Studying the Homelessness in the USA: An Inspiration for a Research in the Czech Republic

Homelessness in the Czech Republic is a relatively new phenomenon. Because of ideological background before 1989, as a result of loos of employment, it could not show up. For that reason, it fully emerged in early 1990s. Under this condition, it has been also unresearched for long time. Moreover, most of the written papers have ignored key studies from abroad, especially from the USA. Therefore, this paper offers an overview of studying the homelessness in USA. It briefly describes historic and cultural movement from the pre-industrial poor to the urbancentric homeless. Then, in light of distinguished periods of 20th century, it focuses on conditions of emergence and development American skid rows and particularities of their populations. Finally, the paper presents important studies of all these periods. Based on overview of American homelessness the paper articulates four propositions for a research in the Czech Republic. The research should focus on: (1) historic, socio-cultural and polical-economical context related to postsocialism and neoliberalism; (2) searching for less ideological conceptualizations of homelessness; (3) connecting poverty as the main factor of homelessness with other ones; (4) carrying out more ethnographic researches.