Misrepresenting Homelessness, What You Need to Know Before Making A Judgement

The mainstream media (MSM) in the 1980’s saturated representations of the causes, culture, and ‘threats’ of homeless individuals and homelessness with stereotypes and stigmas. Not only did these stigmas attack the prevailing moral codes and ‘ways of life’ of Western society, they also masked the objective conditions and circumstances of homelessness by failing to address the systemic causes of the issue. Akin to today, the primary cause of homelessness in the 1980’s was a lack of affordable housing; further, large portions of the homeless population were in fact disadvantaged youth, or mothers with children; moreover, there were other causes of homelessness that were not monolithic, such as sexual or domestic abuse, depression and mental illness, and abandonment. However, hegemonic stereotypes of homelessness took precedence in the mass media, attacking ‘our’ ideas of morality and class for decades, leaving homeless individuals stigmatized, de-humanized, and alienated in social, economic, and political contexts. These stigmas, which exist today, stem from the mainstream media’s misrepresentation of homelessness in the 1980’s; this framing shifted public attitudes from sympathy to resentment, restricted social inclusion, and impacted policies that only pushed homeless individuals further into the margins.

With the rise of homelessness in the 1980’s, the press jumped on coverage of the issue, though not always in a fair or objective way; ‘the homeless’ “were portrayed as drunk, stoned, crazy, sick, and as drug abusers by the media…images [that] are indeed obstacles in better understanding the homeless” (Min and Fiske, 1). Though several causes to homelessness exist, such as the housing crisis;

“homelessness had been predominately explained at the causal level…as a function of individual deficit…as individual moral failings (alcoholism, dysfunctional personalities, gamblers)…[and] less about labour market restructuring, housing market changes…[instead], the emphasis is on individual change or adaptation to societal norms and priorities” (Horsell, 218).

In this sense, the mainstream media often carried out ‘blaming discourses’ portraying homeless individuals as irresponsible, lazy, and incapable of meeting the labour and education norms of Western capitalist society. This is evident in selective coverage by Pacific News Service in 1988, which focused on a car driving off as the driver rolls down the window, yelling at a homeless man saying: ‘get a job, will you!’ The clip was paired with a story on ‘welfare scrounging’, suggesting the cause of homelessness is laziness and exploiting the system (Horsell, 8). In this sense, in 1980’s MSM representations, the homeless’ were often not addressed individually but rather all framed as layabouts. With ‘the homeless’ framed as a monolithic person ‘simply too lazy to get a job like the rest of us’, the public was more likely to resent, rather than sympathize with these individuals.

Another misrepresented stigma of homelessness in the MSM was that all homeless individuals abused alcohol and substances and that it was ‘often’ the root of the problem. In a 1988 publicity campaign, former Mayor of New York Edward Koch stated: “Many people who panhandle don’t want to work for a living…because they are addicts, alcoholics, and con artists” (Guzewicz and Takooshian, 9). In turn, some of the public believed the cause of homelessness was simply laziness and substance abuse. However, the mainstream media seldom explored if homelessness was actually caused by drug and substance abuse or if it is simply an adverse effect or coping mechanism of living a challenging lifestyle:

“[Because] once a person becomes homeless…drug use may serve as a means of coping with a very challenging lifestyle…the presence of one may predispose an individual to the other” (Shelton, Taylor, Bonner, Van den Bree, 14)

Similar to laziness, the subjective linking of homeless to substance abuse further reinforced individualist blaming discourses, while failing to pursue an objective understanding of the systemic causes or circumstances of the issue itself. Furthermore, members of the public who accepted these misrepresentations true likely imposed resentment and stigma onto all homeless individuals, speaking out against them while walking by them in disgust; in effect, “negative stigmatizing evaluations [became] more salient…and homeless individuals may [have] to a certain extent…internalized those beliefs and more readily [applied] them to themselves” (Kidd, 297). In this sense, homeless individuals who may have once lived a drug free lifestyle may have taken up substance abuse simply because they framed as such by the media, and effectively treated as such by mass society. Further, increased substance abuse on the part of homeless individuals only increased public resentment rather than sympathy for individuals who, from a more objective view, may have never used abused drugs before they had to cope with an extremely difficult lifestyle.

The culture of homelessness is also misrepresented in the media; in contrast with Western societies’ ‘dominant’ culture, ripe with hegemonic middle to upper class distinctions of ‘cleanliness’, ‘morality’, and ‘hard work’, media portrayals of homeless culture in American media have long stressed laziness and unsanitary bodies (Guzewicz, Takooshian, 68). Further, the monolithic image of homeless culture was characterized by the bearded, ‘smelly’, and drunk male. However, these stigmas led to “many of us [lumping] all the homeless together in one single faceless category…when we [saw] them on TV or read about them in newspapers, the homeless [blurred] into a single group of needy, desperate people” (Guzewicz, Takooshian, 69). In February 1984 on ABC’s Good Morning America, President Ronald Reagan suggest the homeless were lazy and subject to their circumstances by choice, and Attorney General Edwin Meese III said, “[these] people go to soup kitchens because the food is free because that’s easier than paying for it” (Guzewicz and Takooshian, 69).

