Complaint-Oriented “Servicesâ€: Shelters as Tools for Criminalizing Homelessness

Chris Herring

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2021, vol. 693, issue 1, 264-283

Abstract: This article argues that the expansion of shelter and welfare provisions for the homeless can lead to increased criminalization of homeless people in public spaces. First, I document how repression of people experiencing homelessness by the police in San Francisco neighborhoods increased immediately after the opening of new shelters. Second, I reveal how shelter beds are used as a privileged tool of the police to arrest, cite, and confiscate property of the unhoused, albeit in the guise of sanitary and public health initiatives. I conclude by considering how shelters increasingly function as complaint-oriented “services,†aimed at addressing the interests of residents, businesses, and politicians, rather than the needs of those unhoused.

Keywords: homelessness; policing; social welfare; poverty governance; San Francisco (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:693:y:2021:i:1:p:264-283

DOI: 10.1177/0002716221996703

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