Aging in the Downtown Corridor: Mapping the Neighborhood Experiences of Seattle’s Unhoused Adults Over Age 50

Abstract

Research has established the importance of understanding the dynamic relationship between older adults and the environments in which they are embedded. However, the meaning of place for unhoused older adults amidst an increasingly contested urban landscape is largely unknown. This exploratory study aims to further include unhoused older adults’ experiences in the scholarship on aging and place by asking how unhoused adults over age 50 (1) describe their spatial patterns and experiences and (2) negotiate their relationship with common urban places. Through iterative mapping conducted in focus groups and interviews at Seattle senior centers, respondents identified how they interacted with their communities and environment. Using inductive and deductive coding of both textual and geospatial data, thematic analysis indicated that respondents: (1) experienced confinement to the downtown corridor and expulsion from surrounding areas-- a phenomenon compounded by physical and subjective aging; (2) created routines amidst geographic and temporal restrictions to maximize comfort and security; (3) attempted to create residential normalcy in public places through adaptive and accommodative practices; and (4) experienced identities shaped by movement through and access to place. Current social, spatial, and political contexts of city living present many challenges for older unhoused adults. Supports that ignore people’s identification with the places that are important to them are unlikely to be successful. Findings from this paper call for service, policy, and design strategies that facilitate personal agency and connection to place among unhoused people midlife and beyond.

Introduction

Aging in one’s own home and a known community are ideal among researched populations of older adults in the United States, even when experiencing chronic health problems and disability (Bookman, 2008). Older adults themselves have identified the importance of having maximal agency in their environment as they age, maintaining a sense of attachment or familiarity to natural and built environments, and preserving interdependence with community through sustained roles and identities, autonomy within a network of care, and social connectedness (Wiles et al., 2012). Consequently, many community-based programs and policy initiatives aim to delay or prevent functional decline, care dependence, and institutionalization nationally and across the world (World Health Organization, 2015). Recently, place theorization in gerontology has shifted to consider older adults’ participation in and relationship with a network of places (Skinner et al., 2015), including healthcare places, social and community places, and interstitial places like sidewalks and bus stations. Contemporary explorations of place and aging also emphasize the dynamic, changing nature of the relationship to place both across the life course and in the everyday (Lewis & Buffel, 2020).

Functional ability and economic status mediate successful community living (Greenfield, Scharlach, & Lehning, 2013) and older adults subject to neighborhood change face specific challenges to feelings of belonging while staying in place (Burns, Lavoie, & Rose, 2012). Despite established inequities in who can preserve and maintain attachment, agency, and connectedness to place, older adults experiencing homelessness have largely been omitted from place theorization (Burns, 2016). The purpose of this exploratory research is to further contextualize how place is implicated in the aging experiences of older adults facing homelessness in the current urban landscape.

Older Adult Homelessness

Baby Boomers, born 1946–1964, represent the largest cohort of single adults experiencing homelessness in the United States (Culhane et al., 2013). This age group has undergone specific forces in their lifetimes that shape city living and may contribute to their overrepresentation among the unhoused (Culhane et al., 2019), including multiple economic recessions, the Vietnam War, The War on Drugs, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, continued segregationist housing policy, and de-institutionalization of mental health institutions. In part due to community resistance to inclusion and moral panic (Ben-Moshe, 2020), the confluence of these factors prompted the development of concentrated homeless service areas in downtown centers (Dear & Wolch, 2014). Consequences of urban development add spatial complexity to contemporary older adult homelessness. The privatization of public place through mechanisms like business improvement districts, increased private security, and NIMBYism¹ has led to a regulation and control of urban common areas (Kohn, 2004) that function as tools of exclusion based on race, ability, and class status (Schweik, 2011). Gentrification threatens a material displacement particularly for low-income long-term residents, many of whom are older adults (García & Rúa, 2017). Gentrification also creates a cultural displacement-- the erasure of significant neighborhood places may interrupt older adults’ social roles, affective experiences, and competence navigating their world (Versey et al., 2019). The continued absence of specific support for older adults in homelessness legislation (Gonyea, Melekis, & Bachman, 2010) has also led to the lack of specialized interventions to prevent eviction, expedite rehousing, or facilitate retained access to historical communities. Further exploration of how this group experiences place is critical in preparing the stakeholders to make more age-friendly communities.

