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Homelessness is a global challenge.

The United Nations Human Settlements Program estimates that 1.1 billion people live in inadequate housing, and the best data available suggest that more than 100 million people have no housing at all.

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“New Beginnings” In South African Shelters for The Homeless: Piloting of A Group Psychotherapy Intervention for High-Risk Mother–Infant Dyads
Katherine Bain
This study was a collaboration between the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; the Anna Freud Centre, London; and the Ububele Educational and Psychotherapy Trust (NGO), Johannesburg. We thank the following people: the mothers and infants who participated in this study; Tessa Baradon of the Anna Freud Centre, who acted as clinical supervisor on the study, for her generosity with her program and her time; and the...
Local metropolitan government responses to homelessness in South Africa
Du Toit
Jacques Louis
This article examines metropolitan government responses to homelessness in South Africa, including the context of responses, preparedness to respond, factors influencing responses, shelter locations, and homeless persons' views. Whereas the literature emphasises the need for spatial or physical interventions, this research, using multiple case studies, found that three out of four metropolitan municipalities viewed...
Homelessness as a global minority psychiatric-mental health issue in nursing
Joseph O. Aina RN
Psychiatric-mental health nursing can be defined as an interpersonal process in which the practitioner assists the individual, family, group or community to promote mental health, prevent mental illness or assist in coping with the experiences of mental illness and suffering, and if possible to help find meaning in these experiences. Promoting mental health and preventing mental illness are two of the major functions of the...
Social Correlates and Coping Measures Of Street-Children: A Comparative Study of Street And Non-Street Children in South-Western Nigeria
Adeyinka A.Aderinto
This paper sought to achieve two objectives: First, to identify the social correlates attributable to street-children in south-western Nigeria as well as predisposing factors to this behavior; second, it also tried to uncover the survival mechanisms of street children. The study was carried out in Ibadan and Lagos metropoles in south-western Nigeria. A pilot study was first conducted to clarify issues like location of the...
Does School Attendance Reduce The Risk Of Youth Homelessness In Tanzania?
Robert Henley
Kate McAlpine
Mario Mueller
Stefan Vetter
This paper is based on data gathered from a 2006 survey of 1,098 "street children" in Northern Tanzania. It examines the role that school may play in preventing the migration of vulnerable youth to become homeless "street children". Specific focus is placed on the correlations found between children's attendance in school, their reports of abuse or support in their family, and their status of living "on the street" full-time...
Mainstreaming Gender into Mega-city development Programs: Consequences of Forced Evictions for Women and Children in Urban slums
Jennifer Joel
Poverty is a hydra-headed phenomenon. Its effects on citizens are as varied as the descriptions of the individual as are the causes. Some are born into it; some are forced into it by changes in the external environment. War, drought, disease and economic upheaval will impoverish whole populations.It provokes varied responses including migration. Such migrations may be internal or external. Communities may be displaced intact...
Engaging with Homelessness in the City of Tshwane: Ethical and Practical Considerations
Inge Kriel
Policies and practices aimed at developing more engaged universities that are responsive to the needs of society have become key features of the higher education landscape of most countries. Visions of universities ‘engaged’ in matters of local importance increasingly require academics to reframe their scholarship as some form of ‘engagement’. This requirement has been addressed in many different disciplines and has been met...
Unshackling The Chains of Homelessness in the City of Tshwane: A Critical Appraisal of the Current Policy in the Light of National and Local Policies and Strategies
Thinandavha Derrick Mashau
This article provides a critical appraisal of the current Homelessness Policy for the City of Tshwane in the light of national and local policies and strategies. Both a literature review and policy analysis were conducted to attain the main aim of this article. Documents consulted and used in this process included the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, the Freedom Charter, the National Development Plan 2030 and the...
‘Not Just Numbers!’ Homeless People as Potential Economic Contributors in Tshwane
Lukwikilu Credo Mangayi
Statistics on homelessness in the City of Tshwane fail to give us ideas about the capacities homeless people have that could be used as a stepping stone for their own economic empowerment and development. Stories of homeless people considered in this research affirm that there are real people behind those ‘cold’ numbers. This research further unearths by means of a basic capacity inventory the potential for economic...
International Responses to Homelessness: Lessons for the City of Tshwane
Johann D. Kriel
Reports of increases in the numbers of homeless people are pouring in from all over the world yet many governments still do not consider homelessness worthy of a policy response in its own right and relegate it to the periphery of either housing or social (welfare) policy arenas and interventions. In the introductory sections of this article, reference is made to the current extent of homelessness in the world and the rise to...
