Characterizing Homelessness Discourse on Social Media

Social media allows us to connect and maintain relationships in spite of physical distance and barriers; as computers and the internet become more accessible, hard-to-reach populations are finding a voice on these platforms. One such group is those who are or have been homeless. Through a computational linguistic analysis of a large corpus of Tumblr blog posts, this paper provides preliminary insights to understand the unique ways homeless bloggers express their needs, frustrations and financial/social distress, connect with others, and seek emotional and practical support from others. We highlight future investigations, building upon this research, that can be pursued in HCI to assist an underserved population with the difficult life experience of homelessness.