Space & Place

“Space” is most often referred to as a quantifiable variable (e.g., distance, paths, area), while the use of the term “place” in human geography has focused on describing the conceptual and symbolic relationships between a subject and the physical environment (Tuan, 1977). Placemaking refers to an individual or communal activity of altering environments to improve their functionality, expand their use, or allow for increased inclusion or belonging (Toolis, 2017). Scholars and activists have asserted how placemaking in public is an essential part of resistance to increasing privatization (Sutton & Kemp, 2011). However, the access to and consequences of placemaking relies on social location (Manzo, 2005). For example, encampments are the result of unhoused people assembling for mutual aid, visual representation, and community safety; because of the identities held and represented by unhoused people, encampments are often greeted with forcible dislocation and dispossession.

The study of space in gerontology has considered neighborhood, municipal, and residential contexts; for example, neighborhood composition as a predictor for health outcomes (Yen, Michael & Purdue, 2009), sidewalk connectivity as a facilitator of community participation (Vaughan et al., 2016), or the effects of home modifications in reducing falls (Chase et al., 2012). Meanwhile, place has generally been studied as a meaning-making process that occurs between older adults and a fixed space or centralized set of spaces (Andrews, Evans & Wiles, 2012).

Golant’s theory of residential normalcy (2015) has been an influential addition to studies of place in older adulthood. Residential normalcy asserts that success and quality of life is dependent on not only comfort and mastery in an environment, but also on self-appraisal of how well an individual negotiates their relationships with place. Golant posits that these negotiations, whether accommodative strategies for coping or adaptive placemaking strategies to reshape the environment and ways of being in it, are the drivers of normalcy, or alternatively, distress. How we use a place and its components, how we feel about a place, and our awareness of our level of competence can either promote or discourage adaptive attachment and activity (Rowles & Bernard, 2013). Golant posits that an idealized and universally-applied notion of staying “in-place” is ineffective, particularly for poor older adults who face challenges in receiving in-home care coverage, need home repairs, and are at great social and financial risk in neighborhood change (Golant, 2008).

Bigonnesse & Chaudhury (2020) call for environmental gerontology theory to move beyond “a compartmentalized understanding of home, place, neighborhood, and community” (p 242). Sampling in research with unhoused older adults has largely been limited to specific residential environments (e.g., hostels, emergency shelters) (Grenier et al., 2016b), thus conceptually placing the locus of exploration on sleeping location and largely overlooking the constellation of neighborhood places that shapes one’s aging experiences.

There are notable exceptions, including Burns’ model of oscillation in and out of place, acknowledging the impermanence of fit, particularly self-appraisals of control, comfort, privacy, and security, in dynamic and transient relationships with place. Similarly, in Finlay, Gaugler & Kane (2020), narratives of precarious housing and very low-income older adults problematize the expectation that most older adults engage in processes of elective belonging, describing a path of striving for safety, access, connection, and stimulation despite the presence of place-based harm. However, theoretical inclusion of unhoused older adults in the body of environmental gerontology literature currently does not extend to a co-examination of place and space. This exploration is a particularly useful venture in building knowledge with unhoused older populations, whose spatial marginalization likely generates relationships with place that are incompatible with compartmentalized understandings. By asking unhoused older adults to describe their relationships with place through mapping activities, this study aimed to expand theorizing by contextualizing relationships to place and how they emerge in situ. This exploratory study asks 1) how do unhoused adults over age 50 describe their spatial patterns and experiences? and 2) how do unhoused older adults negotiate their relationships with public places?

Methods

Research Design: Geo-narratives

A growing body of critical humanist geography has gained insight into subjective socio-spatial human experiences through the development of cartographic “narratives,” stories produced and presented alongside geographic or spatial visualization (Caquard, 2011; Kwan & Ding, 2008). Map-based narrative research generates empathy in an audience through evoking an embodied experience of the respondent in their environment (Futch & Fine, 2014). According to Pavlovskaya (2009), “alternative mappings [should] be created with, by, and for the disempowered social actors whose spatial experiences are not commonly represented” (p. 14, in Cope & Elwood, 2009). Mapping projects that center marginalized voices makes it possible to challenge the everyday emotional inequalities generated by dominant maps (Maharawal & McElroy, 2013).

