In the absence of home: the meaning of homelessness

Sociologists, economists, social workers, and psychologists provide data and analyses of the human calamity of homelessness. The general public can seem indifferent to such reports, perhaps overwhelmed by the intractability and scope of the problem. This essay describes how writers can give voice to the homeless by telling the story of individual people. Novelists, who use imagination to envision the interior life of the single homeless person, are particularly powerful. They create a negative image that contains all the essential elements of home, enabling readers to create in their own imagination the reality of what it means to live on the outside.