(In)Visibility and the smartphone: Experiencing homelessness as dictated by urban figurations of social control

Abstract

This contribution sheds light on how people experiencing homelessness in Germany make sense of an app designed with them in mind and whether using it would be of benefit to them. However, it must be acknowledged that the app has yet to be developed. “Urban figurations of social control,” a term we use to refer to the social conditions of homelessness in Germany, give rise to a significant loss of trust as well as a state of vulnerability, feelings of loneliness, and limited agency for people experiencing homelessness. Drawing on a group discussion with 12 people experiencing homelessness that took place in Germany in 2019, our findings demonstrate that the respondents project particular fears and desires onto the use of the potential app. Whenever they fear surveillance and institutional control, they wish to be invisible to the app. On the other hand, their desire to access resources and information (food, places to sleep, housing) and to meet with peers in order to create meaningful social relationships requires their visibility. Thus, navigating between visibility and invisibility by way of a smartphone involves situationally and strategically constructing a safe environment for their digital participation, helping them to reduce their vulnerability and loneliness and restore their agency. Moreover, in that the app is used as a means of rendering assistance to homeless people (and highlighting the grievances associated with this) that is visible to others, the respondents challenge the current framing of homelessness. The supposed system of help is revealed to be the social problem itself.

Introduction

Current research on homelessness and mobile communications shows that digital technologies, especially in the form of smartphones, are as common among a wide age range of people experiencing homelessness as the general population (Humphry, 2014; Rhoades et al., 2017). Using digital media allows them to secure basic needs, ensures their survival, establishes a sense of security, promotes social inclusion, supports the construction of the self, and can strengthen their mental well-being (Eyrich-Garg, 2010; Hauprich, 2021; Humphry, 2014; Roberson & Nardi, 2010). Following up on this research strand, our contribution focuses on the German context and asks how people experiencing homelessness in Germany make sense of the idea of a dedicated app, which, has not yet been developed, by engaging individuals who are homeless in a group discussion about how such an app would be used or not. Creating a dedicated app for those experiencing homelessness is potentially valuable and worthwhile because it might help to meet some of their needs both quickly and relatively easily. However, in order to assess the app's potential, we first need to find out about the needs of people experiencing homelessness and only then can we ask the follow-up question of what needs can be digitized. Against this background, we deal with the discourse of “digital participation” and ideas of “tech solutionism.” Moreover, imagining the idea of a dedicated app for the homeless cannot be dissociated from the current social conditions in which people experiencing homelessness find themselves. In Germany, as with other welfare state regimes, homelessness is viewed as a social problem that deviates from normality and, consequently, must be dealt with. Certainly, dominant rules and social norms influence the way homelessness is perceived within a given society, and its impact on the agency of people facing this kind of existential hardship should not be underestimated. Therefore, in this article we will first discuss the social conditions of homelessness in Germany, which take the form of what we call urban figurations of social control. We will then introduce the study design, methods, and the empirical data we draw upon in the analysis. Following on from this, we will present our analysis of how people experiencing homelessness project specific fears and desires onto the use of a smartphone app designed with them in mind, and then discuss our findings on the respondents’ often articulated need to be simultaneously visible and invisible through the smartphone within the broader context of digital participation. To conclude, we reflect on the respondents’ potential use of the app as part of a strategy to regain agency and reduce vulnerability and feelings of loneliness. Analyzing imaginaries around this app can provide a lens through which to obtain a better understanding of the experiences of homelessness, because the projection of homelessness can only be interpreted against the background of homeless people’s marginalized position in society.

