From Homeless Assistance to Criminalization

After summarizing the different means through which homeless people are being excluded from the use of public spaces, the article turns to the recent neoconservative turn in Hungary that made the criminalization of homelessness more explicit and thorough. The article argues that the economic and political structures that are the root causes of homelessness (structural violence), the exclusionary measures aimed against homeless people (physical violence) and the discourse that seeks to legitimize such measures (symbolic violence) are closely related to each other. Whereas adequate social policies could greatly reduce the problems to which criminalization is a misguided answer, the lack of such policies contributes to the strengthening of the penal state. In the absence of public policies that would make housing affordable for the homeless and for those at the risk of loosing their home, even an elaborate system of homeless assistance can do little to decrease homelessness. Shelters, daytime centers and street social work save many lives and alleviate the suffering of many, but at the cost of perpetuating a misrepresentation of the problem of homelessness and the misrecognition of its causes and its possible solutions. Th e criminalization of homelessness emerges partially as a response to the crisis of legitimacy that the persistent visibility of mass homelessness invites. Punitive measures gain legitimacy from a discourse that dehumanizes homeless people, excludes them from the moral community and blames them for their homelessness. Such discourse further impedes the understanding of homelessness as a structural problem and the development of a sense of community, both of which are prerequisites for the egalitarian reforms necessary to put an end to homelessness.