‘I'm protective of this yard’: long-term homeless persons' construction of home place and workplace in a historical public space

Though research has examined the ways homeless persons work to be in public space, less research covers tying these ways to personal and social needs associated with home place and workplace. Additionally, scholars have given less attention to how central public spaces may not only be integral to long-term homeless persons' daily paths but also how they may be employed differently from marginal public spaces. In this article, I explain how long-term homeless persons attempted to make a historical-tourist public space, the Jackson Square area in New Orleans' French Quarter, personally and socially meaningful as home place and workplace. Drawing from participant observation and observation, I examine long-term homeless persons' attachment to Jackson Square. I argue that the Square's historical and tourist attraction status actually supported long-term homeless persons' desire and ability to occupy it in significant ways. This status along with long-term homeless persons' negotiating practices and inconsistent practices of authority and policing by those with (more) power made it possible for the Jackson Square area to become long-term homeless persons' home place and workplace.