Urban figurations of social control or how the state deals with homelessness

The way neoliberal welfare states treat poor populations has been extensively demonstrated by studies from the United States, where the increase in social inequality and poverty rates go hand in hand with a dismantling of welfare state benefits and an increase of state repression and prosecution in order to control people effectively (Wacquant, 2009), including police state surveillance of neighborhoods where predominantly low-income and black communities live (Goffman, 2014). However, in the German context, despite an active labor market policy, the conservative welfare state still allows its citizens to receive social benefits, which has a decommodifying effect (Sowa et al., 2015). However, the conditions of welfare change with the loss of housing and a registered address. Those without an abode become people experiencing homelessness and are situated within a specific structure of control that we term “urban figurations of social control.” According to Elias (2000), a figuration is defined as a structure of mutually oriented and dependent group of people or as a historically produced and reproduced network of interdependencies. He further claims that “[i]n the relations between individuals, as well as in those between different functional strata, a specific duality or even multiplicity of interests manifests itself more strongly, the broader and denser the network of social interdependence becomes. Here, all people, all groups, estates or classes, are in some way dependent on one another; they are potential friends, allies or partners; and they are at the same time potential opponents, competitors or enemies” (Elias, 2000, p. 317, emphasis in original). Power structures create interdependencies in which various control strategies are at play as formal and informal behavioral control dynamics in a society. Consequently, a specific social order is formed. Thus, modern societies legitimate a specific social order, which directly affects the individuals living in it because they conform to explicit sets of accepted behaviors. These behavior sets guide individuals, whose repeated actions become standardized. Needless to say, social norms define what is normal and what is not, and they exert an external constraint on the individual. On the one hand, societal external constraints become individual self-constraints during the civilizing process in that people practice self-control and regulate their own emotions (informalization). On the other hand, a fixed, formalized canon of behavior based on legal norms (formalization) creates a structure of control in modern societies, with direct consequences for people experiencing homelessness – what we call the urban figurations of social control. How homelessness is experienced depends on the network of social interdependencies at hand, the power relations within that network, and on how this state of living is regarded and represented; in this case, homelessness is regarded as a social problem (Sowa, 2022). Thus, doing social problems brings forth legal norms, which are implemented by street-level bureaucrats. Within these organizations, social networks are established and standardized, behavioral patterns are repeated, and expectations of actions become known.

The German state provides two main legal frameworks for its interventions with people experiencing homelessness: the police force; and social assistance. The former fulfills a protective function in its aim of eliminating the security problem that homelessness is deemed to be. People experiencing homelessness are perceived as a threat or danger to society, including to the affected people themselves (self-harm). Concretely, it means that when people lose their (tenancy-secured) housing and become (involuntarily) homeless in Germany, the city or municipality, as the regulatory authority, is required to provide (what is supposed to be) temporary accommodation, such as emergency shelters (Ruder, 2017). However, many of these shelters are poorly equipped, run down, and barely habitable. Because the loss of housing acutely endangers fundamental and human rights, such as the right to life and health, municipalities are obliged to provide accommodation at all times of the year and day (possibly separate locations for overnight and daytime stays), which, however, does not have to meet the requirements of permanent housing. Conversely, the latter provides social support services in the form of counseling and other forms of social assistance including welfare assistance. However, people facing homelessness do not automatically receive welfare assistance according to Social Code XII because social work organizations must first confirm that special living conditions are associated with social difficulties. In other words, it needs to be proven that people (experiencing homelessness) are socially excluded in various areas of their lives and that they are also unable to overcome these special living situations by themselves – understood as deficiency situations (lack of housing, income, labor market participation, and social and cultural participation). If social difficulties in connection with special life situations are determined for a person, only then does the legal framework take effect and institutional help by way of social assistance can be provided. In this way, people experiencing homelessness neither have an automatic right to housing nor do they have a claim to it. Therefore, we argue that the German welfare system constructs urban figurations of social control, regulating homeless people in spaces of the municipality or with regard to social assistance on the basis of legal principles. However, the two (support) strategies are rarely offered together. In addition, there are countless interactions with other areas such as youth welfare and support services for mental health and alcohol and drug abuse, all provided on different legal grounds with the corresponding division of responsibilities within a municipality. Furthermore, alternative places to stay in a public space are often denied due to societal notions of what constitutes public and private spheres, entrepreneurial cities, and urban security and crime prevention.

