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Late-Life HomelessnessExperiences of Disadvantage and Unequal Aging |
eBook Available
A critical analysis of aging on the streets, in shelters, and in long-term care in Canada.
Around the world and across a range of contexts, homelessness among older people is on the rise. In spite of growing media attention and new academic research on the issue, older people often remain unrecognized as a subpopulation in public policy, programs, and homeless strategies. As such, they occupy a paradoxical position of being hypervisible while remaining overlooked.
Late-Life Homelessness is the first Canadian book to address this often neglected issue. Basing her analysis on a four-year ethnographic study of late-life homelessness in Montreal, Canada, Amanda Grenier uses a critical gerontological perspective to explore life at the intersection of aging and homelessness. She draws attention to disadvantage over time and how the condition of being unhoused disrupts a person’s ability to age in place, resulting in experiences of unequal aging. Weaving together findings from policy documents, stakeholder insights, and observations and interviews with older people, this book demonstrates how structures, organizational practices, and relationships related to homelessness and aging come to shape late life.
Situated in the context of an aging population, rising inequality, and declining social commitments, Late-Life Homelessness stresses the moral imperative of responding justly to the needs of older people as a means of mitigating the unequal aging of unhoused elders.
Late-Life Homelessness is the first Canadian book to address this often neglected issue. Basing her analysis on a four-year ethnographic study of late-life homelessness in Montreal, Canada, Amanda Grenier uses a critical gerontological perspective to explore life at the intersection of aging and homelessness. She draws attention to disadvantage over time and how the condition of being unhoused disrupts a person’s ability to age in place, resulting in experiences of unequal aging. Weaving together findings from policy documents, stakeholder insights, and observations and interviews with older people, this book demonstrates how structures, organizational practices, and relationships related to homelessness and aging come to shape late life.
Situated in the context of an aging population, rising inequality, and declining social commitments, Late-Life Homelessness stresses the moral imperative of responding justly to the needs of older people as a means of mitigating the unequal aging of unhoused elders.
Details
352 Pages, 6 x 9
ISBN 9780228008361
January 2022
Formats: Cloth, Paperback, eBook
"Amanda Grenier critically and intelligently unpacks how declining social commitments and responses has led to disadvantage that culminates in unequal aging. This book is a clarion call to pay attention to an issue many refuse to acknowledge: the growing group of aging homeless Canadians. The scholarship and methodology used are exceptional. In fact, it is one of the best ethnographies I have read in a long time." Kelli Stajduhar, University of Victoria
"Grenier brings a much needed critical lens to a social problem that has been with us for decades, and future policy initiatives will benefit from the insights presented in Late-Life Homelessness." Literary Review of Canada
“Drawing on insights gleaned from interviews with service providers and from people with lived experiences with homelessness in late life, Grenier stresses the importance not just of housing, but also income, health, and care. Many government plans to address homelessness emphasize the importance of housing, income, and support, so Grenier is not proposing a radical departure from many other earlier efforts. But her specific identification of health and care as separate types of support (as opposed to being collapsed together into support) is a very important contribution to the conversation, and relevant to many other populations as well.” The American Review of Canada Studies
“The book is an incredibly timely and important political intervention, particularly within the context of population aging and its intersections with the Canadian housing affordability crisis, continued crises of social care, exponential inflation, and a breakdown of private pension schemes. The strength of the critical ethnographic work adds new theoretical and practical angles of analysis to understand homelessness, particularly later in life. Ultimately, the success of the book, and overall research project, is the detailed insights on policies, programs, and practices that need to be transformed to better mitigate homelessness from the perspective of older people and community stakeholders experiencing and navigating these very systems in everyday life. It is a must read for anyone interested in social justice, particularly those striving to create a radically different, more equitable world for current and future older people.” Canadian Journal on Aging
"Grenier brings a much needed critical lens to a social problem that has been with us for decades, and future policy initiatives will benefit from the insights presented in Late-Life Homelessness." Literary Review of Canada
“Drawing on insights gleaned from interviews with service providers and from people with lived experiences with homelessness in late life, Grenier stresses the importance not just of housing, but also income, health, and care. Many government plans to address homelessness emphasize the importance of housing, income, and support, so Grenier is not proposing a radical departure from many other earlier efforts. But her specific identification of health and care as separate types of support (as opposed to being collapsed together into support) is a very important contribution to the conversation, and relevant to many other populations as well.” The American Review of Canada Studies
“The book is an incredibly timely and important political intervention, particularly within the context of population aging and its intersections with the Canadian housing affordability crisis, continued crises of social care, exponential inflation, and a breakdown of private pension schemes. The strength of the critical ethnographic work adds new theoretical and practical angles of analysis to understand homelessness, particularly later in life. Ultimately, the success of the book, and overall research project, is the detailed insights on policies, programs, and practices that need to be transformed to better mitigate homelessness from the perspective of older people and community stakeholders experiencing and navigating these very systems in everyday life. It is a must read for anyone interested in social justice, particularly those striving to create a radically different, more equitable world for current and future older people.” Canadian Journal on Aging
Amanda Grenier is professor and Norman and Honey Schipper Chair in Gerontological Social Work at the University of Toronto and Baycrest Hospital.
Tables and Figures vii
Acknowledgments ix
SECTION I: context, frame, and methodology
1 Setting the Context 3
2 The State of Knowledge on Late-Life Homelessness 23
3 A Critical Perspective and Ethnographic Approach to Late-Life Homelessness 44
SECTION II: project insights from four thematic angles
4 Age and Late-Life Homelessness 69
5 The Places of Late-Life Homelessness: Aging in “Undesirable” Locations 99
6 Late-Life Homelessness as a Reflection of Disadvantage over Time 127
7 Late-Life Homelessness as Social Exclusion and Abandonment 157
SECTION III: directions for change
8 The Need to Prevent Homelessness across the Life Course and into Late Life 187
9 The Moral Imperative: Political and Just Responses to Late-Life Homelessness 215
APPENDIX I: Canadian Definition of Homelessness (2017) 243
APPENDIX II: Comparative Table of Older People with Lived Experience 245
Notes 247
References 265
Index 329
Acknowledgments ix
SECTION I: context, frame, and methodology
1 Setting the Context 3
2 The State of Knowledge on Late-Life Homelessness 23
3 A Critical Perspective and Ethnographic Approach to Late-Life Homelessness 44
SECTION II: project insights from four thematic angles
4 Age and Late-Life Homelessness 69
5 The Places of Late-Life Homelessness: Aging in “Undesirable” Locations 99
6 Late-Life Homelessness as a Reflection of Disadvantage over Time 127
7 Late-Life Homelessness as Social Exclusion and Abandonment 157
SECTION III: directions for change
8 The Need to Prevent Homelessness across the Life Course and into Late Life 187
9 The Moral Imperative: Political and Just Responses to Late-Life Homelessness 215
APPENDIX I: Canadian Definition of Homelessness (2017) 243
APPENDIX II: Comparative Table of Older People with Lived Experience 245
Notes 247
References 265
Index 329
