Jacob Avery
Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of California, Irvine

COR Faculty Workshop

Friday, November 22 12:00-1:30pm SBSG 1321

“Chronically Unhoused Men and the Enabling Habitat of Atlantic City, New Jersey”

Before it became an international entertainment destination, the land Atlantic City now occupies was a small island off New Jersey’s southern shore. Beginning in the early 1800s, entrepreneurial individuals believed that the island could be more: a seaside location where people could be offered experiences that differed dramatically from their daily lives. Though the city’s founders could never have imagined what this place would become, Atlantic City is no longer a barren island. While most people associate Atlantic City with gambling and well-to-do tourists, the unique entertainment landscape also provides ample opportunities for resource-poor people—the chronically unhoused—to maintain a minimal existence. Based on four years of fieldwork, this article builds on prior ethnographic work on American homelessness. I first discuss the geographic and social context of Atlantic City, then explain and build upon the analytic concept of “sustaining habitat” (Duneier, 1999) and how it is demonstrated in the urban landscape of the city. By conveying how Atlantic City’s entertainment ecology guides daily activities of chronically unhoused individuals, this article provides a detailed account of how the chronically unhoused make money, locate sleeping spots, and survive off this peculiar urban landscape. What I find is that Atlantic City’s chronically unhoused population become skilled at improvisation, capitalizing on the city’s entertainment landscape, as well as services offered by organizations, to meet their basic needs. While not exhaustive, the findings here highlight how chronically unhoused individuals in Atlantic City survive precariously using a variety of formal and informal sustenance activities. These findings begin to explain why traditional recruitment and retention treatment approaches have not reversed life chances and choices among this population.

Discussants: Maria Rendon (Social Ecology) and Nina Bandelj (Social Sciences)