Study design and methods

The empirical material we draw upon in this article consists of a group discussion about the potential of an app designed to help those in homeless circumstances with 12 people experiencing homelessness. As elaborated within the German and Anglo-Saxon context, group discussions differ from focus groups (Merton, 1987). The latter originated in the United States, and whereas focus groups have moderators, whose task it is to steer the discussion so that it focuses on certain aspects, the method of a group discussion is more open, because the moderators merely help to promote the group’s self-reliance. In focus groups, the participants do not know each other and are often randomly brought together by the researchers (Bohnsack & Przyborski, 2007); this is not the case with group discussants. The great advantage of the group discussion method is that it allows patterns of collective orientation to emerge (Bohnsack, 1998) as the participants confirm, complement, or correct each other. Their utterances build upon each other and, therefore, they negotiate meanings collectively and interpretatively. Thus, we approached the empirical material with the following research question: How would people experiencing homelessness make sense of an app that is customized and made available to them? Collective orientations unfold through the mutual enhancement and completion of the views of the individuals involved in the group discussion. Importantly, these orientations do not simply emerge out of straightforward interaction but, rather, are reproduced within the discussion over and over again and amount to deeper collective structures (Bohnsack & Przyborski, 2007).

After having briefly introduced the idea of creating an app designed for people experiencing homelessness, participants in the group discussion engaged in a lively exchange as to whether and how it would benefit them. Consequently, no feedback on a specific app proposal was sought. Rather, the group was asked to speculate on what the app could include for it to be both meaningful and user-friendly. More precisely, they discussed the app as being something imagined rather than as something that was actually being used by the participants. The discussion group largely consisted of men with the exception of one woman, who did not actively take part in the discussion. Therefore, there was a lack of female voices and representation. The group was selective in another way in that it was already in existence prior to the study, thus representing a self-organized group of people experiencing homelessness in Germany. For this reason, its members were likely to be more politically active than others in the same homeless situation. All of the participants had experience of living on the street rather than living in homeless shelters or with friends or acquaintances. The group discussion took place after an ordinary group meeting in 2019 and lasted about an hour and a half. The discussion was recorded and fully transcribed. We analyzed the empirical material by classic open coding (Glaser & Strauss, 1999) and sequential analysis (Oevermann, 1981, 2000) for those sequences within the discourse that dealt with the issue of visibility and invisibility. Thus, we combined aspects of grounded theory and reconstructive methods.

(In)Visibility and the smartphone: Navigating fears and desires

Recent studies indicate that despite differences in the continuous availability of electricity and internet access as well as digital hardware (such as computers and tablets), there is a high level of digital participation among homeless people in the German context (Rösch et al., 2021). For those people experiencing homelessness, sharing and taking part in a “new normalcy” of digital participation is perhaps of high value and, therefore, sought after. However, for normalcy to evolve, new media and corresponding forms of communication need to be integrated into quotidian activities. Hartmann (2010) argues that the appropriation of new technologies invokes the ontological certainty that users possess a “centrally firm sense of [their] own and other people's reality and identity [implying that they] have a sense of [their] presence in the world as real, alive, whole, and, in a temporal sense, continuous persons” (Laing, 1960/1990, p. 39), a sense that every individual wants to preserve. Importantly, the relationship between media and the social setting is significant, because it challenges people's sense of ontological certainty, and at the same time may also offer a potential building block for this to evolve (Hartmann, 2010, 2014). The implications are for everyone; however, media use for people experiencing homelessness proves to be distinctive in that for this population, “public space is at the same time their private space” (Hartmann, 2014, p. 644). Having a house as a place of retreat, where already built-up tension from constant surveillance in other settings can be relieved, is still the normative base from which to achieve or maintain ontological certainty. Nevertheless, as Hartmann argues, we could think of media as home in that it can provide a safe environment. Therefore, homing, which is the gradual creation of a safe environment through media (Hartmann, 2014), can take place everywhere, and may play a crucial role for people experiencing homelessness.

In the narratives of the respondents, a potential app for people experiencing homelessness becomes a surface on which projections and imaginaries are tested. Against the backdrop of their marginalized social position and their concrete experiences of struggle and hardship, homeless people associate the use of this potential app with particular fears and desires. These go hand in hand with online practices, which it is assumed would have an impact on their situation offline. Therefore, their fears and desires reproduce both social structures and relations as well as subjective perceptions and individual experiences. It seems as if the idea of an app for people experiencing homelessness is a digital mirror for how they experience the society they live in. As will be shown in the analysis, fears and desires go hand in hand with discourses of visibility and invisibility, which ultimately provide a lens through which to understand the experience of homelessness.

