Black Lives Experiencing Homelessness Matter: A Critical Conceptual Framework for Understanding How Policing Drives System Avoidance among Vulnerable Populations

This paper examines racialized encounters with the police from the perspectives of people experiencing homelessness in San Diego, California in 2020. By some estimates, homelessness doubled in San Diego during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted a survey of (n = 244) and interviews with (n = 57) homeless San Diegans during initial shelter-in-place orders, oversampling for Black respondents, whose voices are often under-represented despite high rates of homelessness nationally. Our respondents reported high rates of police contact, frequent lack of respect;overt racism, sexism, and homophobia;and a failure to offer basic services during these encounters. Centering our Black respondents' experiences of criminalization and racism in what Clair calls "criminalized subjectivity," we develop a conceptual framework that brings together critical theoretical perspectives on the role of race in the governance of poverty and crime. When people experiencing extreme poverty face apathy, disrespect, and discrimination from police—as our data show—the result is a reluctance to seek services and to engage with outreach when offered. This reinforces stereotypes of unhoused people as not "wanting" help or "choosing" to be homeless. We reflect on these findings and our framework for envisioning a system of public safety that supports and cares for—rather than punishes—the most vulnerable members of our society. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Public Integrity is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Mapping the riskscape of using privately-owned short-term lets for specialist family violence crisis accommodation

COVID-19 has generated many problems and some opportunities in the housing market. The potential role of privately-owned short-term lets meeting specialist family violence crisis accommodation demand is one such opportunity. This paper engages with an important and increasing practice in the Australian context, of the utilisation of private housing stock as a component part of a public housing crisis response system, in this case explored in relation to domestic and family violence. In seeking to gain insights into the feasibility of this practice, this article will first frame mixed public/private accommodation provision as potentially overlapping relations between a thin territory of insufficient crisis infrastructure and a thick territory of commodified short-term let infrastructure. Second, this paper situates the potential of this intersection of mixed private/public responses in terms of riskscapes by unpacking how risk is perceived within these contested territories. The findings highlight tensions between both real and perceived understandings of safety, housing, wellbeing, economic and political risks. While there was some support for utilising short-term lets for crisis accommodation, barriers were revealed to adding thickness to the crisis accommodation space. Given increasing homelessness in Australia, diversifying crisis models could offer increased violence-prevention infrastructure to support women.

The "epidemic within the pandemic”: meeting the needs of racially minoritised women experiencing domestic abuse during the Covid-19 pandemic

PurposeIn March 2020, the UK entered its first lockdown responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the same month, the Domestic Abuse Bill had its first reading in Parliament. Charities and non-governmental organisations critiqued the Bill for failing to protect migrants from domestic abuse, and not complying with the Istanbul Convention. Drawing on interviews with staff from Southall Black Sisters, this paper aims to foreground the experiences of practitioners within the women's sector to explore the unique experiences and challenges migrant and racially minoritised women encountered when seeking support from domestic abuse during the Covid-19 pandemic. It highlights how the pandemic-related lockdowns created barriers to accessing support services and housing, creating an epidemic within the pandemic, and how minoritised women and the organisations that supported them had to overcome structural barriers and racism.Design/methodology/approachIn-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff from a leading women's organisation that supports migrant and racially minoritised women. Four participants were asked questions within four themes: domestic abuse before and during the pandemic;accessing support from and reporting domestic abuse;accessibility of resources;and post-pandemic challenges. A phenomenological approach was used to analyse the transcribed interviews.FindingsParticipants consistently highlighted the unique threats and barriers migrant and racially minoritised women faced when seeking support. Barriers included racism, language barriers, cultural constraints, the triple threat of destitution, detention, deportation, and political resistance to protect migrant women from destitution/homelessness.Originality/valueThis paper provides a unique insight into the experiences of staff members within a specialist by and for women's support organisation in England and their perspectives on the barriers racially minoritised and migrant women experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. It offers rare insights into how service users' needs changed during the lockdowns and how the pandemic affected their ability to operate.

