Although research has shown LGBTQ+ youth are overrepresented in counts of homeless youth, scholars have yet to investigate whether this trend exists among adults experiencing homelessness. This dissertation uses an organizational analysis of four Chicago homeless centers that cater to young adults to argue that most LGBTQ+ youth are not exiting homelessness during the transition to adulthood. I use over 350+ hours of volunteer ethnography, 33 interviews, and document analysis to document three ways in which homeless services in Chicago inhibit pathways to stability for LGBTQ+ young adults experiencing homelessness. First, deinstitutionalization and neoliberal governance of welfare has led to scattered and siloed young adult homeless sector in Chicago. The spatial-temporal dynamics of Chicago’s homeless centers introduce additional barriers to stability. Second, due to the liminality of young adults in social policy, organizations developed a discourse of “adulthood” in order to evaluate whether clients are mature enough to progress to stability. However, this discourse tends to use traditional standards of stability (housing, jobs, education) as markers of adulthood – thus judging homeless individuals’ instability as evidence for immaturity. Finally, I analyze the history of regulating sexuality in welfare discourses as well as the complicated nature of resistance and complicity of LGBTQ+ organizations in this moral regulation. By ignoring how sexuality is inherently tied to individuals’ survival habitus, organizations that attempt to regulate sexuality reduce the possible strategies of young adults for finding stability. This research pushes organizational scholarship to consider spatial-temporal dynamics within a specific social service sector. Homeless research must incorporate the insights of organizational scholarship to better understand the limits of the current structure of homeless relief. And as young adults now have the highest poverty and homeless rate of any demographic, this dissertation demonstrates a need for further research in young adult homelessness as well as targeted interventions for this age group.

Creator

• Lovell, Erik Stephen

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-0s4n-fw79

Subject

• Sociology
• LGBTQ studies
• Public policy

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• etdadmin_upload_838186
• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:15673

Keyword

• homelessness
• governance
• poverty
• sexuality
• young adults
• organizations

Date created

• 2021-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright