Presentation given by Maja Flåto and Katja Johannessen at a FEANTSA Research Conference on "Homelessness and Poverty", Paris, France, 2009

1. Costs and benefits of adapting to
homeless life.
Maja Flåto & Katja Johannessen
Norwegian institute for Urban and
Regional Research
Homelessness and Poverty, 18’th
September 2009.

2. Adapting to the changed
circumstances
• The informants in this study can be characterized
as both “houseless” and “roofless” according to
ETHOS’ definition.
• They are in the poorest part of the population,
and moves between the streets and public and
private shelters.
• A contention in this paper is that as homeless
persons spend more and more time in the streets
and shelters, their previous bonds with main
society becomes looser.

3. • The paper focus on three themes which
illustrates some of the changes that occur in
homeless persons lives regarding their
perception of
1. Social life
2. Economy
3. Time

4. Socio material structures 1
• Socio material structures are important
because they constitutes the space in which
homeless people live.
• Our informants moves between different
living arrangements.
Street life
Life in a shelter

5. Socio material structures 2
Street life
• Regulation of public space both deliberately
and unintentionally affects homeless people.
• Increased surveillance and control limits the
space in which homeless people can live.
• A struggle to find good places to sleep.
• Homeless persons move around the city to
avoid police and security guards.

6. Socio material structures 3
Shelter life
• Homeless persons can live in the shelter from a few
days to several years.
• The residents signs a contract when moving in to
the shelter, but can be evicted on one days notice.
• All of the residents have their own room with a key.
• Once a week the personnel does room checks to see
if the rooms looks okay.

7. Social networks 1
• Several social relations within the homeless
environment.
• Few social relations outside the homeless
environment, with exception of people
working in the homeless service provision.
• Short and intensive friendships

8. Social networks 2
• Informants speaks of “us” and “them”.
• Social networks and economy was closely related. It
was expected that goods were shared between
friends.
• Is there a difference between friendship and
partnership?
• What characterized all relations was lack of
confidence and continuous break ups.
• However, the informants relied on their social
networks to manage daily life.

9. Different economic strategies
• Few homeless persons manage to keep a day
job. Daily life in the streets or in a shelter is
not compatible with a regular job.
• Adapting to homeless life can involve
adaptation of new economic strategies within
the informal economy.
• The economic strategies fit the nomadic
lifestyle many homeless persons live.

10. Harvest economy 1
• Harvest economy is a concept used to describe the
economic strategies of homeless persons.
• Harvest economy is an informal economy and is
characterized by the short distance between
production and consumption. It is not common to
cultivate the resources, but use them as they exist.
• Within the harvest economy the participants moves
according to where the resources can be found.

11. Harvest economy 2
• When harvesting, hunting and gathering you need only one
thing and that is mobility.
• The informants move from place to place and shelter to
shelter, and every time they move they have to bring all of
their belongings with them. Thus when using the term
harvest economy to analyze the life of longtime homeless
people we see that most of their economic strategies evolve
around their nomadic lifestyle.
• This nomadic lifestyle also seemed to have an impact on
their social lives.

12. Harvest economy 3
• What maybe seems irrational in the formal
economy can be the most rational things to
do in the informal economy.
 Spending money at once
 Helping friends and aquaintances – but also
letting them down when necessary.
 Loan money

13. Time perception
• Harvest economy does not only affect how
economic strategies are made, it also affects
other parts of life such as the perception of
time and space.
Changing towards a cyclic perception of
time.
Fail to make long term plans
Perspective of the future fades

14. Concluding remarks
• By adapting to homeless life our informants manage
to get by on the streets and in shelters.
• The harvest economy and a cyclic perception of
time is a functional adaptation to the homeless way
of life.
• The paradox of this adaptation is that on the one
hand it makes life on the streets more manageable,
but on the other hand it contributes to a
continuation of life in a homeless situation.