Time as a source of struggle and resilience in homeless families

Abstract

A common myth about families living in homeless shelters is that they are laconically and contentedly waiting around for housing, financial support through welfare or jobs, and other resources and services. Nothing could be further from the truth. Single parents in shelters dealing with inequities incurred by poverty are busy trying to procure housing, jobs, and other resources while managing children’s behavior and homework, and while attempting to maintain the family’s sense of relational and emotional integrity. Thirty-six African American, Afro-Caribbean, and Latinx families living in a New York City shelter were interviewed about the time challenges they face and their means of coping with those challenges. Six themes emerged: (1) franticness, time pressure, and sense of having not enough time; (2) the temporal unpredictability of daily life; (3) the unpredictability of time to live in shelter; (4) anxious waiting for next steps toward employment and housing; (5) the shelter’s control of time; and (6) the importance of family time and strategies used to sustain it. These findings are discussed using theoretical perspectives about the elements of temporal behavior, as well as research on time and personal agency, and recommendations are made for professionals working to support homeless families, especially around their temporal challenges.

The End of Resilience? Managing Vulnerability Through Temporal Resourcing and Resisting

“…Actors can discipline their subjective experiences of time. Time can be compressed (Flaherty & Meer, 1994) or expanded (Fisher et al, 2019), accelerated or decelerated (Cockain, 2018; Torres, 2016), served by (Johnsen et al, 2019) or serving the protagonist (Fraenkel, 2020). Lived time can be re-designed everyday (Hauge, 2016) or held fast to rebel against constraints imposed by time regimes and temporal structures.…”

Smartphone Technology to Empower People Experiencing Homelessness: Secondary Analysis

“…Our participants were no different and reported multiple competing demands on their time. Similarly, prior research has identified a prevailing present time orientation among people experiencing homelessness, the unpredictability of time while experiencing homelessness, and a sense of not having enough time [42], precluding the ability of many individuals in this population to meet the expectations of our health and social services systems as they are currently structured. Indeed, most participants described how consistently knowing the time of day helped them create routines in a way that was not possible without the phone.…”

Stressors and Coping Mechanisms among Extended-Stay Motel Residents in Central Florida

“…One of the families in this sample walked two hours each way (with an infant and a toddler) in full Florida sun to an agency offering emergency assistance because they did not have any other transportation or childcare. Thus, there is a level of stress and frustration that occurs when everything they can and need to do to improve their situation takes an unrealistic amount of time, and it feels like their efforts do not yield any or enough benefits (Fraenkel 2020).…”

“…These traumas and stressors are particularly salient for women experiencing homelessness or transitional housing (Banyard and Graham-Bermann 1998;Klitzing 2004). In shelters, people experience stress not only due to a lack of permanent housing but also a lack of independence, having to meet shelter curfews and rules, as well as potential conflicts with other shelter users (Klitzing 2004;Fraenkel 2020). Those who live in extended-stay motels experience similar stressors due to the constant worry of overpaying their weekly rates to avoid street homelessness, but they do have more privacy and independence than those who live in an emergency shelter.…”