Using the smartphone and navigating fears

It is hardly surprising that the issue of digitalization in general, and the idea of a smartphone app for people experiencing homelessness in particular, becomes a screen for projecting fears about surveillance and control (Heinzelmann et al., 2021). These are mostly linked to the danger of exposing the respondent's identity in the case that anonymity cannot be guaranteed. The possibility of locating the user's geographical position in urban space via the app is expressed in this response:

[We have] an absolute insider tip. Listen, in this building there, the basement is open. It's warm and heated and you can sleep there. […] [S]ome things you had better keep to yourself […] that would [otherwise] become visible with this bug [of a smartphone app]. ¹

The respondents do not want to share this information with their homeless peers, who are competitors when it comes to finding secure and comfortable places to sleep. Neither do they wish to share this information with authorities for obvious reasons of criminalization. For these reasons, they prefer to stay invisible to the app's user spatial mapping. The discourse of invisibility is intertwined with the issue of data security, as the metaphor of “the bug” vividly demonstrates. The fear of visibility is also that the information obtained through surveillance can be used, for example, by social workers:

Or Mr. [X], he is suicidal and prone to violent outbursts, yeah. And in the future, it looks like that: The app pricks the social worker (others laugh). Attention, [Mr. X] approaches this facility. No, so what happens to [the data]? This is also surveillance. Who, who gets [the information], yeah.

Here again, we can see that locational positioning (via global positioning system) generates a certain degree of unease. Logically, these fears are linked with the overall issue of data protection. That is why one respondent clearly highlights data security as a precondition for using the app: “There are countless methods of publishing personal comments without revealing who it is. And if you take that into account with your app, […] [that] this data protection […] is guaranteed”. Therefore, being invisible (in the sense of anonymity) is a huge concern and precondition for using the app. For example, it is important because respondents want to minimize the risk of attracting the attention of immigration authorities in their use of the app. One respondent, who has applied for asylum in Germany as a politically persecuted person from Russia, but is currently unable to prove his identity, tells his story:

The immigration authority has already applied for my deportation. They didn’t tell me anything. Then when I was in the Russian consulate, they told me: “You know what? They are already waiting for you in Moscow”.

It becomes clear that in the context of migration, a person who is both sans papiers (immigrant without the proper work permits or identification) and experiencing homelessness would face far-reaching consequences if their identity (and location) were to be disclosed; deportation would be the ultimate consequence. However, beyond the specific situation of irregular migration, the idea of an app provokes fears of attracting the attention of other types of institutional authorities. As another respondent points out: “[You] are invisible when it comes to health insurance, you are invisible to the authorities, you are invisible to the bank, you are invisible even to the police”. Due to their restricted resources and means (Merton, 1938), people experiencing homelessness are almost always on the threshold of illegality or of acting illegally and, therefore, they fear the punitive and controlling society as embodied by law enforcement. They express the concrete fear of police intervention and punishment:

What happens to the data? Yes. If I imagine homeless people in the city center, then you can send out police forces and say: “Yeah, we know that seventeen homeless people are gathering somewhere, […] must be a camp. So, uh, we dissolve it now.” [So] you have to think about it, yes, it's madness. It's insane.

Generally, in a neoliberal or entrepreneurial city, the interests of the poorer urban population are taken less into account in political decision-making processes because certain social groups, such as people experiencing homelessness, are being pushed out of the city center, which has to be presentable (Wehrheim, 2012). Police intervention in this context would take the form of an eviction from a certain public urban space. However, other information published might even point to a criminal offense:

It is part of the topic, because it's sensitive information. So, for example, the basement of a certain company is always open. It's warm there, you can lie down there. That is sensitive information for the issue of trespassing. However, it is quite useful information for the homeless.

Here, it becomes clear that possible actions resulting from the lifeworlds of people experiencing homelessness move on the brink of illegality, starting with using public transportation without a paid ticket or theft due to lack of money, through to delinquent behavior and confrontation with the police and public order offices, which are almost inevitable. Thus, it seems only logical that in the course of digitalization and the fast-moving nature of societal transformation, combined with digital transparency, the fear of prosecution is widespread among the target group. A person experiencing homelessness simply does not want to be visible in such situations as described above.

Using the smartphone and navigating desires

Apart from a fear-based discourse, the group discussion revealed other attitudes toward the desirable features of a potential app and other factors that needed to be taken into consideration (Heinzelmann et al., 2021). With regard to the app, the respondents see the most potential in its ability to create opportunities for networking with other actors, for example, volunteers or simply people who would like to help:

Yes, volunteer work. We would like to network, so to speak, with people who are willing to help with, eeeh, [to connect] with homeless people and offer them access to their help. Through information, yeah, so [something] like an information app.