The experience of service provisioning for homeless pregnant women

This study aimed to better understand the experience of provisioning services for women who experience homelessness while being pregnant from both service providers' as well as homeless pregnant women's perspectives. In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I conducted 14 qualitative interviews with people representing multiple phases of the service provisioning process from initial intake to post-natal care. By analyzing the data utilizing an inductive thematic coding process, numerous challenges and successful operations were uncovered. Challenges primarily revolved around the themes of lack of resources, collaboration, and communication. The most effective systems were run by large government organizations but did not cater to individualized needs like the smaller, niche organizations did. Findings provide broad understandings of the microsystem, mesosystem, and exosystem as presented in the conceptual framework and are based on the qualitative insights into the challenges service providers and homeless, pregnant women face while accessing services. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Problemas ligados ao álcool em centros de emergência (PLACE)-People experiencing homelessness with alcohol-related problems in Lisbon's emergency shelters during the COVID-19 pandemic: a description and analysis of a harm reduction intervention.

Introduction: Alcohol-related problems disproportionally affect people experiencing homelessness. As the first wave of the COVID-2019 pandemic spread in 2020, a number of emergency shelters were opened in Lisbon. Increased difficulties in obtaining alcohol could have led to an increased incidence of alcohol withdrawal. Therefore, a low-threshold harm reduction intervention was introduced to these emergency shelters. This consisted of a fixed medication treatment, made available immediately for those with specific conditions, without the need for a medical evaluation or abstinence from alcohol, together with an offer of subsequent access to specialized addiction centers. The Problemas Ligados ao Álcool em Centros de Emergência (PLACE) study (alcohol-related problems in emergency shelters) is a retrospective mixed-methods observational study. It describes the demographic, health, and social characteristics of shelter users participating in the program and aims to evaluate the intervention as well as the experience of the patients, professionals, and decision-makers involved. Results: A total of 69 people using shelters self-reported alcohol-related problems. Among them, 36.2% of the people accepted a pharmacological intervention, and 23.2% selected an addiction appointment. The take-up of the intervention was associated with better housing outcomes. A description of an individual's trajectory after leaving the shelter is provided. Discussion: This study suggests that non-abstinence-focused interventions can be useful and well-tolerated in treating addiction in this population.

Assessing the effectiveness of portable HEPA air cleaners for reducing particulate matter exposure in King County, Washington homeless shelters: Implications for community congregate settings.

Over four thousand portable air cleaners (PACs) with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters were distributed by Public Health - Seattle & King County to homeless shelters during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to evaluate the real-world effectiveness of these HEPA PACs in reducing indoor particles and understand the factors that affect their use in homeless shelters. Four rooms across three homeless shelters with varying geographic locations and operating conditions were enrolled in this study. At each shelter, multiple PACs were deployed based on the room volume and PAC's clean air delivery rate rating. The energy consumption of these PACs was measured using energy data loggers at 1-min intervals to allow tracking of their use and fan speed for three two-week sampling rounds, separated by single-week gaps, between February and April 2022. Total optical particle number concentration (OPNC) was measured at 2-min intervals at multiple indoor locations and an outdoor ambient location. The empirical indoor and outdoor total OPNC were compared for each site. Additionally, linear mixed-effects regression models (LMERs) were used to assess the relationship between PAC use time and indoor/outdoor total OPNC ratios (I/OOPNC). Based on the LMER models, a 10 % increase in the hourly, daily, and total time PACs were used significantly reduced I/OOPNC by 0.034 [95 % CI: 0.028, 0.040; p < 0.001], 0.051 [95 % CI: 0.020, 0.078; p < 0.001], and 0.252 [95 % CI: 0.150, 0.328; p < 0.001], respectively, indicating that keeping PACs on resulted in significantly lower I/OOPNC. The survey suggested that keeping PACs on and running was the main challenge when operating them in shelters. These findings suggested that HEPA PACs were an effective short-term strategy to reduce indoor particle levels in community congregate living settings during non-wildfire seasons and the need for formulating practical guidance for using them in such an environment.

