Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Baycrest Academy for Research and Education, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Gerontologist. 2024 Nov 1;64(11). doi: 10.1093/geront/gnae123.
Comprehensive definitions of social issues and populations can set the stage for the development of responsive policies and practices. Yet despite the rise of late-life homelessness, the phenomenon remains narrowly understood and ill-defined.
This article and the definition that ensued are based on the reconceptualization of interview data derived from a critical ethnography conducted in Montreal, Canada, with older homeless persons (N = 40) and service providers (N = 20).
Our analysis suggests that definitions of late-life homelessness must include 4 intersecting components: (1) age, eligibility, and access to services; (2) disadvantage over the life course and across time; (3) social and spatial processes of exclusion that necessitate aging in "undesirable" places; and (4) unmet needs that result from policy inaction and nonresponse.
The new definition derived from these structural and relational components captures how the service gaps and complex needs identified in earlier works are shaped by delivery systems and practices whose effect is compounded over time. It provides an empirically grounded and conceptually solid foundation for the development of better responses to address homelessness in late life.
全面定义社会问题和人群，可以为制定有针对性的政策和实践奠定基础。然而，尽管老年人无家可归现象日益严重，但人们对这一现象的理解仍然很狭隘，也没有明确的定义。
本文和随之而来的定义是基于对加拿大蒙特利尔进行的批判性民族志研究中访谈数据的重新概念化，该研究对象为老年无家可归者（n=40）和服务提供者（n=20）。
我们的分析表明，老年无家可归者的定义必须包括 4 个相互交叉的组成部分：（1）年龄、资格和服务获取；（2）一生中的劣势和跨越时间的劣势；（3）社会和空间排斥过程，这些过程使老年人必须在“不适合”的地方老去；（4）政策不作为和无回应导致的未满足需求。
从这些结构和关系组成部分中得出的新定义，捕捉到了早期研究中确定的服务差距和复杂需求是如何受到服务系统和实践的影响的，这些影响随着时间的推移而累积。它为制定更好的应对老年人无家可归问题的措施提供了一个经验基础和概念上坚实的基础。