In order to enable networking with other people who are willing to help, the app is supposed to provide relevant information for people experiencing homelessness, information they would otherwise probably find it difficult to obtain. In the early days of homelessness, information on how to navigate and deal with this new, extreme situation of distress is invaluable, as one respondent emphasizes:

It would be of course best if you can put in there, […] when a person becomes homeless, to tell him [or her] to whom the person can turn. And that the people who already use this app can say: “Listen, I have something for you. I can help you with that.” Already that would be quite good. You know, or somebody knows where there is a place, a house or something where you can go. That should be included in the app. So just these very normal ways. Because we all know, it can happen overnight. Suddenly you lose everything, you’re standing there all alone, and you don’t know what to do next.

Fast and easy access to information on social assistance is desirable because it could be very helpful for a person experiencing the situation of homelessness for the first time and who may perhaps still be in shock due to the recent events in their life. Another example of providing helpful information is the availability of meals and food:

For example […] a link? When I say, oh man, I’m hungry, where can I get something? Or to just enter “hungry” and then it comes up, for instance, there's the Tafel, ² you can still go there until 5 p.m.

In addition to food supply, information on the availability of accommodation for overnight stays or longer is of great importance to the target group and, accordingly, many respondents would like this information to be included in the app:

[If someone says:] “You could perhaps stay with us in the basement, there is a small room, and if you have the need, you can hibernate there” […] because with me, it's just bad with my dog, going with a dog to an emergency shelter you can forget it.

Here, it becomes obvious that this respondent hopes to find availability of shelters that goes beyond what the social support system provides. Rather, he is looking for informal tips or offers, most importantly for somewhere, where his dog is not seen as an exclusion criterion. However, the information provided in the app must be up to date:

[If you] get something to eat there, or anything else, so I mean, if 15 people still come to a wrong address and there is nothing there for a long time already, that would frustrate the use of the whole system.

What becomes apparent is that the respondents present their desire to access relevant information and resources when reflecting on how they might use such an app. They view the app as a way of providing relief in a situation of extreme resource scarcity, although it would probably not help them to overcome homelessness. One respondent refers to it as an “industry of consolation, industry of pity: […] You are homeless? Here you have a sleeping bag. You are homeless? We have a place to sleep in the emergency shelter”. Yet another respondent refers to the well-known cake metaphor: “You have a right to a cake, yes, and there you are, you get crumbs. […] And that is, I think, very difficult”. Apparently, the respondents’ ultimate desire is to overcome homelessness and they also express this desire in the imaginaries they have created about the app:

A geographical coordinate system, with which you can geographically determine […] places where homeless people can also have a roof over their heads. [I don’t mean any facility] but self-determined living. […] A tipi, yes or a tree house, or a tiny house. Do you know what I mean? People would have the opportunity to build a small place for themselves in certain areas.

Interestingly, their wish for housing deviates from normal bourgeois concepts of living. They do not wish to live in a rented apartment, because as subjects in the market for housing ³ they have to fulfill certain demands and expectations. Rather, they aim for living and being housed in a self-determined way, for instance, in a tree or tiny house – imaginaries that clearly diverge from how people in urban centers live.

It goes without saying that having a roof over their heads is the most important and urgent need people experiencing homelessness have, and is behind their desire to use the app. However, the issue of social relationships is pressing in their discourses as well:

If you could do it according to a partner search system. Yeah, here is a homeless person and he could do something together with others who are also about to face homelessness. Very simple example: Appointment at the job center, ⁴ I would not want to go alone. Or, eh, for an emergency shelter, I would go there along with someone else. So, it would make sense to become visible [in the app], […] but not automatically [only] if someone is ready.

The respondent here associates using the app with the desire to meet people and establish new social contacts, not just with anyone but, importantly, with peers, that is, other people on the cusp of experiencing homelessness. Being in a similar situation is crucial:

I would like others to see [me or] where I am. I can say then, “Ah! I can meet someone who is in a similar situation.” That would do good. […] I don’t know [this person], but he's nearby. Let's see, I could meet him, maybe something can come out of this.

