But stereotypes of drug abuse and lawlessness remain. Homelessness is deeply stigmatizing. Erving Goffman, one of the twentieth century’s most influential sociologists, spent years thinking and writing about stigmas and those who live without social acceptance: the disabled, addicts, the mentally ill. He described stigma as a “spoiled identity.” Interviewed for a study on homelessness influenced by Goffman’s work, a young man said that the hardest thing about living on the street “has been getting used to the way people look down on street people. It’s real hard to feel good about yourself
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