Social support networks among street-dwellers in Temuco, Chile

Abstract

The homeless have come to constitute a form of urban life that activates its own resources and environment. The aim of this study was to characterize the social networks which provide sociocultural support to the homeless. It is an ethnographic study conducted in 2014 in two parts
of the city of Temuco, Chile, where homeless people are concentrated. The intentional sample consisted of 12 people who agreed to participate in the study, which includes 12 semi-structured interviews and 90 participant and non-participant observations. The analysis consisted of codification of the narrative, defining conceptual categories, and building schemes and networks of relationships between categories. The results indicate the presence of five social support networks affecting life on the street: institutional, religious, generic, peer and family. It is concluded that the homeless generate logical sociocultural associations which give rise to special support
networks, offering them safetyand identity