Coverage like this ultimately suggested that the culture of homelessness was characterized by lazy, freeloading men taking advantage of accommodations that ‘everyone else’ pays for. Further, a mainstream article released in the UK entitled ‘Beggars of Britain’, framed the culture of homeless as ripe with lazy beggars who “[stunk] of cheap lager, with snot on their chins and a mangy mutt on the end of a piece of string…[suggesting] we owe it to ourselves to walk past them” (Franklin, 6). In fact, this tells us less about homeless culture itself and more about our own ‘dominant culture’; it speaks to ‘the homeless’ as a product of human subjectivity, denying that the homeless population was made up of a broad range of people, even children. Mainstream coverage like this reinforced stereotypes and stigmas that pushed individuals affected by the issue further into the margins, generating public resentment and exclusion, rather than sympathy and social inclusion, and may have even prevented progressive change.

Homeless individuals were portrayed in 1980’s MSM as direct threats to the boundaries, norms, values, and especially safety of ‘dominant’ society; this led to enough public resentment to spur policy changes that further disenfranchised individuals affected by the issue; this coverage, which suggested homelessness as a threat was “at times…almost unrelievedly hostile” (Franklin, 107). Regarding the homeless as a financial threat, headlines in the 1980’s on Sun News such as “‘Fraud Busters make a dawn swoop on welfare scroungers’ transformed the social problem of unemployment into a public crisis [and] moral panic about welfare scroungers” (Franklin, 4). Regarding threats to safety, in 1988, The Times published a disingenuous story that read:

“Squatters arrogantly assumed the right to break in…live in our home with their dogs, to sleep in our beds in our sheets…to use our food…to steal $300 of antique furniture and above all to dispose of all ourtreasured possessions” (Franklin, 108)

However, not only was this house empty, awaiting sale, and left untarnished, but also when the police showed up the homeless individuals left politely and without hassle. The article is but one example of the power the MSM had on “permanently tarring squatters as politically motivated layabouts and misfits, who jumped local authority waiting lines, move into people’s homes when they were away on holiday, and vandalized the houses they occupied” (Franklin, 109). Shortly after, The Daily Telegraph reported: “innumerable houses up and down the country are now in illegal occupation by organized gangs of thugs [and] layabouts” (Franklin, 107). In effect, large portions of the American public likely considered all homeless individuals as direct threats to not only their way of life but also their safety. Therefore, all of ‘the homeless’ suddenly appeared deviant through framing alone, leading to public resentment that called for policy changes that further disenfranchised disadvantaged individuals rather than supporting them.

In the 1980s, “news media [were] increasingly becoming the most significant public forum for debates about social policy” (Franklin, 8); therefore, the framing of homelessness as a threat to the safety and norms of Western society may have impacted policy changes that pushed homeless individuals further into the margins. In 1988, The Daily Mail reported: “strong laws are needed to prevent these forces from undermining the democratic processes of our country” (Franklin, 108). These laws were to address “the crisis of aggressive beggars, winos and squeegee merchants’, [which were] reconstructed in media discourses into an alleged crisis posing both moral and financial threats to society” (Franklin, 3). This vilification led to policy changes such as “the U.S. Supreme Court…upholding a controversial law in 1990 New York City law forbidding poor people from panhandling in the city’s subways…the design of ‘bum proof’ benches, a lack of public lavatories, and sprinkler systems that [were] turned on to drench sleepers at random times during the night” (Franklin, 66–67). Evidently, threatening portrayals of homelessness in the MSM were powerful enough to cause resentment, which then called for policy changes that only further disenfranchised homeless individuals rather than providing actual solutions to the objective causes of the issue.

The primary cause of homelessness was (and is) objectively less about substance abuse and more about a lack of affordable housing. A survey conducted in U.S reported that homeless individuals received 40.9% of their money from employment (O’Toole, Gibbon, Seltzer, Hanusa, Fine, 207). In contrast with blaming discourses such as substance abuse and ‘laziness, changes in the housing market had a lot to do with the dramatic rise of homelessness in the United States after 1980 (O’Flaherty, 200). Transformations in North-American cities starting in the 1970s in tandem with decreased subsidies and tax-breaks for the private sector to invest in affordable housing meant that employment alone could not prevent a life on the street; this was evident in the dramatic rise of homeless shelters at the time. In contrast with mainstream representations, homelessness was caused by the economic marginalization and inequality faced by the lower class; the supposed ‘safety net’ implemented in the Reagan era actually led to shortfalls in housing, unemployment, and increased eviction rates for economically disadvantaged individuals (Guzewicz and Takooshian, 9). However, the MSM focused less (if at all) on the systemic cause of homelessness and rather attributed its causes to drug abuse and other blaming discourses that often follow (rather than precede) life on the streets. Therefore, the public was less likely to call for policy changes that addressed the root of the problem –if not simply because they were not aware of it. Though “many [viewed] poverty as an inevitable fact of life in capitalist society, homelessness [should have been] a non-so-inevitable crisis that [could have been] remedied by reforms in government policy” (Guzewicz and Takooshian, 77). However, since the MSM linked the cause of homelessness to drug and alcohol abuse and other stigmas like laziness, the public may have been unaware of (or inactive in fighting against) its primary cause.

Contrary to the stereotype of the lazy, bearded, drunk and drugged-up male, approximately 40% of homeless members are families (often single mothers) with children (Goodman, Messeri, O’Flaherty, 1). The result of housing, economic, and psychological crises were “school districts across the country reporting increases in the number of homeless students in the classroom” (Duffield, Lovell, 101). Aside from the housing crisis, ‘laziness’, poor skills, and drug abuse, there were (and are) several other factors that push families and children onto the street, such as domestic violence, sexual abuse, abandonment, and a general breakdown of the family structure. Some youth were even “ordered to leave home, ran away, were placed in foster care, or had a father that was incarcerated…neglect and adoption were also linked to homelessness (Shelton, Taylor, Bonner, Van den Bree, 13). Further, homeless youth were the most at risk for future homelessness and drug abuse, since “economic hardship in childhood, including homelessness, may perpetuate and heighten risk of homelessness later in life” (Shelton, Taylor, Bonner, Van den Bree, 14). Evidently, with the culture of homelessness characterized in the MSM by ‘laziness’ and ‘pathetic bearded men’ it was also misunderstood in the public consciousness. Though qualifications for cases of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ homelessness should not exist, it is possible that if the public understood the objective demographic of homelessness (as it pertained to a large influx of mothers and children), perhaps more sympathy would have been generated for the implementation of policies that supported vulnerable individuals who were at a greater risk of falling into traps of substance abuse and deviance; however, the MSM ensured that monolithic representations of homeless culture increased resentment and decreased the likelihood for positive policy change and social inclusion.

In the 1980’s, the MSM often misrepresented homelessness and homeless individuals as direct threats to moral codes. What was overlooked it that individuals who have encountered traumatic mental or physical debilitation find it difficult to conform’ to our ‘dominant norms and values’, as particular experiences put them at a much larger disadvantage and disenfranchisement than the vast majority of society. Compared to ‘the housed’, “the prevalence of mental disorders and depression is three to four times higher among the homeless population (Shelton, Taylor, Bonner, Van den Bree, 1). However, in the MSM, ‘the homeless’ were portrayed as individuals who used welfare money to abuse drugs; therefore they were considered as a moral and financial threat to society. In effect, many people who walked by a homeless individual likely stated something like this (which is by far, the most common ignorant statement regarding homelessness):

“I don’t see why the government has to take money out of my check every week to keep these people on welfare when they spend all their money on things they don’t need rather than on what they need” (Guzewicz and Takooshian, 77).

Because here, what is overlooked is that, more often than not, a traumatic mental or physical disability had crippled this individual before their reliance on substances. The misrepresentation of homelessness in the MSM as a moral and financial threat to society was spurred by an inability, even arrogance to understand, sympathize, and emphasize with mentally and physically disadvantaged individuals; MSM representations therefore prevented empathy, and lead towards public resentment –resentment that is at the heart of social exclusion the political marginalization that follows.

1980’s MSM representations of homelessness were heavily saturated with stigmas and stereotypes that masked the objective and factual conditions, causes, and circumstances of the issue. The most common cause of homelessness was (and remains to be) a lack of affordable housing and sexual and domestic abuse –not simply drug or alcohol abuse. Further, homeless culture cannot be defined by the monolithic representation of a bearded, drunk and substance-abusing male considering that a large portion of the homeless population consists of mothers with children and abandoned youth. Moreover, homeless individuals are often not a threat to ‘our way of life’ and may only appear disparate to ‘us’ because they are subject to difficult past and present circumstances that we know nothing about. 1980’s MSM representations led to resentment instead of sympathy and spurred negative policy changes. However, the next step is to recognize how and why these stigmas persist today; only then can we break out of the MSM mould that has continued to distort our understanding of the issue. In effect, this awareness may spur activism that fights for positive policy changes; though, this is only possible with sympathy –once we realize that had ‘we’ been subject to the same mental, physical, economic, social, and political disadvantages faced by homeless individuals, we too would likely find ourselves in similar circumstances.

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