Homeless Are More Than Just Passive Victims, Says UF Researcher

August 12, 1996

GAINESVILLE — Like eager job seekers who present the right attitude, technique and dress for success, the homeless can go to great lengths to get what they need, says a University of Florida researcher.

“The homeless are more than just passive victims of their circumstances,” said Amir Marvasti, a UF graduate student in sociology who is speaking on homelessness at a national conference this month. “In fact, they’re very deliberate in how they present themselves to be eligible for services, much like more conventional members of society try to make the right impression when applying for a job.”

Most of the homeless are needy, Marvasti said, but they realize that perception can be reality, so they take pains to appear in dire straits to receive services.

Panhandlers, for example, learn which scripts work best and rehearse and exchange these scripts among themselves, said Marvasti, who so far has conducted 30 in-depth interviews at a Gainesville homeless shelter for his study.

“I recall a man telling other street people that one of the most effective ways to get something to eat from a fast-food restaurant was to go there at closing late at night, bang on the door and scream of being hungry,” Marvasti said. “He argued that because the employees were preoccupied with closing the store, they would be much more likely to give you something to get you off their backs.”

Another example involved a woman Marvasti observed in front of the shelter who was rehearsing her mentally deranged “act” in order to get a “crazy check,” her term for the Social Security disability money available to people with mental illnesses. “In her case, mental illness was not a disorder she suffered from, but a performance that would enable her to increase her income,” he said.

Marvasti said the homeless are often locked into their poverty and have become masters of survival. “In spite of their tragic circumstances, one is often moved by their desire and their hope for a better life,” he said.

Generally, Marvasti found no overwhelming cause of homelessness, but a combination of economic and personal factors, including broad social inequalities. Often these people are confronted with situations beyond their control, such as medical emergencies and family crises, said Marvasti, who is scheduled to present a paper on homelessness at the Society for the Study of Social Problems in New York on Aug. 16.

One middle-aged man from New York, for example, came to Gainesville for a back operation he could not afford at home and ended up staying at the homeless shelter for four months because he did not have the money to stay in the hospital and recover, he said.

In another case, a woman sought refuge at the shelter with her two children after a brutal rape and beating caused them to miss a scheduled reunion with the father, Marvasti said. The three had left their hometown in Michigan to join the father, who came to Florida to search for work. But the woman and her son were attacked en route to Florida, making them two days late to a Jacksonville bus station, where they were supposed to meet the father. Not knowing where the father was staying, the family had nowhere to go, he said.

“The popular line of research suggests that the majority of homeless are mentally ill or alcoholic. This presents an image of this population that is very one-dimensional,” Marvasti said. “Although problems of drug abuse and mental illness may be very significant, in reality, the lives of these people are much more complex.”

The experiences of some people at the shelter even suggest that homelessness can be an accepted way of life, Marvasti said. One homeless man said he feels sorry for people who have to work every day, considering them to be enslaved by their jobs, while another said he would hate to own a watch and have to worry about missing appointments, he said.

“I have come across talented painters, poets and writers who would prefer to live without permanent housing because, in the words of one writer, they do not believe they can be creative and work at the same time,” he said. “While this hobo lifestyle certainly seems pathological in the modern sense, it was a lifestyle that was lived by many at the turn of the century.”