I employed inductive visualization methods, which rely on verbal inquiry to structure iterative mapping activities (Knowles, Westerveld, & Strom, 2015). By prompting participants to engage in a multi-sensory exchange, it allows for the interviewee to clarify researcher interpretations of visual data and have multiple simultaneous tools for expressing the nuance of their experiences (Powell, 2010). Mapping methods add a spatial dimension to how older adults ’ environmental negotiations are understood. While qualitative geospatial methods have been used with older adults to illuminate oft-implicit meanings and experiences of place (Hand et al., 2017), there are no known studies with unhoused older adults using geospatial tools. Integrative qualitative-geospatial approaches with this population show promise for impact, both because dominant place and aging theorization has not considered unhoused populations, and because the prevailing discourse surrounding homelessness centers the interests of housed people (Kohn, 2004).

Procedures

Purposive agency-based recruitment for focus groups occurred at senior centers and disability advocacy centers within Seattle. I recruited research sites through social work leadership in city senior centers and through an alumni bulletin at a local social work program. At sites that responded, I partnered with staff to announce the study via flyers at centers, surrounding neighborhood sites, and on social media. Eligibility criteria included the requirement to (1) be over 50 years of age, and (2) meet current federal criteria for homelessness: living in a publicly- or privately-operated shelter (emergency shelter, transitional housing, or safe haven), a primary nighttime residence that was not designated for human sleeping accommodation, those who were temporarily cohabitating with others rent-free, or who were in jeopardy of losing their current housing within 14 days (HEARTH Act of 2009).

The total duration of the data collection period was five weeks. The focus group (130 minutes) took place at a senior center located in downtown Seattle in late April 2019. One-on-one interviews (90–120 minutes) occurred at a senior center in North Seattle during early April 2019 and at a disability advocacy center near downtown Seattle in early May 2019. I visited several commonly identified sites alone throughout May 2019 to expand my conceptual understanding of the data.

Sample

Seven respondents (ages 53–67) were recruited. Five participated in a focus group, and two who were unable to participate in a focus group were interviewed individually. Of the seven respondents, five identified shelters as their primary sleeping place, one slept in a park, and one recently moved to senior housing after living in her car. All respondents identified as cisgender; five were men and two were women. Six of seven respondents were white and one was black. Respondent data are summarized in Table 1. Though small, the sample in this exploratory project generated multiple forms of data from a population facing several barriers to research participation.

Table 1.

Participant Demographics

Participant	Current Sleeping Place	Race	Age	Gender
Ellis	Shelter	White	62	Cisgender man
Sam	Shelter	White	66	Cisgender man
Cyrus	Shelter	Black	65	Cisgender man
Mary-Jo	Shelter	White	58	Cisgender woman
Paul	Skilled nursing, formerly boat and shelter	White	61	Cisgender man
Ray (interview)	Outdoors, formerly friend’s couch	White	53	Cisgender man
Angela (interview)	Supportive housing, formerly car and friend’s couch	White	67	Cisgender woman

Data Collection

The project received university IRB exemption. Two MSW students assisted in notetaking during data collection. A light meal was offered to participants. Interviewees were given a large-print laminated map of the city of Seattle and were provided prompts to mark places and routes on the map with markers and post-it notes with as much specificity as possible. The prompts guided participants to identify places they go to regularly or seek out with intention, places they have ambivalence about, places they avoid, aspirational places that they intend to go to or return to for achieving specific goals, places they have lost access to, and places associated with specific memories. The prompts were meant to guide a dialogue about spatial decision-making that related to participants as agentic in their aging and homelessness. As the marking process occurred, the researcher elicited information about each place with an interview and focus group guide consisting of open-ended questions (e.g., “what do you like about spending time here?”, “what stops you from going there anymore?”). Additionally, participants were asked about spatial interventions such as new public construction projects, known sites with hostile architecture, and select initiatives outlined in the city’s age-friendly action plan (Age-Friendly Seattle, 2018) to elicit how they were negotiating and relating to the ways the city is intentionally being shaped by governmental and political forces.

Analysis

Interview and focus group recordings were professionally transcribed and entered in NVivo. A total of 158 places were extracted upon initial read-through of the transcripts and cross-referenced with participant maps to be assigned a latitude and longitude via OpenStreetMap. Places were then imported into Geographic Information Systems (GIS), sortable by a priori codes (avoid, ambivalent, frequent regularly, aspirational, memory) assigned by the respondent who marked it, as well as the qualitative transcript data describing the felt experience, behavior in, or perception of that place. Places were also coded by the frequency and duration in which they were visited, and the number of times they were mentioned within the transcripts. Following an iterative approach to thematic analysis (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006), initial themes were first identified through the geospatial patterns that emerged from a priori codes. Aggregate maps were made for each a priori code, and individual maps were made for each participant. In preliminary analysis, maps were compared to one another and layered to identify emergent patterns. Transcript review resulted in a subsequent round of inductively generated codes, which were then compared to geospatial patterns. Themes were finalized by identifying prevalent and salient similarities between participants.