The respondents’ desire for social contact is directed primarily at peers. Like all humans, people experiencing homelessness do have a strong need for social warmth and comfort, which, arguably, is why they desire to meet peers or other like-minded people, because they perceive that only then can they enter social relationships on an equal footing. This is opposed to how they might feel about relationships they may form with social workers or other professionals, who probably place behavioral expectations on them and, thus, create unequal relationships.

Particularly striking is their desire to include a rating function for the offers and services provided by institutionalized help for people experiencing homelessness:

To add a rating function […] at this point, it makes sense to think further. You could write that I’ve been there and, for instance, the opening hours are not correct. I’ve been there and it was terribly dirty. I’ve been there and I was treated disrespectfully.

Here, the objective of the rating function might be to provide others with an idea of the quality of social assistance for the homeless and to share their experiences with others in need. As one respondent puts it, “how I have been treated at this or that facility. Will they really help me, or do I save myself the trouble of going there?”. In doing so, he continues, “I’d be up for it right away”, thus expressing how strongly he is in favor of such a rating function.

Discrete and discreet: An online presence shaped by both fears and desires

In order to contextualize our findings from the analysis further and interpret them, we need to discuss the social function of fears and desires and how they may have an impact on the actions of people experiencing homelessness both online and offline. When it comes to understanding fears as a social fact, a relational sociology perspective shifts the focus away from fears as an individual pathology and as societal dysfunctionality toward understanding fear relations and their functional meanings, because fear relations emerge in a variety of individual and social contexts. Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence (2001) together with Schmitz’ continuative ideas on the functions of fears (2019), shed light on the relevance of different fears with regard to the formation of social groups and generally of social order. Because of their contribution to the (re)production of psychic, practical, and social structures, fears are functional in many ways. Such a heuristic framework enables potential functional connections between emotions and social structures to be made and also creates awareness of the functional and dysfunctional consequences, both of which vary according to different groups of people (Rösch et al., 2021). Thus, for people experiencing homelessness, fear serves as a protective mechanism. As such, we can conclude that fears emerge as a response to their vulnerability, which is caused by their experience of homelessness. Vulnerability can be understood at both the individual and the societal level. At the individual level, it is expressed by experiences of physical harm, from violent expulsion from an urban space (for example, if homeless people have been sleeping, meeting with peers, or begging) to mugging, violent disputes with peers over places and resources through to being beaten up, raped, or even almost being killed (Lutz et al., 2021). At the societal level, vulnerability arises due to the perception of being othered, excluded, and marginalized, and because of the corresponding treatment, which, in turn, leads to experiences of suffering severe emotional and physical harm. If the disregard of the right to housing is seen as a human rights violation, it may even be regarded as violating a person's dignity. Furthermore, people experiencing homelessness are at the forefront of stigmatizing actions as and when they are denied access to institutions and opportunities, and to societal goods and resources such as the labor market, the housing market, and social welfare, among others (Gurr et al., 2022). Due to their marginal position, the options for action for people experiencing homelessness are limited, and they may even be criminalized or ostracized. They especially struggle in legal terms when it comes to enforcing their civil and human rights (Walsh, 2011). Therefore, they experience significantly limited agency, although not a complete loss of this (Annen, 2020). As we have illustrated with quotes from the group discussion, using a potential app specifically designed for people experiencing homelessness comes with a risk of surveillance. We argue that the app is perceived as traitorous in these instances. When data security is not a concrete fact, the respondents feel the need to be invisible. It seems as if the app serves as a mirror of a society, reflecting a situation in which people experiencing homelessness no longer trust social institutions or social relationships with family, friends, or acquaintances (Heinzelmann et al., 2023). However, trust is central to all of our lives. For instance, Luhmann (2014) sees the function of trust as the reduction of complexity in order to gain agency. For those experiencing homelessness, it is probably the other way around: complexity is not reduced and goes hand in hand with pervasive social control. Thus, invisibility is preferable to an online presence, which may result in undesirable consequences for the very real offline lives of people experiencing homelessness.

