Defining Home: Contextualizing the Spectrum of Homelessness using Literary and Geographic Analysis

Literature and public discourse often portray homelessness as a binary--either someone lives in a permanent home or they are on the street. As geographer Lois Takahashi notes, however, homelessness is a continuum of... [ view full abstract ]

Literature and public discourse often portray homelessness as a binary--either someone lives in a permanent home or they are on the street. As geographer Lois Takahashi notes, however, homelessness is a continuum of deprivation ranging from crowded tenement buildings or shelters to park benches. While Takahashi's conception of homelessness is more nuanced than previous research, it fails to define the gray area between homeless and homed. Through an analysis of memoirs, Willy Valutin's "The Motel Life," and children's picture books such as "Home" by Carson Ellis, I identify consistent societal narratives and categorizations of home and construct a Spectrum of Homelessness along three intersecting dimensions: physical, spatial, and social. Then, using information gathered from interviews conducted in Reno, Nevada, I demonstrate the utility of my model by applying it to a case study of residents living in Weekly Motels in Reno, Nevada. Residents of weekly motels illustrate how home as a concept varies over time, across space, and among race, gender, and class. This broader conception of home and homelessness offers geographers, literary critics, and individuals navigating conceptions and definitions of home a means of recognizing, distinguishing, and discussing differences in housing situations.