avoid theft and drugs. Those who did socialize with other PEH typically said they did so because PEH take care of each other. Sarah, Nick and Wilson described themselves as family. Sarah said,
“When you’re homeless in a community, you become family, not friends…you help each other out in different ways.” (Sarah, 21/02/22).
While the sense of community was strong between PEH, many also mentioned conflict and theft between PEH. Interestingly, female PEH tended to express having closer relationships with other PEH, a perspective discussed next.
6.4.1.1 The Role of Gender
The female PEH and professionals frequently spoke about how frightened they were of gender-based violence, including rape, being kidnapped or killed. Mae said,
“If you’re a female, you can’t go anywhere alone…Women are tremendously targeted…
Sex trafficking is really real… I only ever go out when I’m in a pair or with other people, and I only go out when I need stuff. I don’t go out past 5-6pm because it’s dangerous. If I have to go out later, I stay in well-lit places where people can see me.” (Mae, 16/03/22)
Three of the female PEH said they had been raped while experiencing homelessness, and as such, never went anywhere without a male friend. The women said that their perpetrators were other men experiencing homelessness, housed men, and worst of all, male police officers. This constant threat the females felt resulted in closer ties for them with other PEH they trusted, so they could avoid danger.
6.4.1.2 Reciprocity and Acts of Kindness
Another common theme that emerged throughout the interviews and participant observation was that there were many acts of kindness and sharing between PEH. Ava would give money, food, or warm clothes to other PEH when they looked like they were having a hard day, despite having very little to share. Sarah, Audrey, Ava, and John all dreamed of helping PEH. Ava said,
“All I want is for people experiencing homelessness to come together and care for one another and wise up against drugs and be one. Birds have nests, and I the son of God, have no place to rest my head”. (Ava, 23/02/22)
While theft, drugs, gender-based violence and conflict are present between PEH, the relationships overall seemed positive due to the close ties, protection, and acts of kindness between PEH.
6.4.2 PEH and Local Government
Professionals and PEH had similar perceptions when it came to the relationship between PEH and the local government. Participants in both groups described the relationship as “conflict heavy”, “tenuous” and “sour”. PEH felt that the government was not working in their best
interest, or helping them enough. Ultimately, the sentiment PEH expressed the most was “they could help more”. Margaret, a professional, gave more context. She said,
“I would say right now that the homeless population is not feeling a lot of love from the City of Olympia because…multiple camps got broken up, people got moved, and they were put in a hotel, but then funding got lost for that, so I would say [the relationship between PEH and the local government is] not the best right now”. (Margaret, 23/02/22)
The professionals were more positive than PEH, likely because they had more of an idea about what was being done at the government level. Professionals Simon and Jen indicated that local government is evolving, and trying their best. Ava, a woman experiencing homelessness near the Capitol Building downtown Olympia explained why she felt the local government struggled to provide help to all the PEH in the area. She said,
“Olympia is a nice place, which is the reason why it’s overpopulated. They treat [PEH]
better here than in most places, but if people realized it was a national issue, they could realize that they could make it easier in other places, so it’s not so congested in one area.” (Ava, 23/02/22)
Overall, the relationship between PEH and the local government is strained, but hopefully will improve over time.
6.4.3 PEH and Domiciled People
Both groups, PEH and professionals, were asked how they would describe the
relationship between PEH and the broader community of housed people. Most mentioned that it depends because some domiciled people are kind. On the whole though, professionals and PEH described a negative relationship, citing grievances on both sides that have produced a lot of deep seeded mistrust. Professionals used words such as “contentious”, “animosity”, and
“adversaries” to describe the relationship. Almost every PEH interviewed had a negative
experience with domiciled people that ranged from ignoring PEH’s existence to being physically abusive. Greg said,
“Thanks for talking to me like I’m a human being. Mostly, people just ignore me and tell their kids not to look at me, and won’t make eye contact with me”. (Greg, 16/02/22)
Despite some domiciled people being kind to PEH, on the whole domiciled people tend not to treat PEH with dignity and respect. Overall, participants perceived a hostile relationship between PEH and domiciled people.
6.4.4 Closing Remarks
The figure below shows some of the complexity of the relationships in Thurston County.
Figure 7: Relationships in Thurston County
Figure 7 shows a basic depiction of how the different groups, PEH, domiciled people, local organizations and local government, relate to each other. Local organizations have gained the trust of PEH, and are able to mediate and provide information to the government. Meanwhile, they can help educate domiciled people about homelessness. Domiciled people on the other hand don’t trust PEH, and PEH don’t trust domiciled people. At the same time, domiciled people are also voters who are pressuring local government to solve the crisis. Finally, as the local
government depends on voters, and have broken promises made to PEH, which has caused PEH to trust government less, and even has caused resentment towards local government. As
illustrated, the relationships between PEH, domiciled people and local government are strained.
Overall, PEH tended to have closer relationships with other PEH due to their social exclusion from the broader community of domiciled people. This was particularly true for female PEH, as their safety was constantly threatened. PEH often supported each other through acts of kindness. While theft, drugs and conflict were present between PEH, PEH still seemed to have close ties to each other. On the other hand, PEH perceived having more negative relationships with domiciled people and local government with PEH distrustful of both groups.
7 Discussion and Conclusion
This section discusses the meaning and relevance of the results in relation to the research problem, literature, and theoretical underpinnings. First, I discuss the findings in relation to existing literature, mostly comparing the findings to the literature review. Following that are the answers to the main and sub research questions. After, I discuss the implications beyond this research, the limitations of the research, and policy recommendations. Finally, there is a concluding section. The purpose of this discussion is to explore the results in-depth and give meaning to the findings.