As a trustworthiness measure, I engaged in peer debriefing with seven local aging and disability service providers experienced in serving unhoused populations. Providers endorsed the logic of the chosen themes. Peer debriefing also helped me further consider legibility and fit with local policy advocacy efforts, as well as level of abstraction. I engaged in a reflexive memoing process through the recruitment, collection, and analysis. In the findings, all names presented are pseudonyms, places have been de-identified, and ellipses in direct quotes represent deleted crosstalk not relevant to the quote.

Results

Four overarching themes were identified that represent common experiences among all or most respondents. First, older adults experiencing homelessness described being subject to spatial regulation enacted by other downtown stakeholders, leading to experiences of confinement in those areas where they have reduced control, choice, and privacy, and expulsion from personally significant areas surrounding downtown that supported them aging with agency. Second, respondents identified placemaking strategies for preserving routine, comfort, and predictability to cope with spatial regulation. Third, respondents identified adaptive and accommodative facilitators of normalcy in relocation processes. Lastly, participants described how identity shapes spatial decision-making, including housing trajectories and daily mobilities.

Spatial Regulation in the Downtown Corridor

Respondents ‘spatial patterns and descriptions of place described a relationship with the downtown service center as one of confinement and expulsion. Confinement to the downtown area and expulsion out of other spaces was reinforced not only by others in a shifting urban landscape, such as private businesses and law enforcement, but also compounded by physical limitations and subjective experiences of aging.

Confinement

Figure 1 depicts a heat map of aggregated respondent data. A heat map is a visualization tool that displays both the frequency and density of geospatial information (Wheeldon & Ahlberg, 2011). The figure records both the frequency of participants who marked a specific place, as well as the density of places across an area. Depicted on the left side of the figure are the places that respondents self-reported frequenting regularly and of primary importance; on the right side are places respondents self-reported avoiding and having negative connotations with. Unsurprisingly, the figure indicates respondents are primarily concentrated downtown near housing and shelter services, government services, and non-profit services for people of all ages. Places mentioned across participants included locations downtown where respondents could independently attend to their basic needs (e.g., personal hygiene, nutrition, internet, socialization) without facing punishment, such as the public hospital, transportation terminals, and social service sites.

Figure 1. Aggregated Heat Map: Frequented vs Avoided Places.

Note. Side by side heat maps depicting aggregated data of places respondents designated as places they primarily spent time (left) and places they avoided or had negative connotations of (right).

What further emphasized descriptions and visual representations of confinement was the proximity between places respondents actively visited and avoided. The most popular shelter among male respondents shared a city block with the county jail, and one participant noted that the proximity increased the danger of being arrested. Four respondents who utilized shelters reported being assaulted or robbed while waiting to access shelter services and discussed avoiding certain shelters or nearby areas because of the high prevalence of drug use. One respondent, Ellis, identified himself as in early recovery from addiction. He discussed how seeking treatment and support juxtaposed needing to avoid places that might prompt relapse: “I have my mental health appointments here, you know, but I could go one block further and it’s like, ‘I don’t want to be here! ‘So that was a little bit scary for me…[provider] opened a day center, but I stay away from it because of the type of people that they bring in…I want to stay clean, I don’t want to be around those people.” For Ellis, part of mastery and competence in this stage in his life meant sustaining his recovery. While concentrating services in one area might imply accessibility, negotiating this in his daily life required the sacrifice of not utilizing services that might otherwise be therapeutic if not in proximity to where drugs were used, bought, and sold.

Expulsion

In the heat map displayed in Figure 2, the places respondents lost access to were found around the perimeter of the area respondents primarily used daily, matching respondent narratives of being forcibly redirected back to the downtown area or excluded from the use of public and semi-public places neighboring the concentrated service area. While expulsion may be experienced by unhoused people regardless of age, respondents discussed how perceptions of their age played a factor.

Figure 2. Aggregated Heat Map: Places Lost Access To.

Note. Heat map depicting aggregated data where respondents reported having lost access to.

