Homelessness and Communication
Authors: Jensen Peter 
Published: March 2020

Homelessness and housing insecurity present a problem across the world. This problem becomes particularly glaring when examining how homelessness persists in developed countries through periods of economic development. For example, in the United States alone, more than 500,000 people spent at least one night without a home in 2018. Communication scholarship on homelessness examines the challenges of homelessness largely in these types of settings as they seek to unpack the issue from a variety of perspectives. This bibliography charts some of the approaches to the study of communication and homelessness. Unlike some other subjects in communication, the study of homelessness is decentered. There are few books on the problem of homelessness and only one edited volume. Likewise, there is no journal that has been the focus of research on communication and homelessness. The communicative study of homelessness is likewise methodologically and theoretically nomadic, with varying epistemologies and ontologies contributing to the body of literature. In truth, much of the communicative work on homelessness has been published outside of established communication journals and many of the works discussed here come from authors outside of the discipline. However, this diversity of forums provides an opportunity to confront issues of homelessness with a variety of expertise. Scholars contributing to this work draw on the full breadth of social scientific and humanistic research methods in their projects, with surveys, focus groups, ethnographies, and rhetorical analysis all adding to what is understood about the problem. Topics range from how news coverage of social problems like homelessness may lead to compassion fatigue to examining how homeless individuals may organize themselves to self-advocate. However, while there are a wide variety of topics, settings, methodologies, and assumptions expressed in the following works certain common threads are prevalent through many of them. First, in works based on direct experiences with homeless individuals, many scholars express the importance of communication as homeless individuals navigate their sociomaterial environment. Second, scholarship that examines the representation of homelessness largely concludes that how homelessness is covered in both traditional news media and other outlets impacts larger conversations about homelessness. Finally, interventions designed to alleviate the problems of homelessness should include the voices and experience of homeless individuals. To explore these themes, this piece first examines scholarship that explores the links between stigma and homelessness. Next, it summarizes research on mediated representations of homelessness. Third, it conducts an overview of the work on homelessness and information and communication technologies. The fourth section summarizes work on policy and homelessness. The fifth is a discussion of organizational responses to homelessness. The sixth section is an overview of the challenges and opportunities associated with studying homelessness from a communicative perspective. Finally, a review of rhetorical work on homelessness is provided.