4, October 2002
1. BACKGROUND
This article examines the barriers that make homelessness dif cult to understand and
interpret. These barriers include de nition, meaning, sociocultural sphere, language and
labelling of homeless people.
Home and homelessness take on different meanings and understanding as one
moves from one culture to another. Major de nitional differences of homelessness
exist, not only between developing and industrialised nations, but also within these
broad categories themselves (Glasser, 1994). There have been several attempts at a
generic de nition of homelessness (i.e. inadequate shelter) and adequate shelter.
Like the term homelessness, adequate shelter is also dif cult to de ne. The Limuru
Declaration of 1987 (cited in Glasser, 1994) describes a basic standard shelter as
follows: Adequate, affordable shelter with basic services is a fundamental right of all
people. Governments should respect the right of all people to shelter, free from fear of
forced eviction or removal, or the threat of their home being demolished.
Another de nition is as follows: Adequate shelter includes not only protection from
the elements (intruders), but also sources of potable water in or close to the house,
provision for the removal of household and human liquid or solid wastes, site drainage,
emergency life-saving services and easy access to health care. In urban centres, a house
site within easy reach of social and economic opportunities is also an integral part of
an adequate shelter (Turner, 1988: 187).
The United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS, 1997: par. 60) de nes
adequate shelter as more than a roof over ones head. It means adequate privacy;
1
Associate Professor, Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of the Witwater-
srand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Absence of a stable residence, of a place A street sleeper or a mobile squatter without a house
where one can sleep and receive a meal (Abrams, 1966)
(Wolch et al, 1988) People without a roof over their heads, people with
Being without shelter, living in derelict insecure or impermanent tenures, households sharing
buildings, squatters, hostels (DOE, 1981). accommodatio n involuntarily (Bramley, 1988)
Exclusion from and non-affordability of Able-bodied and disabled beggars, those sleeping under
personal accommodatio n de ne the bridges, on pavement s or roadside kerbs, those who
condition of homelessnes s lack real homes, social lepers orphans, the destitute,
UNCHS (1996) classi es homelessnes s into mentally retarded or psychotic people (Labeodan, 1987,
four categories: roo essness, houselessness , 1989)
insecure accommodation , and inferior or Those who lack access to adequate personal
substandard housing accommodatio n and are unable to access and maintain
an adequate personal dwelling from their own
resources, and are unable to maintain personal
accommodatio n unless secured with community
care (Avramov, 1995)
Those who lack basic needs (safe water, sanitation),
those who lack real homes, those living in bad housing,
homeless immigrants, those sleeping on pavements,
sidewalks or kerbs, those who lack personal needs
(voice, expression, dignity, self-determination)
(Olufemi, 1997, 1998)
Street people who for any reason use the outdoors as a
place of abode for a lengthy period of time. The term
street includes all open spaces, riverbanks, etc.
(CMA, 1998)
Gurney (1990) sees a home as an ideological construct created from peoples emotion-
ally charged experiences of where they happen to live. The home cannot be adequately
understood in terms of taxonomic generalisations. He argues that even the homeless
have a home and declares that for single people living rough, the cultural milieu of life
on the street has become a means of rede ning home. Many street people do gain a
sense of home from being adopted by more experienced ones (Lonsdale, 1990), but this
does not mean that they have what they would call a real home.
This could also be argued further that one may have a real home and yet not feel at
458 O Olufemi
In relation to:
General Sense of
Key signi ers connotation security Self Others
home due to certain circumstances such as con icts or abuse. Home is not just a matter
of feelings and lived experience, but also of cognition and intellectual construction.
Verschure (1993: 1) notes: Not everyone has the same interpretation of what a home
or a house can be, whether that is by choice, by force or by lack of alternative. It is
exactly this interpretation, the degree to which people feel at home or homeless and the
way housing is felt to be supportive or oppressive in daily life, that constitutes a
housing problem in todays world. Muller (2000) asserts that home is what you
believe it to be.
Somerville (1992) identi es seven key signi ers, which are also corroborated by
Austerberry & Watson (1986):
In relation to:
General Sense of
Key signi ers connotation security Self Others
everyday living into the world, and focus on the way in which we grasp the
corresponding experiences. These experiences are what Husserl (1927, cited in Pickles,
1985: 95) calls phenomena.
