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1 Introduction More often than not, homelessness is studied as a sociological problem and the dynamics of power on the part of the homeless on the one hand, and policy makers and full citizens on the other, are not examined. It is tempting to engage this subject at the policy level in order to respond to homeless studies, recommendations, and policies. However, the politics of homelessness is a larger problem that reflects upon our society and the status of democracy rather than being a mere policy issue. The forces that homeless people deal with are disenfranchisement and social “death”:1 degrading myths and stereotypes, punitive treatment by caseworkers , deficient school systems that perpetuate illiteracy and joblessness , and most importantly, the loss of rights as a citizen, and thus, as a human that these individuals suffer. Perhaps some people are responsible for their homelessness, but in this milieu, it is difficult to tell. And why should they suffer such dire consequences? When one can no longer inhabit public space, have one’s possessions and shanty towns (home, by some definitions) burned or bulldozed, be arrested for one’s status rather than a crime (hence signaling a loss of civil rights), and only exercise political power with extreme difficulty, one cannot be said to be a citizen.2 This is exacerbated by the disappearance of truly public space.3 Decisions are no longer the prerogative of the individual ; rather, they are made for the homeless by communities in the form of NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard), by the police in the form of sweeps, and by local officials in outlawing panhandling or busing the homeless to other towns, for example. Whether full citizens or politicians decide to help the homeless or not, their freedom to make choices exists in a very narrow manner. Moreover, the help received by the homeless can be authoritarian and punitive in nature. Homeless individuals are to believe that they have become so through their moral failings and every day are reminded of this. Many shelters and agencies go beyond simple admonitions, however, and issue ultimatums. Some are contradictory and put the homeless in a double bind. Indeed, the system that helps them can often be erratic, disorganized, and pathological. Of course, these terms are often reserved for the homeless, not “us.” The fact that the homeless have less agency than full citizens in the modern nation-state is a political and not an individual problem. When certain individuals cannot occupy public space (or many private commercial spaces) because of their status and when decisions are made for them under the guise of protection (thus, protection as coercion), it is evident that homelessness is not a matter of bad luck or personal problems. Rather, it is an issue that affects hundreds of thousands of people, and yet it has been treated academically, culturally, and politically as an individual problem. Hence, although sociological or psychological studies, for example, may have value, it is worthwhile to explore the broader political and economic ramifications of homelessness. Homelessness, I will demonstrate, needs to be viewed in terms of economic identity on the one hand and national identity, on the other. It is a politicoeconomic problem that undermines the notion of universal citizenship domestically and challenges the adequacy of citizenship as an identity on an international level, given the permanent character of statelessness (refugees, exiles , and immigrants who are in camps, detainment, or other sites of legal limbo for example). In sum, I am questioning the notion of a unified subject in the political identity of citizenship and, correspondingly, the idea of a unified location for citizenship. In the first place, just as race and gender are ideological constructs built on political, economic and cultural norms, economic class can also be deconstructed as an identity that has been viewed as fixed and unitary . The notion of economic identity as a conceptual category has been questioned for several reasons. In Supreme Court decisions, it has been ruled that while gender and race are suspect classifications (to different degrees), class is not suspect because it is malleable (see chapter 2). Indeed , poverty is often viewed as a problem of individual responsibility and so wealth discrimination appears to be conceptually different from racism or sexism, for example. Alternatively, in policies such as affirmative action, economic class has been a secondary consideration. On the other hand, progressive theorists also hold (albeit for different reasons ) that economic class is different from race, for example, because it 2...

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