Taking Class Seriously

This article critically analyzes the human rights perspective upon what has emerged as one of the most significant socioeconomic and political challenges confronting many millions of people residing within high-income, liberal-democratic societies: rising poverty and socioeconomic inequality. This article argues that international and domestic human rights law and the social and political imaginaries of the wider human rights community largely fail to adequately diagnose and effectively respond to poverty and inequality within high-income, liberal-democratic societies. As a political and ethical doctrine founded upon a normative commitment to social justice, human rights should be taking the lead in efforts to condemn, understand, and develop responses to the poverty and inequality which blight the lives of many millions of people within many of the world's most affluent and, allegedly, most "liberal” societies. Human rights law has historically not done so. We, as a community, have not done so. This article offers a specific explanation for this continuing failure, by focusing upon the absence of any concerted recognition of or engagement with social class as it contributes to and compounds our exposure to poverty and inequality. Human rights remain largely blind to the many ways in which social class is intricately connected to poverty and inequality. The human rights community within high-income, liberal-democratic societies characteristically fails to take class seriously. Building upon previous writing in this area, this article explains why class is rarely recognized or engaged with by the human rights community. This article also sets out the basis for how we might begin the task of overcoming this highly damaging class blindness, to set the stage for what the author asserts as an urgent need if human rights is to provide the kind of political and ethical leadership required to effectively engage with poverty and inequality in affluent societies: the degentrification of human rights.

The homeless of urban India under COVID-19 lockdown: Rethinking their rights and the role of public policy

Homelessness comes with a slew of challenges and a never-ending struggle for survival. This study examines the impact of the pandemic and lockdown on the homeless population of urban India. The study reflects on the experiences of the homeless in the major cities of India during the first wave of the pandemic as well as explores the aspect of their rights and the role of government policy in this regard. The methodology of the study is qualitative in nature, where secondary data collected from various sources such as news articles, blogs, books, journals, and reports are put to analysis for deriving the findings. The study reveals the sufferings of the homeless in the cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Chennai. Their fight is not merely with the SARS-CoV-2 virus but also with hunger, unemployment, and neglect faced by them. The study highlights the fact that their rights are being compromised due to drawbacks relating to policy implementation. The study concludes with certain suggestions such as, addressing the loopholes in policy implementations and creating sustainable livelihood opportunities. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

COVID-19 VACCINATION AND HOMELESSNESS: THE NEED FOR A PERSON-CENTERED INTEGRATED APPROACH

Introduction: As homeless people in general suffer from poor health and are at elevated risk for COVID-19 infections they have an indication for receiving COVID-19 vaccination. However, several barriers in accessing vaccination can be identified. There is no information on the willingness of homeless people to receive the COVID-19 vaccination, nor on the experiences with the vaccination process of homeless people and professionals involved. Therefore, this qualitative study aims to provide insight into vaccination willingness among homeless people in the Netherlands, in the barriers and facilitators in accessing vaccination, and in the experiences of professionals involved in the vaccination process. Methods: We performed semi-structured interviews with 53 homeless persons, 16 professionals involved in health care or shelter for homeless people as well as 7 public health professionals who were involved in the vaccination process for homeless people. Interviews were thematically analyzed. Results: Homeless people experienced a lack of understandable and consistent information, which resulted in distrust and vaccination hesitancy. Mistrust in the government was common. However, approximately half of them were vaccinated at the end of the first vaccination campaign, sometimes because not being vaccinated would restrict their possibilities to access public places. Barriers to access vaccination included the complicated process and forms and difficulties accessing the vaccination venue. Especially difficult turned out to be the bureaucratic process of acquiring the Corona virus entry pass. Identified key-elements for a successful vaccination campaign for homeless people: a strong collaboration between all stakeholders, easy to understand information by trusted professionals, the possibility of vaccination at out-reach sites like homeless shelters. Conclusion: Although the vaccination rate among homeless people in the Netherlands is estimated to be lower than among the general public, successful vaccination campaigns are possible if trusted people provide easy to understand information, all stakeholders work together and vaccination takes place at easy to reach locations.

