Homelessness and mortality

An extraordinary or unextraordinary phenomenon

Datos Bibliográficos

ID15082238
AutoresVickie Cooper (The Open University, autor de correspondencia), Daniel Mcculloch (0000-0003-0612-1455, The Open University)
Año2023
Volumen28
Número2
Páginas220-235
Fecha de publicación2023-04-03
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaMortality (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1357-6275 • E-ISSN: 1469-9885
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13576275.2023.2176214
OpenAlexW4320723780
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas23

In this article we explore the vicissitudes of extraordinariness in relation to homelessness and mortality in Britain. Death and its threat are a constant presence in the lives of people experiencing homelessness, but despite the established fact that homeless populations have a far lower life expectancy than the general population, mortality is rarely considered as part of the homelessness plight, nor is it fully acknowledged or understood in official spheres. This article explores the ways in which homelessness and mortality are constructed as an unpreventable phenomenon, not deserving of any meaningful political intervention. Drawing on the conceptual framework of ‘organised abandonment’, we argue that the invisibility of homeless people in death can be linked to their invisibility in life. In so doing, we underline the minimalist policy frameworks and the expansion of anti-homeless campaigns, which, to different extents, result in the exclusion of homeless individuals and families. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the risk of death affecting homeless groups was responded to as an extraordinary social and political problem, requiring maximum political intervention. While remaining cognisant of the limitations of the extraordinary homelessness and housing policy measures brought in during this time, we argue that there are key possibilities to be explored within those policy responses

Abandonment (legal · Criminology · Intervention (counseling · Invisibility · Life expectancy · Phenomenon · Political science · Politics · Population · Psychiatry · Sociology · Demography · Homelessness and Social Issues · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Psychology