ABSTRACT
This chapter considers homelessness as a pressing social and health concern that embodies broader inequities in society. It offers a brief conceptualization of homelessness, and discusses which groups of people are more likely to become homeless. The chapter then considers tensions between individual and structural explanations for homelessness, and the development of more integrated understandings that respond to personal and structural influences on homelessness. This leads into consideration of the significant impact homelessness has on people's health, given that street homeless people die 15–20 years earlier than comparable housed people. It also explores the extensive daily health practices engaged in by homeless people to stave off illness and an early death. As was the case in the 1800s in many countries, responses range from criminalizing ordinances, as yet another reflection of the rise of the penal state, to more supportive person-centred or humane approaches.