Working Across the Aisle: Connecting Enrollment Management to Financial Aid to Re-Enroll College Students with Satisfactory Academic Progress Concerns

Students who leave higher education before earning a credential ("stop outs") often do so for failing to maintain satisfactory academic progress, or SAP. This article details why enrollment managers must work with their financial aid counterparts to smooth students' re-entry to higher education, focusing on SAP alleviation strategies.

Heat vs. Health: Home Office under a Changing Climate

Stressors are especially widespread in urban agglomerations. Common themes of built environment interventions that support health and well-being are blue and green infrastructure, indoor and outdoor air quality, thermal comfort, access to natural lighting, and acoustics. Given the current megatrends of increasing summer temperatures and the high popularity of home offices, we aimed at modeling thermal comfort changes of people working at home in three Austrian cities (Vienna, Innsbruck, and Graz) during the next decades until 2090. We present findings based on (I) an inter-disciplinary literature search and (II) indoor and outdoor climate simulations for actual and future climate scenarios. Based on the results, we discuss the potential impacts for work and human health and well-being, and we suggest a framework for the home office in "post-COVID-19 Austria” that integrates social, ecological, and economic aspects. The results of our study indicate that, in future climate scenarios, overheating of the interior can no longer be prevented without active cooling measures and nature-based solutions. Recommendations on the adjustment of behavior under climate change, including greening, adequate ventilation, and cooling techniques, are thus urgently needed for employees who are working from home in order to maintain physical and mental health and wellbeing.

INSIGHT OF PANDEMIC COVID-19: DEVELOPMENTS AND CHALLENGES

This review focuses on the characteristics of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) including virus structure, ecoepidemiology and pathophysiology, signs and symptoms in infected people, and data on virus pathogenicity, severity, and survivability in COVID-19 infected patients. The emphasis is on immunological reactions, diagnosis, prophylactic methods, and the zoonotic significance of COVID-19. The authors feel that the review's contents will be valuable to epidemiologists, virologists, public health officials, diagnosticians, laboratory workers, environmentalists, and socioeconomic experts. It has information on the many types of coronavirus variants, the disease situation in Pakistan and the WHO criteria for COVID-19 prevention is given. Moreover, lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic are also outlined.

Homelessness and mental health

The contemporary definition of homelessness has to be seen as a multifaceted societal issue with specific factors at play in different settings. Relative poverty, insecure housing, unemployment, and insecure unemployment can all contribute to homelessness and it is worth noting that these factors will vary across cultures. Homelessness is often expressed as a crisis -a break in the typical, cultured means of civilizations. In addition, severe mental disorders have been noted and reported in homeless populations for a considerable period of time. Individuals with severe mental illness often experience a range of housing settings depending on their personal and financial conditions or the available rehabilitation programmes, which will depend upon healthcare systems (2), in addition to societal conditions and local policies on social care, employment housing, and so on. Whilst the number of people currently experiencing homelessness cannot be precisely estimated due to varying definitions across countries and cultures, the link between homelessness and mental health disorders is undeniable. Both are strongly affected by social and economic determinants such as poverty, migration, unemployment, access to healthcare, and urbanization and, as a result, providing optimal care in the community requires understanding of the cultural context. This unique resource provides an overview of the connection between homelessness and mental health around the globe. Over 27 chapters it offers up-to-date research and policy evidence with an emphasis on developing models of social care and rehabilitation at a local level that enable easy access to mental health services. Written and edited by experts drawn from different cultural and geographical perspectives, this unique resource covers key topics such as COVID-19, dental issues, and chronic pain, the experiences of specific vulnerable groups, as well as case studies from specific countries. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

It's Not Always Just a Rash

[...]it may have been difficult to get him admitted since it is not our current practice to admit patients with mild COVID-19 infections. [...]our financial incentives are to see many patients each shift, which does not always leave time to care for more socially challenging cases. Burnout is rising in the field of emergency medicine, and I think a part of that burnout can be attributed to the uphill battle that providers are fighting daily to care for patients that our health system leaves behind.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and homelessness: Global perspectives on the 'dual pandemic

