This article examines the social dynamics of life inside a public shelter for homeless men in New York City. It shows how distinctive forms of association—in particular, a ganglike body of elite residents and marriages between residents—are the product of the nature and exigencies of life in the shelter and how the requirements of such a life may limit possible trajectories out of the shelter. Shelters, it concludes, do a lot more than provide a bed for the night.
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