Constraining Responses to Homelessness: An Ethnographic Exploration of the Impact of Funding Concerns on Resistance

Despite a wealth of scholarly studies detailing the link between systemic inequality and increased homelessness in the United States during the past two decades, routine responses to homelessness by concerned agents within the homeless sheltering industry often do not adequately address systemic concerns. Instead, the focus remains on treating perceived disorders of homeless people themselves. Using information from three years of activist ethnographic research and ten years of working in homeless shelters, this article explores this dynamic through analyzing the role that funding plays in constraining how social actors in the homeless sheltering industry respond to and resist homelessness.