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Homelessness is a global challenge.

The United Nations Human Settlements Program estimates that 1.1 billion people live in inadequate housing, and the best data available suggest that more than 100 million people have no housing at all.

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An Overview of Global Homelessness and Strategies for Systemic Change

Katherine Johnson

Mark McGreevy

Molly Seeley

Homelessness is a problem that can be solved with the right mix of program interventions, well-coordinated local systems, and effective policy. We know homelessness can be ended because there are cities that have ended it. Others have seen meaningful reductions in homelessness among certain targeted populations, such as chronically homeless individuals or veterans. In broad terms, the processes and interventions required to...

Childhood Background of Homelessness in a Chilean Urban Center

A random sample of homeless individuals (106 men and 106 women) residing in a shelter were interviewed using an interview schedule developed for this study. The main objectives were to study the sociodemographic characteristics and childhood history in an urban homeless population in a developing country (Santiago, Chile). The most salient finding is the high frequency of parent-child separation and placement with substitute...

A Global Framework for Understanding and Measuring Homelessness

Volker Busch-Geertsemaa

Dennis Culhane

Suzanne Fitzpatrick

There is no globally agreed definition of homelessness. Even within countries, the topic can be contentious. At the same time, we know we can’t measure and solve a problem we can’t define, so in 2015 IGH made developing shared language on homelessness a top priority. The result of this project is the IGH Framework, the product of collaboration from researchers, policy experts and on-the-ground leaders in six continents. While...

Personality Disorders in Brazilian Homeless Compared with Non-Psychiatric and Psychiatric Patients

Daniel Bartholomeu

José M. Montiel

Geraldo A. Fiamenghi Jr.

Lucas F. Carvalho

Mara Rubia C. A. Orsini

Cecilia R. Ribeiro

Personality disorders are regarded as conditions that involve a maladaptive personality functioning. Homelessness is a worldly debated phenomenon. The present study aimed to understand the situation of homelessness related to the health sector, instead of considering it only as a social or economic problem. Research was conducted with three different groups, male and female, living in a Metropolitan area of Southeast Brazil.

Litigating the Rights of Street Children in Regional or International Fora: Trends, Options, Barriers and Breakthroughs

Uché U. Ewelukwa

This article focuses on the fate of street children and interactions between street children and international law and international institutions. The landmark November 1999 decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Villagrdn Morales v. Guatemala, provides the basis for this article. Villagrdn Morales was the very first case in the history of the Inter-American Court where the victims of human rights violations...

The Concertación and Homelessness in Chile Market-based Housing Policies and Limited Popular Participation

S¸. I. lgü Özler

Housing has been a persistent problem in Chile. Concertación governments have sought to address the housing problem through a continuation of the neoliberal policies established by the dictatorship under Pinochet, emphasizing housing as commodity rather than a right. A study of housing policies under the Concertación reveals improvements in the quantitative supply with increased spending. Yet these neoliberal housing programs...

Health social inequality of the homeless in the city of São Paulo

Rita Barradas Barata

Nivaldo Carneiro Junior

Manoel Carlos Sampaio de Almeida Ribeiro

Cássio Silveira

To describe the sociodemographic characteristics, health status and access to services of the population living on the streets in a sample obtained from three homeless shelters in the downtown area of Sao Paulo. The sample included 251 subjects: 171 males, 78 females and 2 people who reported themselves as transgender. A structured questionnaire was applied about: sociodemographic characteristics, time on the street, physical...

The Militarization of Urban Marginality: Lessons from the Brazilian Metropolis

Loı¨c Wacquant

This article examines the workings and effects of the penalization of poverty in urban Brazil at century’s turn to uncover the deep logic of punitive containment as state strategy for the management of dispossessed and dishonored populations in the polarizing city in the age of triumphant neoliberalism. It shows how ramifying criminal violence (fed by extreme inequality and mass poverty), class and color discrimination in...

Children Living on the Streets of Brazil: Drug Use, Crime, Violence, and HIV Risks

James A. Inciardi and Hilary L. Surratt

The presence of vast numbers of unsupervised and unprotected children is a phenomenon that is common throughout Latin America, and in few places are the street children more visible, and reviled, than in Brazil. Accounts of drug abuse among street youths in Brazil are commonplace. Numerous scientific studies and media stories have reported the widespread use of inhalants, marijuana and cocaine, and Valium among street...