Intentionality refers to this basic character of consciousness of always directing itself
to that which it is not. Thus, every experience of something is said to be intentionally
related to this something (Husserl, 1927, cited in Pickles, 1985: 96). In the everyday
world, which is pre-re ective, the homeless person understands himself as being
functionally related to his world. For each individual, the essence of consciousness lies
not in discovering reality, but in describing in personal terms what reality is, in the
mind of the individual, intended to be (Muller, 1993: 11).
Designation or reference refers to terminology or appellation within the context of
homelessness. The various terminologies re ect either the sympathetic acceptance or
unsympathetic rejection of the homeless people.
De nition or translation based on homeless peoples experiences could be interpreted
as perceptibility, appearance or visibility. Perceptual experience has been in uenced by
what should be, rather than what actually is. This has led phenomenologists to such
terms as pre-suppositionless or free from a priori judgement (Spiegelberg, 1975: 10),
meaning that when perceiving an object, our perception might be shaped by our
experience or by how the object is being perceived, but that it should not be distorted
by prior judgement.
Casual antecedents or consequences, the fourth pivotal sense when applied to the
homeless in South Africa, could be regarded as those factors that aggravate homeless-
ness. Olufemi (1997) has established that the causes of homelessness include poverty,
non-affordability of rent, unemployment, family disintegration, physical abuse, lack of
skills, no or partial education, violence, and the residential segregation policy of the
apartheid government. The latter policies include the Group Areas Act and the In ux
Control Act, which restricted people to locations and townships. All these, in agree-
ment with Bassuk (1984), constitute a series of crises in the homeless persons life and
one of the consequences thereof is lack of decent shelter or a proper roof over the
persons head.
Meaning, according to Francescato (1993: 36), signals the intention to approach
housing from a communicative angle. In human terms, the goal of communication is
not merely the transmission of information, but also the interpretation of information
and the elucidation of its meaning. In turn, interpretation implies a hermeneutic
viewpoint, an acceptance of diversity of meanings, and this is indicated in homeless
peoples perception of and the meaning they give to their home and homelessness.
She is a sickly old woman and this is obvious in her appearance. She
reiterated that life on the streets is no life at all. She has been able to get
a blanket through Operation Snowball.
Siphiwe says people are of the opinion that she is a lunatic, and she resents this. This
highlights the unsympathetic view of others that acts as a negative barrier, obscuring
any intervention of homelessness problem. Living amid cardboard boxes is home to
Siphiwe she has a home but she is still homeless by virtue of the de nition and
meaning of adequate housing. Siphiwes abode lacks privacy and safety; it is cold,
heartless and rootless, but she still guards her territory jealously. This further reveals
the multidimensional complexity of the meaning of home and homelessness
(Somerville, 1992).
The homeless people in the focus group discussion (Olufemi, 1997) perceived a house
to be:
Prison
Permanent structure
Place where you are sheltered from rain, rodents and insecurity
Four-walled building with rooms, toilet, bath and kitchen
Place where you cannot be harassed
Safety and security are paramount in the interpretation of house by homeless people.
For example, house as a prison for a homeless person means that in a house with
electronic gates, burglarproof doors and windows, a security and alarm system and
surveillance gadgets, it is like being locked up in a prison. This, to a homeless person,
perpetrates lack of freedom, as they do not want to be con ned to a bounded space.
This is corroborated by Lenz-Romeiss (1973: 18): Home falls under area (a de ned
space), place of abode, belonging, contentment, public spirit, heaven and freedom,
while the opposite of home is expulsion, debility and poverty.
(1992: 133) suggests that our societies engage in destructive patterns of symbolising
homelessness.
5. CONCLUSION
There are many similarities between the conventional meaning of homelessness and the
experiential interpretation of it by the homeless street people.
The way the homeless feel at home/homeless and their interpretation of adequate/inad-
equate housing also corroborate the conventional meaning of an inadequate/adequate
house. Planners must understand the background and perception of both the homeless
who are giving the interpretation and the object (homelessness) that is under interpret-
ation.
To break down these barriers, it is imperative to reintegrate the homeless into society
and reverse the negative connotations, labelling and stigmatising. On one hand,
contextualising home and homelessness within the framework of poverty, depri-
vation, exclusion and HIV/Aids could assist in reintegrating the homeless. On the other
hand, reintegration could be achieved through effective communication, education and
awareness. For example, radio and television jingles, advertisements, handbills, com-
munication networks among the homeless communities, drama, and others would all
heighten the awareness of both society and the homeless people themselves.
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Barriers disconnecting homeless people and interpretation of homelessness 465