However, desires are associated with a certain sense of scarcity. As human beings, we long for something that we think is meaningful or that creates meaning in our lives. Desires may then represent an alternative to the current state or situation in which we find ourselves. In a way, desires help us both to find fault with the present reality, and also realize what is essential to it (Boesch, 1998). For people experiencing homelessness, and all the scarcities that come with it, the potential app becomes a projection screen on which desire for access to housing and other resources and information, ideas of autonomy and self-determination, and meaningful social relationships based on an equal footing, especially with peers, can be realized. It is not a new finding that being homeless also often involves the loss of meaningful and reliable social relationships such as those with spouses, children, parents, siblings or friends and colleagues because of divorce, separation or death, job loss, insuperable disputes, or whatever has caused the homeless problem. A person’s own feelings of shame and mortification at the situation they find themselves in can be added to this. For those people who find themselves living on the streets, new relationships emerge, some of which are with social workers or other professionals. However, these often have an uneven power dynamic and people experiencing homelessness find themselves in the weakest position because they are embedded in a hierarchical power structure (Cohen, 1998). This is why these new relationships are often neither maintained nor persist in the long term. Other new social contacts with peers and further loose connections emerge; these serve as alliances, often creating relief when it comes to navigating the hardships of everyday life on the streets. Therefore, many suffer from loneliness and isolation (Sanders & Brown, 2015).

However, the comparable struggles and hardships associated with homelessness do help to establish nonhierarchal social relationships and create feelings of social closeness. It is certainly understandable that people experiencing homelessness prefer to seek partnerships that enable them to share hardships and lifeworlds. Obviously, we can think of these partnerships as responses to the loneliness that many people experiencing homelessness face. We also see this as a way for individuals to (re-)gain self-determination in that they choose their own social contacts with like-minded people and peers, who may even share the same interests. In doing so, they can move beyond defining themselves only by their experience of homelessness. In other words, there is more to them than “merely” being homeless. Drawing upon labeling theory, we assert that such broader definitions are important insofar as once someone has been successfully labeled as deviant, which undoubtedly happens with the shift to homelessness and its lived reality, the label may attain master status. In other words, it obscures all other aspects of the person, such as their personality, character traits, interests, or values (Becker, 1963/2018). However, with regard to this and all the other desires the respondents projected onto the potential app, there is a need to display visibility. Only when a person is visible can they intentionally get in touch with peers and only then can their online actions transform into self-determination as a response to their limited agency in the situation of homelessness. In both instances, whether they wish to be invisible in certain situations or visible in others, the respondents similarly anticipate the possible consequences of their online actions for their very real offline lifeworld.

The simultaneity of being (in)visible with the smartphone

In constructing specific projections and imaginaries that are linked with the potential use of a smartphone app and more broadly with the issue of the digital transformation of society, people experiencing homelessness as represented by the group in the discussion share an evolving set of fears and desires. Both states of emotions are intertwined with discourses and narratives of (in)visibility. Illustrated by the quotes from the group discussion, it is notable that the respondents express a need for both absence (invisibility) and presence (visibility), which they construct through a strategic use of the app along what we can think of as the continuum of (in)visibilities. The strategy behind their proposed use of the app is to choose according to the specific situation when to be visible or, by contrast, when to try and stay under the radar so as not to draw unwanted attention. As we have seen, the respondents usually wish to be visible when they see an opportunity to access resources and information (most importantly in relation to food, places to sleep, or housing) and when they want to meet with peers in order to create meaningful social relationships based on an equal footing. On the other hand, they wish to be invisible whenever they fear surveillance and institutional control, particularly when they are looking for and find places to sleep or gather, but when the use of such places verges on being a criminal offense (e.g., trespassing), or when they fear eviction from urban spaces. Strategically speaking, agency for individuals who are homeless means intentionally choosing where to locate themselves on the continuum of (in)visibilities, that is, they are rather more or rather less visible according to the subjective relevancy and the assessment of danger or benefits of any given situation. We argue that their strategic and situational visibility or invisibility with the smartphone is a response to the consequences of the urban figurations of social control: vulnerability; loneliness; and limited agency. Hence, they strategically and situationally use (in)visibility as a form of self-determination, which helps them restore their agency. By taking these actions, the respondents actively deconstruct the heteronomy, that is, the constant social control and surveillance practices they experience. The desire to include a rating function for institutional offerings is one way for (some of) the respondents to make visible those institutions (and the people who work in them) that treat them with disrespect. Drawing attention to grievances in relation to social assistance might empower individuals and might go some way toward helping them to regain their dignity and reduce their vulnerability. The rating system might also have real offline consequences of penalties and sanctions, this time for the operators and not the beneficiaries.

