BETTER MUST COME: EXITING HOMELESSNESS IN TOKYO AND LOS ANGELES

Event details
Speaker : Dr Matthew D Marr
               Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies
Date      : Friday, 18 January 2008
Time      : 2:00pm - 3:30pm
Venue    : AS4/03-28 (JS Meeting Room)

Abstract

I will explore how social contexts at various levels of analysis, from the global to the individual, affect the process of exiting homelessness in two global cities-- Tokyo and Los Angeles. I draw on longitudinal interviews with individuals attempting to exit homelessness through “transitional housing” programs, interviews and observation among program staff and on the streets, and secondary data on market conditions and welfare provisions in the two cities. While higher exit rates in Tokyo suggest that programs there are superior to those in Los Angeles , I show that they are largely driven by better labor and housing market conditions. I find that the rigid and closed organizational culture of programs in Tokyo stifle the development of social capital between staff and clients, and a stronger stigma attached to homelessness prevents individuals from contacting family and friends for help. These social resources are more accessible and drive exits in Los Angeles amid tighter market conditions. The differences in pathways out of homelessness in the two cities demonstrate the import roles of organizational culture and cultural attitudes in efforts to attain social mobility at the margins of global urban society. As inequality in Japanese society widens, policymakers and social service providers need to pay more attention to these organizational and broader cultural contexts. If time permits, I will also explore the accuracy of the theory of cognitive and behavioral accommodation to homelessness, the sociological counterpart to the popular idea of individuals “choosing” homelessness as a lifestyle.

About the speaker

Dr Matthew Marr received his PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2007, his MA in Sociology with a focus on Urban Sociology from Howard University in 1997, and his BA in Government and Japanese, with a minor in East Asian Studies from the University of Notre Dame in 1993. He began studying Japanese at Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, California. Dr Marr has done extensive work with agencies aiding the homeless in several cities in the U.S. and Japan. His dissertation examines the persistence of mass urban homelessness in leading cities of the global economy, and he lays out the experiences and outcomes of the efforts to exit homelessness by people in Tokyo and Los Angeles. He examines how forces at multiple levels of analysis, from the global to the individual, affect the homeless condition. Currently, as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University 's Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, he is building upon this current framework to focus on factors and processes effecting homelessness in Tokyo and Los Angeles at the micro-social, individual, and local policy levels. In his next research project, Dr Marr plans to use comparative neighborhood ethnography to explore effects of the spatial organization of social services for the extremely poor and marginalized in major urban areas.