Hating Homelessness: Understanding Stigma and Hatred Directed at People Experiencing Homelessness
Abstract
Homelessness is a growing social and public health crisis. Beyond the material hardships of homelessness, people who experience homelessness (PEH) are often subject to neglect, harassment, and assault. Recently hatred towards PEH has become manifest in a spate of beatings, shootings, drownings, burnings, and stabbings. Moreover, local ordinances and law enforcement sweeps have led to a de-facto criminalization of homelessness, exacerbating the already daunting challenges PEH face. The proposed project will generate knowledge that can improve understanding of these phenomena in Los Angeles, and develop potential strategies to address them. The project will identify the beliefs, stereotypes, and fears that undergird current hatred of PEH by reviewing thousands of posts concerning homelessness and PEH from Twitter, and analyzing them using a combination of automated technology and qualitative research methods. It will also generate insights into the ways that PEH themselves experience stigma, discrimination, and hatred though a monthly survey of 400 PEH living in Los Angeles County, and a series of interviews and focus groups with PEH. Knowledge learned from these activities will serve as the groundwork for the development of a future public awareness and education campaign to reduce stigma and hatred against PEH.
Field
Psychiatry, History
Team
Howard Padwa, Ph.D., Randall Kuhn, Lillian Gelberg, Benjamin Henwood, Carissa Loya
Howard Padwa
Howard Padwa is a health services researcher at UCLA’s Integrated Substance Abuse Programs, and his research focuses on devising ways to improve mental health, substance use disorder, and housing services for low-income Californians. Dr. Padwa is also a historian, interested in the way that culture and politics shape public responses to medical and social problems.
Dhruv Khurana
Dhruv Khurana is a health economist at UCLA’s Integrated Substance Abuse Programs, where he studies substance use disorder treatment and healthcare policy. In addition, Dr. Khurana teaches research methods at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Sarah Cousins
Sarah Cousins is a Ph.D. candidate at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and a project director at UCLA’s Integrated Substance Abuse Programs
Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld
Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld is an assistant professor in the Luskin School of Public Affairs. He studies protest dynamics using natural language processing, computer vision, and large-scale simulations, and he has studied protests around the world, including the Arab Spring, and protests in East Asia, and South America.
Brittany Bass
Brittany Bass is a health economist at UCLA’s Integrated Substance Abuse Programs. Her research focuses on the impact of policies related to substance use disorder treatment on youth and adult health and economic outcomes.
Randall Kuhn
Randall Kuhn is a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. His work focuses on the social determinants of health in vulnerable contexts, including homelessness, global health, and immigrant health.
Lillian Gelberg
Lillian Gelberg is a professor in the UCLA Departments of Family Medicine and Public Health, and the Office of Healthcare Transformation and Innovation at the VA of Greater Los Angeles. Dr. Gelberg is a pioneer in the field of researching healthcare for low-income and homeless populations, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Benjamin Henwood
Benjamin Henwood is a professor at the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. He is the director of the USC Center for Homelessness, Housing, and Health Equity Research.