Pathways to homelessness, and attitudes toward night shelter use for homeless men in Denver, Colorado

Abstract

According to the literature there are typically personal causes to homelessness such as a mental illness or drug dependency; coupled with structural forces such as unemployment, or residential dislocation. During the 19 th and 20 th centuries, overnight shelters were constructed to house homeless citizens. These facilities were dirty and overcrowded, and they did not help the homeless to improve their lives. More recently researchers studied shelter usage and found that homeless individuals felt stigmatized by staff, and trapped by authoritarian rules. The first purpose of this study was to identify paths to homelessness for homeless men in metro Denver, Colorado. The second purpose was to ascertain why some homeless men have negative attitudes toward utilizing night shelters. In this ethnographic study, I conducted in-depth interviews and field research with 20 homeless men. This occurred at two homeless day shelters