Two respondents’ distinct stories encapsulated an experience of expulsion described by all seven participants. Mary-Jo described herself as a panhandler with almost 40 years of experience. She attempted to avoid the downtown corridor, situating herself where she could generate the most income. Mary-Jo said that with age, she had been increasingly shepherded by law enforcement into an enhanced shelter program primarily used by older women: “These days, it seems to be that if I’m in a shelter…It’s always [downtown]. It’s rarely any place else, and it’s through the police in the [same] precinct. And lately, I have no connection at all with anybody except with this one place. I’ve seen a pattern where no matter where I live, they [police] seem to draw me back.” Now perceived as older and disabled, the paternalism guiding Mary-Jo’s removal inhibited her from generating income, preserving her identity as a panhandler, and from staying oriented and connected to a landscape and its inhabitants.

Sam revealed how recent patterns of removal currently influenced his spatial decision-making: “I used to go by the docks, I never had bad experiences before…but I got jumped. I had people say after, “I told you not to go down there” or people ask, “well don’t you get accosted?” But at the time, I was big enough and strong enough and loud enough to get people away from me. Now I just don’t think I have that stature.” Sam was blamed for experiencing this violence, despite his previous competence deterring it. He described a process of accepting the limitations placed upon him by others ‘perceptions of his age. Similarly, he shared how he used to pass time unbothered in a locally-owned cafe, but it was replaced by a corporate chain that required a purchase to sit or use the bathroom. Other participants matched Sam’s sentiment in describing the rise in private security in tourist and business areas. Shifts in city culture meant a growing number of social and recreational areas surrounding the downtown area, and for many participants, the experiences of being older and unhoused meant rejection from those places.

Developing Routines to Maximize Security and Comfort

Respondents recounted ways they engage in placemaking within the confines of downtown to create security and prevent unnecessary strain. Figure 3 is a footpath of Cyrus, a focus group participant. While unique to him, Cyrus’ description of his footpath sparked a rich discussion among participants on efforts to maximize safety and comfort. The image depicts his daily path, a circular route of roughly three miles, using arrows and the time of day he walked that path. Overlaid on his footpath are the geographic areas he described frequenting and avoiding. For Cyrus, one of the deciding factors in choosing a shelter was the time it closed in the morning—the shelter he used allowed people to stay until 6:30am, unlike others that close their doors earlier, reducing the amount of time he was on the street before other places opened. Cyrus described walking to the senior center, waiting outside until it opened at 8am, and staying at the senior center through breakfast and lunch. He either stayed there until they closed at 4pm, visited a bookstore across the street, or traveled to the public library to read and use the computers. He then walked uphill to a shower and laundry facility and returned to the shelter in time to secure a mat. Cyrus led the men in the focus group in helping Paul, who verbalized a daily distress about finding a bathroom in time; depicted on the map are places where Cyrus could use the bathroom as needed but were not part of his typical route.

Figure 3. Cyrus ’Daily Circle.

Note. Cyrus’s daily circle beginning and ending at shelter.

Cyrus noted the burden of operating outside of the routine, even with the awareness that the routine was sometimes also restrictive. When detailing on the map a circular path he frequents daily, he shared: “Even though I could step out of my circle, I’m not usually comfortable leaving my area. At least you know what’s there and you know what you need. But you gotta break it if you want to go on through, which can be kind of hard. Let’s say you need your ID for example, but you’re caught in the circle, you’ll say, ‘I don’t feel like going to go get my ID, I’m gonna stay in the circle. I’m comfortable. I can sit down, look stupid. ’You really need your ID, but you’re so caught up in that circle that you don’t really get to buck up and do the things you need to do. It happens to me sometimes but eventually I get up and go do it.” This level of predictability in uncertain and sometimes hostile circumstances were of great comfort to respondents. However, routines sometimes came at the expense of their personal progress because it required interruption to accomplish tasks outside of activities of daily living.

Cyrus developed his routine in response to the hours kept by service providers, revealing the temporal relativity of comfort and security. This was reflective of many participants ’ experiences, who depicted daily rhythms that were dependent on their environment. Within the focus group, respondents noted that common public areas downtown are used differently after 5 pm, making the streets more dangerous due to increased alcohol and drug consumption among “both working people and street folks” (Paul). Similarly, Ray avoided the park he slept in while it was being used by families and sports teams, often “waiting it out” in a familiar nearby bar.

While respondents in this study were negotiating the same tasks as their housed peers—attempting to maintain predictability, security, and comfort—the trade-offs of experiencing comfort may sometimes be incongruous with respondents’ long-term goals or the ways they may ideally like to spend time. Further, the risks of failing to successfully negotiate these tasks were high, involving exposure to several types of environmental threats to safety or lack of access to places one can achieve basic needs.

