Surrogate Kinship Networks and the Unhoused

• In Event: Housing, Neighborhoods, and Institutions: Structural Inequality in Urban Communities

Abstract

Sociologists have examined and debated the salience of kinship ties and networks for the poor. One view is that the poor continue to rely on kinship ties and networks, and another view suggests that the economically destitute do not rely on familial kinship networks and ties to survive as they have in the past. Drawing on interview and ethnographic data, the findings of this study identify an emerging and new type of kinship network in place of kin, friends, or disposable ties—surrogate kinship networks—which are meant to be both a replacement and a permanent form of network ties for the formerly unhoused. Social entrepreneurs who founded alternative housing communities, as well as unhoused individuals in this study emphasized the importance of cultivating these ties and networks as a means of keeping the unhoused permanently housed and from being vulnerable to chronic homelessness.  

 

The debate over housing and homelessness has long centered a “housing first” solution in order to combat deep poverty and homelessness. In this study, I find that housing alone is insufficient to combat chronic homelessness. Sociologists studying housing and urban poverty have long been interested in identifying economic survival strategies for the poor. One explanation emphasizes the importance of “extensive networks of kin and friends,” (Stack 1974) which provide social and economic buffers from extreme poverty, like chronic homelessness. Another explanation questions the poor’s reliance on kinship networks and suggests that low-income families can also be treated with suspicion or spurned by family and friends (Hartigan 1999; Smith 2007). Desmond (2012) provides an alternative explanation to kinship networks for how the urban poor survive, theorized as “disposable ties,” based on his ethnography of evicted families. In order to meet their most pressing needs, low-income families would often rely on support from new acquaintances rather than kin. While these ties facilitated the flow of resources, Desmond also showed how these bonds were brittle and fleeting (2012).

            In addition to the above explanations, the findings of this study suggest a new explanation for how the poorest of the poor, like individuals who have been unhoused for many years, might navigate chronic homelessness. Scholarship and policymakers have long argued for a “housing first solution” to addressing chronic homelessness. The article suggests evidence linking the relationship between extreme poverty—like chronic homelessness—and the loss of kinship networks and social capital. Based on this study’s findings, this article also identifies an emerging and new type of kinship network, one that does not rely on traditional kin, friends, or disposable ties. I theorize surrogate kinship networks, which are meant to be both a replacement and a permanent form of network ties for the previously unhoused, or the chronically homeless. Social entrepreneurs and previously unhoused individuals in this study emphasized the importance of cultivating these ties and networks (Burt 1984, 2004) as a means of keeping unhoused individuals permanently housed and from being vulnerable to chronic homelessness. This study draws on a combination of interviews, ethnography, and archival data. 

Author

• Grace N Tien, Northwestern University
  Presenting Author