Rural homelessness: A geography without a geography

The homeless are positioned in social space in ways which seriously challenge the production of such a space, not least of all by violating its representations of the self-sufficiently productive, propertied and privately defined individuality. To the extent that the ‘rural’ is often comprised of representations of space which are especially emphatic in their valorization of privacy, property and independence, the occasion of homelessness in rural areas — and the fact of higher proportionate incidences of homelessness there than in urban areas — puts that challenge in especially geographic terms. At least 16,000 people are homeless in Iowa, and rural areas of the state experience proportionate incidences of homelessness as much as 10 times that experienced in New York City. But Iowaʹs size and population density, as well as its cultural setting as an agriculturally-based (‘rural’?) state, keep the rural homeless population well hidden, obliging the rural homeless to discursively and materially relate their needs not so much to a particular place as to a placeless condition of being defined by government agencies, volunteer organisations, cultural institutions such as church groups, and not least of all academics.