Abstract
This chapter introduces a basic typology for identifying key narratives of homelessness that permeate contemporary American social culture. What the sociologist Teresa Gowan aptly describes as sin-talk, sick-talk, and system-talk represents common caricatures of homelessness heard by the media, professionals, and the homeless themselves. Drawing from Gowan’s (Hobos, hustlers, and backsliders: Homeless in San Francisco. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2010) ethnographic study of homeless men in San Francisco, we summarize how these narratives reduce the complex realities of individuals without secure housing to singular causes related to criminal behavior, mental health, or affordable housing. Given this, our chapter has a couple of goals. First, we provide an overview of Gowan’s research by discussing how these discourses have evolved over time and reflect the confluence of various political efforts to manage poverty and inequality in the USA. Second, we argue for the importation of Gowan’s typology into social work as a useful heuristic for praxis. Third, as part of our critique, we discuss some limitations to Gowan’s work for applied practice, and therefore we offer an additional discourse, one of social-talk, to help conceptually congeal and extend these “talks” for social work and its practitioners.