Striving Toward Normalcy in Relocation

Most respondents described several relocations in their experiences of homelessness. Respondents commonly described an appraisal process in which they assessed their capabilities relative to their environment. Ray was a hiker and mountain biker up until he sustained an injury on the job that precipitated his housing loss. When he began sleeping outside, he chose a familiar trail to camp off: “Once you get away from the normal park and you go up the river trail it’s like, it gets a lot more woodsy [sic], a lot quieter, you know, and you don’t have to worry about being harassed in the middle of the night…there’s not a lot of people once you get a mile up the trail.” When his injury worsened to where he could no longer reliably walk to a secluded camping area, he relocated to a city park where he could more easily access services and transportation: “[the city park] is safer than being out in the main street, arterial, and in the bus shelter.” While his chosen park was not an ideal initial plan for Ray, he identified elements of sleeping in the park that simulated his experience in more secluded woods areas and differentiated it from options that were less appealing to him. He was strongly against using a congregate shelter for safety concerns, fearful of assault and robbery. He discussed a discernment process between parks, noting that he ruled out another park he considered because of the presence of hostile architecture (“bars on benches”) and a history of a violent altercation between an unhoused person and the police.

Figure 4 is a daily route of Paul, a focus group respondent who provided a salient illustration of seeking normalcy after relocation. Paul reported commuting two hours to the senior center from a skilled nursing facility (SNF) in a neighboring city. He described a long history of homelessness, both in the city of Seattle’s shelter system and on an unsanctioned boat. After he had a stroke, his sister placed Paul at the residence, where he resided for the past year. He described how his rehabilitation journey transformed into a long-term stay based on family decisions rather than personal choice: “My sister’s kind of the boss so to speak, right? When I had the stroke, her and the facility lady, they just kind of said, ‘Well, this will be the closest thing to her.’…My sister’s like, just stay there for the rest of your life and it’ll be lovely…But of course, you know, you’ll be all by yourself, it’s not like anybody actually cares about you…my sister, she does care about me, but she’ll come by, like, twice a year.”

Figure 4. Paul’s Map.

Note. Paul’s daily travel as it relates to places of historical and aspirational personal significance.

As depicted in Figure 4, since living at the SNF, Paul lost access to many parts of the community that facilitated his successful aging, including recreational and social spaces, opportunities for learning, and places that helped him meet his basic needs. A contingency in this displacement was access to the senior center every weekday through transportation provided by his residence, through which Paul maintained his relationship to the downtown area. He fantasized about returning to normalcy, stating “I can stay where I am now, but it’s not a real fun place to be. I will not get very much money if I stay in that facility. I could go back on the streets and try to put my life back together and get another boat and so forth. It’ll take me about a year, maybe two years to save enough money to have another boat…I’m 61 now, that means by the time I get another boat, I’ll be 62, 63 years old. I’m pushing the clock… At some point, I need to decide, okay, am I going to try to spend some more life unmoored, you know, or do I just sit in this room for the rest of my life and wait to die?”

Paul expressed an urgent desire to develop later life experiences that were reflective of the placemaking he had accomplished while living on his boat. While an outlier both in his current lodging and potentially also in his wishes to return to a roofless circumstance, Paul’s distress in the skilled nursing facility and the lengths he went to almost every day to return to the senior center demonstrate his attempts to maintain normalcy and a preserved attachment to the places he has personal history with.

Identity and Access to Designated Homeless Places

Respondents stated overtly that pathways out of homelessness did not fit their vision of who they were or who they strived to be in later life. Respondents described a consideration of their identities and values in making spatial decisions. Participants were sometimes able to leverage the optics of their privileged identities, and in other instances, holding onto identity created barriers to existing services.

Being spatially confined to the downtown area may be contingent upon the embodiment of what is culturally understood as “homeless,” despite the plurality of homeless experiences. Angela, a white woman with a high level of education and an upper-middle class upbringing, described consciously leveraging her performance of whiteness and historical socioeconomic status to access exclusive places that could support her needs—for example, utilizing showers at a boathouse used by a neighborhood crew team. Housed just prior to her interview, Angela was emphatically aware of how her privilege helped her exit homelessness in a shorter time than other respondents and kept her less spatially confined. At times, however, her utilization of places not designated for use by homeless people limited her knowledge of resources: “I decided I was going to throw everything in storage and then get an office. It’s the American Dream. You just go without-- you live in uncomfortable circumstances and then you somehow manage to get a leg up. The first plan of having all these degrees and credentials, getting a job, and living within my means wasn’t working. So, Plan B was to do it the old-fashioned way. It came with a parking spot, so, I actually paid $650 a month to sleep in my car. I knew the only thing that stood between me and getting more help was pride-- I wasn’t going to go into senior housing. I wasn’t. I didn’t know I was old enough.”