What becomes apparent in the analysis is that whenever the respondents’ fears are addressed, they concurrently display a need for invisibility in their use of the potential app. Conversely, the app also responds to a need for visibility. Interestingly, it references social spaces both online and offline, because as digital users in the virtual world, the respondents generally see their online practices as having an impact on their real offline lifeworld. By linking the use of the potential app with discourses on visibility and invisibility, people experiencing homelessness actively construct the latter as relevant social categories with consequences for their entire lifeworlds. Thus, analyzing their desire- and fear-based imaginaries in relation to such an app provides us with a lens through which to obtain a better understanding of their experiences of homelessness.

Conclusion

For this contribution, we asked the following research question: How would people experiencing homelessness in Germany make sense of an app dedicated for the homeless, one not yet developed, and would it benefit them? The analysis presented suggests that by locating themselves situationally on the continuum of (in)visibilities by either choosing to be visible with the smartphone on one occasion but choosing to be invisible with it on another, homeless people actively and strategically respond to their current state of vulnerability, feelings of loneliness, and limited agency. We have shown that the latter are due to the urban figurations of social control. Therefore, the discussion about an imagined app can only be understood against the background of people’s experiences of homelessness. Our results indicate that respondents would use the app strategically and situationally to appear visible as a digital user in the hope of beneficial offline consequences, or to become invisible spatially to protect themselves against undesired offline consequences and sanctions. In turn, the suggestion of a rating function attached to the app emphasizes the desire to draw attention to poor treatment or even to expose those responsible. Thus, in their use of the app, the respondents are strategically and situationally placing themselves on the continuum of (in)visibilities with regard to others. Arguably, the strategic use of the app responds to their state of vulnerability by reducing their feelings of loneliness, allowing them to get in touch with peers and like-minded people, restoring their agency because it grants them self-determination and, finally, by allowing them to come to terms with the emotional harm and mortification they have endured. At best, they can regain a little bit of lost dignity. Moreover, according to Hartmann (2014), we can think of the strategies with regard to visibility or invisibility as homing, in that this particular way of using the app is to create a safe environment gradually, and along with this, stabilize the respondents’ ontological certainty.

Furthermore, the results of the group discussion indicate that the respondents have a strong emotional need to reveal (in the sense of making visible) how actors in the system of assistance for the homeless who normally would wield power over them, have wronged them, or treated them badly. We could even go so far as to say that by strategically and situationally choosing visibility or invisibility in their use of the potential app, people experiencing homelessness can beat the institutional actors at their own game, considering how social problems are established on the political agenda in the first place. As we have argued, the urban figurations of social control that create the conditions for people’s experiences of homelessness strongly depend on how homelessness is represented. As long as homelessness is labeled as a security problem, people experiencing it cannot have trust in society's institutions. The right to housing can only be asserted through a set of processes including claims-making, media coverage, public reaction, policymaking, social work, and policy outcomes (Best, 2008). The respondents themselves are very aware that homelessness has long been defined as a social problem; however, by using the potential app in order to shed light on the matter and to make the grievances about assistance for the homeless (e.g., emergency shelters) visible to others, the system of help in place is revealed to be the social problem itself. Therefore, users prove they can appropriate the institutional and political actors’ logic and act according to their own best interests in a given situation. In the context of policymaking, our findings with regard to the strategic and situational use of (in)visibility by way of the smartphone demonstrate that the current framing of homelessness as a social problem ought to be held responsible for the vulnerability, loneliness, and limited agency of those people affected. However, we should be careful of proclaiming “tech solutionism” with a proposed app, because the solution for homelessness is not only technological. The app can help to meet several needs; however, it is more of a “symptom treatment” than a “cause control.” A big part of the solution is political: the provision of affordable housing. Hence, our contribution suggests new paths toward redefining homelessness and advocates that housing as a human right should be taken seriously.

Acknowledgements

This manuscript has benefited from professional English language editing by Dr. Alexia Moyer, to whom we would like to express our gratitude. In addition, we would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors of the Special Issue Homelessness and Mobile Media for their comments which were of great help to improve the article.