The last ten years Denmark has experienced a gradual increase of elderly homeless people
(Benjaminsen, 2019, p. 31), and meanwhile the group has not really received any particular attention – neither politically nor from research – which raises the relevance for research in this area.
The thesis statement is how do elderly homeless people handle their everyday lives and its three research sub-questions are: What influence does the past have on the current situation? How do you experience and deal with the patterns of everyday life? And what role do relationships play in managing everyday life?
In the analysis, theories by sociologists Alfred Schutz and Erving Goffman are central for processing the interview data, due to their everyday life perspectives.
The thesis concludes that the duration of homelessness has an impact on how the elderly homeless handles his/her everyday life. Furthermore, externalizing the reasons for becoming homeless is used as a strategy in dealing with the everyday life. Additionally the Daily rhythms that the elderly homeless experiences are evaluated as an important tool in a chaotic situation, in order to create a frame that is similar to the normal society’s daily rhythms or close to, and through that sustain a link to the normal society. Finally, the thesis describes how crucial recognition from professional social workers as well as “normal” citizens are for the elderly homeless in order for him/her to cope and deal with the everyday life. The conclusion based on the three research questions is, that the elderly homeless seeks to create meaningfulness in his/her marginalised and chaotic everyday life with the above mentioned “tools”.