structured shelter life, and if that is a handicap to their assimilation into the housed world. I have three current hypothesis; one is that the women will express feeling stifled by the restrictions and policing of shelter life, two is that the women will feel frustration at the absence of a transitional “wet shelter” in Eugene (as opposed to a dry shelter), and three that shelter personnel will confirm that women are an increasing demographic in Eugene, as well as the greater state of Oregon and country of America.