Homeless exclusion from non-homeless communities was/is a source of great spiritual, social, and emotional anguish for many of the former drug users that I interviewed. Being made to feel part of a group is a way to reinforce identity and one’s place in the world. When someone
is isolated from positive social interactions, important emotional outlets and support structures are also diminished. This, in turn, reduces an individual’s capacity to heal from emotionally re-
alized pain.
Many former drug users spoke of the extreme emotional and spiritual alienation they felt from non-homeless individuals who wanted nothing to do with them. When non-homeless per- sons ignore homeless individuals, it is a form of symbolic violence. These acts serve to reinforce the authority of the non-homeless persons, as refusing to acknowledge a homeless person is an implicit negation of homeless persons’ authority or worth. As a homeless individual is constantly
made aware of his or her poverty, his or her sense of control in life also declines. An increase in uncertainty and the perception of losing control increases the stress response and makes material poverty that much more difficult to deal with (Sapolsky 2005).
Donny cites monetary possession as a prerequisite for social interactions of any kind in urban environments. He explains, “A person don’t wanna’ deal with you if he know you ain’t
got no bread. You understand me? You know, life [revolves] around money. People have short conversations if they find they can’t get no loot from you.” This was a profound source of pain for Donny as he sought to find a way to establish bridging social connections. Donny identified mainstream American ideology as a justification for many non-homeless interactions with home- less persons. He explains, “It’s a social standard, it’s the American way…look how people talk to the homeless.”
I interpret this statement to mean that people talk to homeless in belittling ways that rein- force individual responsibility as primary reasons for success or failure. Donny found this de- moralizing because in order to get money, he has to establish positive social relations with non- homeless persons with financial means. However, through his experience, he has not encoun- tered potential employers who would talk to him unless he had money with him. In this man- ner, a cyclical pattern of social exclusion furthers financial, emotional, and spiritual alienation.
Lisa encountered similar difficulties with non-homeless persons when she was on the streets. She found many non-homeless persons to be extremely judgmental and distanced. Lisa found that regardless of the amount of drugs she was using, she felt immediately labeled as a drug user by virtue of her living on the streets. She felt degraded, marginalized, and alienated. She explains, “They look at you when you are homeless and on drugs, they look at you like you are nothing.” Lisa described how this colored her self-perception and how she came to internal-
ize such sentiments. As Lisa was not achieving according to dominant American cultural dis- course, she felt disrespected and belittled by non homeless persons. This perception that one is
not meeting what society requires of him or her can create psychological damage (Singer 2006a:29).
She also encountered significant discrimination while in court. Lisa found that the jury was largely unsympathetic to persons whom they suspected to be on drugs and homeless. Be- cause Lisa had very little power while in court, she was forced to face the reality that in the cur- rent political-economic system, she was not as valued as someone with more money. She ex- plains, “You just don’t know how unfair the court system is when you’re homeless and they know you’re on drugs.” Lisa recognized these actions and unfair and consciously disagreed with
these injustices. But, because of her position as a homeless female who had used drugs, she found it nearly impossible to be treated equally in the court room. Because the discrepancy in perceived authority between the defendant and herself was more or less state sanctioned, Lisa internalized social hatred experienced to an even greater extent.
Frequently, exclusion came in the form of hostile verbal assaults from members of a for- mer drug user’s community on the streets. Such verbal affronts actively create or heighten emo-
tional pain. While Bourgois and Schonberg (2009) argue that members of a street drug using population provide a supportive structure and emotional support, I have found that street drug using cohorts can humiliate and strongly emotionally damage individuals associated with the group.
This sort of negative community is extremely harmful because not only does it emotion- ally hurt many individuals within the group, it also discourages positive change, as group norms begin to frame appropriate behavior. For example, Tony, Donny, Care, Cedric, and Lisa, Jimmy all spoke of the harmful emotional effects of being in a negative community. Care explains:
[The] bad part [was] being around people doing drugs, being used. When [the] drug gone people gone, [and the] guilt come. I was a sucker. Not only realizing I was a sucker, I
can’t wait to do it again. I [didn’t] have true friends. I was mad that I was using, [but I] couldn’t wait to do it again. [I’d] go find another group of people to share with come out with same results, being used again.
Such negative reinforcing was commonly experienced among the former drug users I inter- viewed. The cycle of self-abuse through drugs was perpetuated by emotional abuse through so- cial connections.