Angela did not consider herself to be eligible for services when she lost her housing, despite being physically disabled, in her mid-60s, and with minimal assets and income. Several service providers could have identified her eligibility, but this knowledge did not reach Angela in the affluent part of the city she occupied. Her personal understandings around managing hardship, informed by her identities and historical surroundings, prevented her from seeking these options. These converging factors likely delayed her exit from homelessness but may have also buoyed her while living out of her car, allowing her to access several semi-private public places that other respondents indicated an exclusion from.

Sam, who reported being in the shelter for the last seven years, expressed an ambivalence about his current housing status and the consequences that may occur: “they’re telling me to act as if I have a psychological problem or have something that makes my daily day go awry, you know, so this [housing] would center me and all that. I don’t know, I don’t feel hopeless like they want me to feel. I can’t feel any more capable in a place like that, because it would be so limiting…then I hear people saying, “then why don’t you get a job?” I’m retired. I’m enjoying retirement.” Sam’s reticence toward supportive housing overrode the difficulties he faced in the shelter, in part because of the aspects of his self that it threatened. Though admittedly difficult in the congregate shelter and surrounding neighborhood, Sam sought out places where he was free from oversight and able to focus on contemplation and physical rest to support his vision of retirement.

Discussion

This study contextualizes theories of place and aging within the lived experiences of those who are unhoused by integrating qualitative and geospatial methods. Urban homelessness is at the center of moral, political, and pragmatic debate, a debate that is further complicated by the realities of rising ages among unhoused populations. Countermapping the city from the perspectives of its most marginalized can serve to disrupt cyclical narratives. This iterative analysis of respondent maps and verbal content generated several insights worth considering. The heat maps in Figures 1 and 2 aid the understanding of the downtown service corridor as a historic site for spatial regulation, one that kept respondents there and disrupted existing relationships with significant surrounding places. Stories of participants illuminated the specificity of these experiences within the context of aging, noting how their subjective experiences of getting older shaped how they related to a downtown that is designed to both contain people experiencing homelessness and increasingly meet the needs of tourists, businesses, and an influx of young workers (Smith, 2006). The time-space maps in Figures 3 and 4 help spatialize the processes respondents engaged in to stay safe, comfortable, and recognizable to themselves in the face of geographic and temporal restrictions. These depictions of participant mobilities showcase the efforts one must take to meet basic needs, and the risks inherent to doing so amidst a contested downtown landscape.

As reflected by extant literature on the subject, participants described a vacillating sense of safety and agency while negotiating aging in settings they appraised as less than ideal (Burns, 2016; Finlay et al., 2020). Participants developed patterns of mobility in which they could attend to their basic needs, but with the caveat that it was necessary to go elsewhere to improve their circumstances. This not only visually illustrates the decisional challenges facing unhoused older adults, but also highlights the disconnect between service sectors.

Places respondents avoided prompted feeling out of place through being restrictive, dangerous, maligned with their goals, or threatening to their sense of self. Restrictions on becoming re-eligible for permanent housing after past receipt of housing offers, limited selection in apartment location, and inhibitive conditions included in rental agreements of supportive housing providers could all reasonably render current offerings of the housing care system unacceptable (Farkas & Coe, 2019). Because facilitators for exiting homelessness like employment and family reunification are less available to older populations (Grenier et al., 2016b), those with complex medical or behavioral health needs may be particularly at-risk for placement in long-term care. While relocation to long-term care can be positively facilitated (Fitzpatrick and Tzouvara, 2018), many participants made spatial decisions to maximize autonomy. In relocation, participants made attempts to negotiate their outer worlds and reckon with their own expectations to facilitate normalcy by seeking “next-best” locations and spatial patterns.