Finding Pathways out of homelessness: An engaged, trans-disciplinary collaborative in the City of Tshwane
Stephan de Beer
Rehana Vally
Street homelessness in the City of Tshwane was brought to public attention in the winter of 2014. This led to a composite research project involving different constituencies, including homeless people, to reflect on ways of addressing street homelessness in the city. This article serves as a conceptual and epistemological introduction to this collaborative research project entitled Pathways Out of Homelessness. The article...
‘A Shelter is Not a Home’: Voices of Homeless Women in the City of Tshwane
Seepaneng Salaminah Moloko-Phiri
Ramadimetja Shirley Mogale
Jannie Hugo
In response to a request from the City of Tshwane that homelessness in the city be explored, a research team was established in 2014. The research was divided into four pillars: conceptual/theoretical perspectives of homelessness; narratives and experiences of homeless and former homeless people, particularly women; documentation of current practices to curb homelessness in the city; and policies that address homelessness in...
Homeless, Landless, and Destitute: The Plight of Zimbabwe’s Tokwe-Mukorsi Flood Victims
Human Rights Watch
The report documents human rights issues related to the dam project, conditions at Chingwizi camp to which the flood victims were initially relocated, abuses related to the resettlement of the flood victims, including the government’s failure to compensate many of them and to grant them the right to have a say in the decision regarding their residence. The report also explores the government’s misuse of humanitarian aid to...
Urbanization and Future of Cities in Africa: The Emerging Facts and Challenges to Planners
Omoakin Jelili
This article unveils the circumstances surrounding urbanization and city development in Africa. With histo-demographic antecedents as background and specific examples from different parts of the continent, the article describes the trend, reasons, pattern, and consequences of city development in Africa. The study opines that the future of African cities may not be bleak as orchestrated by a certain school of thought if the...
An Overview of Global Homelessness and Strategies for Systemic Change
Katherine Johnson
Mark McGreevy
Molly Seeley
Homelessness is a problem that can be solved with the right mix of program interventions, well-coordinated local systems, and effective policy. We know homelessness can be ended because there are cities that have ended it. Others have seen meaningful reductions in homelessness among certain targeted populations, such as chronically homeless individuals or veterans. In broad terms, the processes and interventions required to...
Reflections on Displacement in Zimbabwe
Amanda Hammar
This report reflects on the displacements of various kinds, overlaying one another across time and space, that have taken place in Zimbabwe’s histories and geographies, while adding new layers to ongoing relationships with neighbouring countries. Following a recent ‘consultative tour’ of various sectors of the economy, Prime Minister Designate, Morgan Tsvangirai, identified some of the urgent political, economic and...
Life Experiences of Street Children in Bulawayo: Implications for Policy and Practice
Ian Ndlovu
In the period between 2000 and 2015 much has been written about Zimbabwe’s political and economic problems with very little mention of Zimbabwe’s children, or indeed street children. In this study I explore the experience of street children in Zimbabwe’s second largest city, Bulawayo. The study explores the work and activities that street children engage in as they negotiate their way through public and private spaces. A...
Homeless Women and Shelter Regimes: A Glimpse of Everyday Practice through Social Workers' Narratives
Cynthia Phiri
Homelessness in South Africa is a multi-faceted issue with enormous dimensions; an issue which is deeply interrelated with questions of power, human dignity and social justice. In South Africa, women have been frequently neglected and marginalized with regard to contemporary housing policy and practice. In seeking to understand the nature of this marginalization, this paper focuses on structural disadvantages faced by...
Initiation to street life: a qualitative examination of the physical, social, and psychological practices in becoming an accepted member of the street youth community in Western Kenya
Juddy Wachira
Allan Kamanda
Lonnie Embleton
Violet Naanyu
Susanna Winston
David Ayuku
and Paula Braitstein
The objective of this study was to describe the physical, social, and psychological initiation practices of street connected children and youths, in Eldoret, western Kenya. There were important gender differences in the initiation practices of SCCY. Normalization of physical and psychological abuse during initiation contributes to the high health risks faced by these SCCY. Appropriate interventions need to be developed in...
A Global Framework for Understanding and Measuring Homelessness
Volker Busch-Geertsemaa
Dennis Culhane
Suzanne Fitzpatrick
There is no globally agreed definition of homelessness. Even within countries, the topic can be contentious. At the same time, we know we can’t measure and solve a problem we can’t define, so in 2015 IGH made developing shared language on homelessness a top priority. The result of this project is the IGH Framework, the product of collaboration from researchers, policy experts and on-the-ground leaders in six continents. While...