Homelessness has been identified as a 'social evil' worldwide, a growing social pandemic in itself. Unfortunately, it needs a large-scale infectious outbreak like COVID-19 to alarm us about the possible health risks to the homeless. As COVID-19 strikes the world hard, and societies appear concerned about economies and international relations, millions of homeless globally suffer from their unique vulnerabilities, either on open streets or temporary shelters. When pandemics cross paths with homelessness, a critical zone of unmet needs is created, that needs urgent attention from stakeholders at all levels. Accountability, empathy, understanding, awareness, and research can help influence policy reforms. COVID-19 will surely modify pandemic legislation all across the world. It remains to be seen whether the challenges of the homeless and their special subgroups (such as the mentally ill) get addressed or not. The societal blind eye turned towards them, enhanced by socioeconomic class difference and capitalism, can be counterproductive, to eventually boomerang the larger community as the viral spread will not respect these arbitrary human-made classes. Keeping that in context, this chapter summarizes the global problems of homelessness and the ongoing pandemic, their special needs, the policy implications so far, and the possible way forward. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

"I Needed for You to See What I'm Talking About": Experiences With Telehealth Among Homeless-Experienced Older Adults.

Little is known about how older adults with a current or recent experience of homelessness navigated the switch to telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined the perceptions and use of telehealth in a purposive sample of 37 homeless-experienced older adults in mid-late 2020 through semi-structured qualitative interviews. We purposively recruited participants from a larger longitudinal study on homeless-experienced older adults in Oakland, CA. We subjected the data to content analysis. We found that most participants who used telehealth used audio-only phone calls for care. We found that (1) participants experienced challenges accessing the necessary technologies for telehealth, (2) perceptions of telehealth for physical health differed based on the modality (video vs. audio-only), and (3) participants had generally positive perceptions of telehealth for mental healthcare. Our findings suggest that clinicians interacting with homeless-experienced older adults should address the potential skepticism of audio-only telehealth patients, and assess their access to, and knowledge of, video conferencing technology.

People in street situation, Trans and COVID-19. Times of confinement in Buenos Aires

The objective of the article is to analyze the changes produced in the ways of living of homeless and transgender people, after the expansion of the COVID-19 pandemic. These are two groups that make intensive use of public space and that they need that space to survive. Regarding the people who spend the night on the street, we will analyze their characteristics, the networks and strategies they use and the impact that the loss of pedestrians in the street implied or the closure of the inclusion centers where they used to spend the night and go out daily. In relation to transgender people, the arrival of the confinement brought with it an initial ban on the offer of sex on public roads, the loss of incomes and the beginning of evictions from their homes. The results of the research show a transformation in the uses of public space for the two mentioned groups, which seriously deteriorated their living conditions. Regarding the methodology used, in-depth interviews were conducted in qualitative field work that also took secondary data from censuses and surveys.

A qualitative analysis of how frontline homeless service workers in Texas experience burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic

Frontline homeless service provision is both rewarding and challenging work. Some have raised concerns about elevated burnout risk, traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and high levels of staff turnover in the sector. Previous research has shown that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing challenges and added new ones, such as adapting to changing public health guidance, which created particularly stressful conditions for workers and agencies. The aim of this study was to explore to what extent homeless service workers have experienced burnout during the pandemic and the primary work-based contextual factors they believe contribute to burnout. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 21 frontline homeless service workers in Texas. While all participants described some burnout during the pandemic, the severity varied. Participants' burnout experiences aligned with the three dimensions of burnout: energy depletion, mental distancing from work, and reduced professional efficacy. Workers also pointed to multiple organization-level factors as causes of burnout during the pandemic. These included poor communication, top-down decision making, lack of organization support, reduced peer support from co-workers, and inadequate supervision. Recognizing how organizational factors can impact worker well-being, recommendations for strengthening leadership, improving supervision strategies, and creating opportunities for peer support between co-workers are offered.