Personality Disorders in Brazilian Homeless Compared with Non-Psychiatric and Psychiatric Patients

Daniel Bartholomeu

José M. Montiel

Geraldo A. Fiamenghi Jr.

Lucas F. Carvalho

Mara Rubia C. A. Orsini

Cecilia R. Ribeiro

Violence in the lives of homeless women in the city of São Paulo, Brazil

Anderson da Silva Rosa

Ana Cristina Passarella Brêtas

This survey aimed to bring out reflections regarding situations of violence in the lives of women who were living on the streets in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. During the fieldwork, the researcher interacted with about 100 homeless women and recorded perceptions in a field diary. We gathered from the results that these women’s homeless condition was related to violence suffered within the domestic and family context,...

Gender, violence and being homeless: the experience of women and high risk drug use

Márcia Rebeca Rocha de Souzaa

Jeane Freitas de Oliveira

Mariana Cavalcante Guedes Chagasa

Evanilda Souza de Santana Carvalho

The care directed to people who have problems with drug use is provided, for the most serious cases, at the Psychosocial Care Center for alcohol and other drugs (CAPSad), an extra-hospital device offered by the secondary sector, where cases receive multiprofessional attention to ensure comprehensive care, which must be expressed through a wide range complex treatment plan. The insertion of nurses in substitutive services has...

Temporary housing as a mental health intervention for the needs of children and adolescents users of alcohol and other drugs: Hybridity between care and protection

Adriano de Oliveira

Maria-Cristina G Vicentin

This article discusses temporary housing for children and adolescents as a modality of health care. Using the framework of French Institutional Analysis, the research was based on interviews with practitioners, participant observation and analysis of individual records so as to understand the trajectory of the cases and the implications of the temporary and volunteer nature of this service. The hybridity of this home and its...

For a proper home: housing rights in the margins of urban Chile, 1960–2010

Heidi Tinsman

Edward Murphy renders a smart and well-written history of the politics of urban housing in Chile, primarily the capital city of Santiago. For a Proper Home: Housing Rights in the Margins of Urban Chile, 1960–2010 focuses on the interaction of social movements for improved housing and government responses to those pressures during and after the Cold War. Yet the arch of Murphy’s argument spans the entire twentieth century. An...

Prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome in a Predominantly Cuban, Psychiatrically Ill, and Homeless Population

Rafael A. Rivas-Vazquez

This study examined the prevalence of metabolic syndrome among a group of psychiatric outpatients enrolled in a homeless program that is located in a predominantly Hispanic geographic area of South Florida. Data for this retrospective, cross-sectional analysis were obtained from a record review of 122 adult patients who received full medical and psychiatric assessments based on DSM-IV criteria during participation in our...

Forced Evictions and Human Rights

International human rights law establishes norms and principles touching on virtually all facets of life. This is reflected in the consistent reaffirmation by the international community of the indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights, whether civil, cultural, economic, political or social. The indispensable equality of all human rights, now firmly entrenched in the provisions of international human rights...

Children on the Streets of the Americas: Globalization, Homelessness and Education in the United States, Brazil, and Cuba

R. Mickelson

The number of street children in developed and developing nations is rising, often in the midst of prosperity. These original contributions study and compare the living conditions and educational experiences of homeless children in the United States, Brazil and Cuba. Because social policy and economic factors are central to these children's plight, Mickelson and her contributors employ a political economy perspective to...

El Niño: Children of the Streets, Mexico City (Image and Imagination)

Kent Klich

Elena Poniatowska

This text presents some of the photographs taken by Kent Klich of the children living on the streets of Mexico City. The text depicts the brutal living conditions, the loneliness, illness and desperation that is everyday life to these children.

Children for Social Change: Education for Citizenship of Street and Working Children in Brazil

Anthony Swift

Through imaginative educational workshops and recreational activities, the children dialogue about their lives, their problems and those of their community. They decide on courses of action and then review the consequences. Decisions are taken and leaders elected democratically, with the participation of all actively encouraged. The educator facilitates. Wherever possible parents and communities are invited to support the...

Street children and their helpers: An actor-oriented approach

Bernardo Turnbull

Raquel Hernández

Miguel Reyes

This article analyses the interaction between street children and youth and the people who try to help them. We seek to understand our outsiders' role in the children and youth's career on the streets and to provide ideas for programs and interventions. A group of volunteers in a Mexico City bus station gathered data in field diaries as observations and interviews with street children, youths and helpers, and...

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