He also discussed how and why volunteers weren't protesting public policy but were being channeled to stabilize the status quo. Chiang traced the complex dynamics of immigration worldwide and the ways in which we as researchers, working at a very local level, attempt to address these global trends. Chu spoke more specifically about the research linkages that can be made between immigration and homelessness. She argued that this framework needs to be questioned and suggested that a model of local community-based research like the Institute's offers possibilities for mapping new directions to end homelessness. The concepts of invisibility and temporality circumscribe the rationalizations for inadequate empirical information about these populations.
Invisibility also implies a lack of vision, a blank slate, and a state of non-representation.
Yet immigrants and homeless people are far from unseen or invisible. Homelessness and immigration are charged issues with undeniable impact and visibility in our local communities and on our social conscience. She described a 1983 epidemiological study in Los Angles that found a very diverse homeless population. Similar findings were reported elsewhere in the country at about the same time. A second generation of studies found even more diversity within each group of homeless people.