The daily routines of the homeless in Austin, Texas
Access full-text files
Date
1985
Authors
Anderson, Ernest Leon, 1950-
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Department
Description
This thesis describes the daily routines of the homeless in Austin and illustrates their different daily trajectories and patterns of agency and site usage. It is based on data from a year-long team field study of the homeless in Austin. The study incorporated five primary methodological strategies including: (a) participant-observation with the homeless in natural settings, (b) life-history interviewing of selected homeless individuals, (c) the tracking of a random sample of 775 homeless individuals through the institutional records of seven local and state agencies having frequent contact with the homeless, (d) the interviewing of personnel in agencies that deal with the homeless, and (e) observation and interviewing of Austin residents and some Texas residents from outside Austin concerned with the homeless. While this work draws primarily on the participant-observation data, it does utilize the other data sources to some degree. Therefore, the four latter methodological strategies will be briefly discussed after a fuller discussion of the observational fieldwork