An Exploration of Incivility in a Homeless Shelter as Identified by Frontline Staff

Abstract

Homeless shelters are institutions for populations who are deemed as ‘uncivil’ by their homeless status, but research has yet to systematically explore frontline staff’s identification and response to incivility in a shelter context. This exploratory mixed methods study addresses this gap through content analysis and quantification of daily activity logs written by frontline staff in a Canadian homeless shelter. The findings reveal that client incivility in this shelter can be categorized into offences which disrupt the general shelter environment, are verbally offensive to staff or clients, or involve physical contact with staff or other clients. Frontline staff hold substantial discretion in the consequences clients face for such behaviour ranging from surveillance to banishment. This study contributes to the incivility literature by identifying the types, patterns and frequency of client incivility to provide a benchmark of incivility in a shelter context.