Perceptions regarding homelessness: Analyzing US tweets

Purpose: Twitter provides a snapshot of how its relatively young demographic interacts with and perceives the homeless. An understanding of these trends may help inform policy regarding homelessness.

Methods: We utilized Amazon web services and a custom computer script to sample and store U.S. tweets containing the word “homeless” over a three month period. Our team employed content analysis to codify and analyze the content.

Results: We identified several narrative scripts concerning the homeless in the U.S.. Positive tweets included charity tweets about performing good deeds or volunteering for the homeless and social justice tweets exhorting understanding of the homeless. The majority of tweets were more negative. These included fashion tweets describing one's shabby clothing or appearance. A second group of negative tweets were sexual tweets documenting sexual acts, threats or advances by or with the homeless. A third group of negative tweets described fear or disgust that authors were expressing regarding the homeless. Finally, a significant number of neutral pop culture tweets mentioned the word "homeless" in the context of lyrics or other pop content.

Conclusion: An analysis of tweet content suggests that views on the homeless are diverse, but can generally include the homeless person as an individual with living conditions beyond his/her control and deserving of help, as a referent for negative appearance, or as a threatening/sexualized “other.” Our research suggests that addressing the rhetoric of stigma/blame could be a target of future interventions to humanize the homeless.