Homelessness in human geography

Human geography has a long history of critical thinking and analysis centred on homelessness. This work centres on the ways in which homelessness can be understood as lacking a safe, stable place in the world. This chapter looks at homelessness through the lens of human geography, exploring how homelessness is shaped by the management and dynamics of public space, institutional space, and private space. The blurring between compassionate and punitive responses that many human geographers have identified is discussed, including the contradictions that can emerge from urban policies that are trying to reconcile more humanitarian responses against socioeconomic imperatives, including NIMBYism. The spatial sorting of some people experiencing homelessness, in encampments and living rough, is also discussed. This chapter concludes that further work needs to be done to expand a human geography evidence base on homelessness that is overly focused on North American and European experiences.