Surviving Violence in Everyday Life: A Communicative Approach to Homelessness

In this narrative review, the author synthesizes the literature on homelessness across various disciplines (e.g., public health, social work, sociology, and communication) to demonstrate how the experiences of homelessness can be created, maintained, and reinforced through communication, including interpersonal interactions and public discourse. By conceptualizing homelessness as a culturally constructed and socially situated phenomenon, the author examines (a) the complex conceptualization of homelessness, (b) everyday violence faced by people who are homeless, and (c) coping strategies of people who are homeless. In summary, homelessness is a complex social phenomenon, involving tensions between individuals, families, and social systems, all of which are situated in the larger sociocultural and sociopolitical contexts of a specific time and place.