Challenges and Conflicts in Women's Homeless Shelters in Tehran: A Qualitative Study
Subject Areas : Research on Iranian social issues
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Keywords:
Abstract :
Challenges and Conflicts in Women's Homeless Shelters in Tehran: A Qualitative Study
Maryam Isari*
Homelessness is a result of a chain of structural issues, in the meantime, urban governance in many cities of the world is trying to provide support services to reduce the harms of this group of people. In contemporary Tehran, the history of providing services to homeless people can be traced. Based on this, it is necessary to evaluate harm reduction policies such as temporary residences known as homeless shelters (Garmkhaneh). Findings, which were conducted through in-depth qualitative interviews and field observations of four women's homeless shelters in Tehran, show that in parallel with providing various services to homeless women, the shelters also try to produce tame and normalized bodies from them. Disciplinary policies in homeless shelters, which in many cases are in opposition to the lifestyle of drug users, cause a series of challenges and power conflicts, and in a paradoxical way, it can cause homeless women to be excluded instead of integrated. Additionally, the policy of Tehran Municipality to outsource the provision of social services to homeless people to the private sector has led to employment precarity and dissatisfaction among employees of contracting companies working in homeless shelters, which has intensified conflicts and tensions inside the shelters. The findings show that the women's shelters are facing a range of challenges in various fields such as client service, transorganizational challenges, personnel job status, social space challenges, management challenges and challenges related to the stratification of homeless women. Solutions are presented in order to improve the quality of services in homeless shelters.
Keywords: homeless shelters, homeless women, disciplinary policies, social exclusion, municipality.
* Assistant Professor in Sociology, Institute for Humanities and Social Studies in ACECR.
maryamisary@gmail.com
Challenges and Conflicts in Women's Homeless Shelters in Tehran: A Qualitative Study
Maryam Isari*
Introduction
Homelessness is one of the major social and urban issues in most parts of the Global North and Global South cities. In Iran, various structural processes have led to the intensification of poverty and homelessness, increasing the number of individuals in need of shelter in Tehran. Beside the exclusionary and criminalizing approach to the issue of homelessness, a pathological perspective has emerged on this field since the beginning of the contemporary era in Iran.
Nowadays, in accordance with Article 69 of Tehran's Third Development Plan, the municipality is obligated to address social issues by shifting from "social exclusion" to "social inclusion" approach. This involves creating infrastructure and providing services to support vulnerable citizens, such as expanding and equipping social service centers like local and regional shelters in order to provide housing for homeless and vulnerable individuals.
Some critical researchers view the establishment and supportive function of shelters with skepticism, considering them as part of a structure aimed at hiding the homeless population. Accordingly, developing shelters can be seen as a way to protect the population against homeless people. Some other researchers consider shelters as a social welfare response to the homelessness crisis, in contrast to the critical view mentioned above.
As of 2020, there have been over sixteen shelters for men and four permanent shelters for homeless women in the city of Tehran, the study and evaluation of the performance of these centers, their impact on the homeless population, and their internal challenges are essential. The current article attempts to explore the experiences of being in shelters and the common challenges and conflicts at various levels from the perspective of executive staff and women experiencing homelessness residing there.
Methodology
The current research is grounded in the qualitative tradition and interpretive approach. It involved interviewing 24 homeless women living in shelters and staff members (such as managers, social workers, assistants, psychologists, etc.) for an in-depth qualitative study. The research focused on all four women's shelters in Tehran in 2020. Convenience sampling and the snowball sampling method were employed in this study.
Finding
Despite the services offered in shelters, these temporary accommodations encounter a range of challenges and issues at various levels. challenges such as displacement and lack of acceptance of homeless women, power struggles, disciplinary measures, and tension can be observed in the shelter environment. Homelessness is closely linked with informality, such as involved in the informal economy, informal housing, and informal use of urban space.
Various rules and limitation of these places sometimes lead to conflicts. These conflicts sometimes result in the production of disputes and challenges in shelters, leading to the exclusion of homeless women. Based on this, one of the key challenges in the social space of shelters is the power struggles between homeless women and shelter staff. This becomes problematic when shelter staff attempt to enforce certain rules and disciplinary measures, which homeless women often resist due to conflicts with their lifestyle and habitus. Consequently, power dynamics, resistance, and assertiveness are evident among the women in these situations.
Among the various challenges faced by shelters, management challenges stand out. These include a high ratio of homeless women to social workers, difficulties with commuting hours, lack of procedural consistency, and ambiguity surrounding certain laws. The findings suggest that challenges in providing services to homeless women are some of the identifiable issues. Problems such as inadequate food quality, failure of rehabilitation and entrepreneurship programs for women, and absence of infrastructure for empowering women are among these issues.
One of the other challenges in shelters is the segmentation of homeless women. This includes the presence of elderly women and the juxtaposition of addicted and non-addicted individuals.
Conclusion
all residents of these shelters aspire to a better life and to leave the shelters behind. If homelessness on the streets challenges women's hopes of returning and integrating into society, life without a home in shelters puts them on the brink; the threshold of entering a new life or returning to the past life of homelessness. Many women residing in shelters are in a state of "permanent temporariness." They are constantly waiting for improvements in their lives and stepping out of the temporary space of shelters. They hope for acceptance from family, divorce from their spouses, reunification with their children, overcoming addiction, finding a job, obtaining a steady income, and having a place of their own. Therefore, the necessity of support mechanisms to empower and help them exit the shelters is strongly felt.
The experience of women's shelters in Tehran shows that these centers have provided significant services to immediately reduce harm and meet the basic needs of homeless women but have generally failed in empowerment, social integration, and their return to normal life. Therefore, the function and position of shelters have evolved for some homeless women from transitional housing to permanent housing. The primary reason for this lies in the inefficiency of economic policies and the weakness of social policies at a macro level, and at a meso level, in the insufficient inter-agency collaboration towards facilitating the integration of homeless women into society and removing mechanisms of social exclusion.
In such circumstances, grassroots actors and social workers cannot solely rely on their available resources—such as benefactors—to address fundamental issues faced by homeless women like housing and employment. While in a few cases, sustainable employment, housing acquisition, and life necessities have been provided for some homeless women through existing capacities and the involvement of benefactors, this is generally perceived as an “event.” To transform this event into a common practice, enhancing welfare policies at a macro level and elevating the supportive and facilitating role of municipalities to improve inter-institutional collaborations and attract required resources appears crucial.
Alongside this, attention to the challenges faced by shelters in improving their performance and efficiency in the future is vital. To address these challenges, specific solutions can be proposed that require further scrutiny and consideration of all stakeholders, capacities, and available resources. Recognizing the informal aspects of homeless women’s lives, providing mental health services to shelter staff, enhancing food quality, converting shelters into DIC (drop-in center) shelters, promoting entrepreneurship and employment opportunities for homeless women, prioritizing sustainable housing, reassessing outsourcing to contracting companies, and categorizing shelters based on the stratification of homeless women are some of the actions that can be taken.
* Assistant Professor in Sociology, Institute for Humanities and Social Studies in ACECR.
maryamisary@gmail.com