Implications

Findings from this study suggest that municipal efforts to geographically restrict homelessness may directly counter urban communities ’efforts to become more age-friendly. In the places where local governments and private businesses have jurisdiction, there has been a diversification of strategies to deter the presence of people experiencing homelessness (Amster, 2008). These same stakeholders play significant roles in facilitating aging-in-place on neighborhood and municipal levels (Lehning, 2012). It is well established that sustaining important community connections is a facilitator of good health in later life (Lekkas et al., 2017), thus policymakers must address how ensuring this access for unhoused older adults defies the normative order of urban public space. Decriminalizing homelessness and directing funding toward expanded housing, harm reduction, and mobile health outreach efforts not only benefit unhoused people by honoring their stake in communities, but also expose their housed neighbors to social issues that require their civil participation and politicization to address (Loukaitou-Sideris & Ehrenfeucht, 2009).

This study does not advocate keeping older adults in homelessness as a way of honoring place attachment, though as evidenced by stories of choosing unsanctioned housing over institutional settings and opting out of programs they are eligible for, the need to preserve a sense of autonomy, control, and identity renders current rehousing options undesirable for some. Developing and implementing new housing service models could engage older people in a level of care that meets their perceived needs. Building more housing in safe and desirable locations could be a step toward spatial justice, facilitating environmental continuity in later life, and rendering environmental resources that have been historically unattainable (Greenfield, 2018). Buildings integrated into communities could also better engage the “hidden homeless” subgroups of older adults. Planning and design considerations could reduce the burden felt by unhoused older people. Inclusive design focused on safety and access, such as shelters that boast safe and discreet waiting areas or can accommodate safe storage, could address low rates of shelter use among adults over 50 (All Home, 2018). In public places, the increased presence of accessible restrooms and the implementation of design features that safely support multiple types of use (e.g., benches without armrests, bathrooms with safe syringe disposals) may promote comfort and safety. Listening to the older adults ‘perceptions of acceptability in future construction and development is essential.

Strategic partnerships are imperative in educating aging service providers about homelessness experiences, and workers in the housing care continuum about needs of aging service users. Public libraries and local businesses could be further engaged as part of unhoused older peoples ’natural networks (Gardner, 2011). Transportation models that are inclusive of people experiencing homelessness could not only support daily mobilities of attending to basic needs, but also increase assistance for exiting homelessness. Centralizing services, such as integrated community healthcare, on-site medical care within supportive housing and homelessness care systems, or assistance nested in senior centers could reduce burden on for older and disabled people experiencing homelessness.

Social service and healthcare providers who do not challenge internalized mythologies about people experiencing homelessness may enact harm (Torino & Sisselman-Borgia, 2017). Providers must consider their role in facilitating or obstructing unhoused older adults in the process of balancing care needs with personal autonomy within limiting environments. Healthcare and social services with a culture of patient-directed care can provide a refuge for unhoused older people and be a central figure in supporting residential goals.

This exploratory study had several limitations. As a cross-sectional study where participants reflected on multiple points in time retrospectively, memory may have affected the identification and focus of historical places. While eligible Spanish- and Vietnamese-speaking participants were identified, the study was only equipped to conduct interviews in English. Resource considerations and recruitment challenges with the population led to a small sample size. There is a continued need to identify strategies to support diverse participation. There are inherent limitations to an analysis by a singular researcher. In the future, participatory research nested in senior centers or other community drop-in places may offset many limitations by engaging study participants in design, recruitment, and analysis.

Conclusion

This paper sought to bring a missing spatial dimension to understanding the complexities of urban place that unhoused older adults face. In a thorough examination of participants ’ neighborhood and community contexts, this exploratory study contextualized spatial regulation facing homeless people within the context of aging. Respondents negotiated confinement and expulsion with spatial routines that preserved comfort and security and attempted to achieve residential normalcy in the face of functional impairment or loss of decision-making powers. Respondents discussed how identity and place mutually shaped one another, in ways that were both advantageous and required sacrifice. While we work to dismantle the forces that create and maintain homelessness, age-friendly initiatives must acknowledge that unhoused community members are also aging. This study illustrates the ways we can simultaneously fight for more accessible and inclusive housing while creating a community that can be a home for all residents.

Highlights.

• The meaning of place for unhoused older adults amidst an increasingly contested urban landscape is largely unknown.

• The aim of this exploratory study is to investigate how unhoused people over age 50 experience community and neighborhood environments

• Focus groups and interviews that centered iterative mapping activities were conducted in senior centers

• Findings highlight experiences of spatial confinement and expulsion, as well as negotiations with place that including the development of personal routines and resistance to institutional forces

• Service and design strategies that facilitate personal agency and honor connection to place are much needed for unhoused people midlife and beyond.