The aim of the article is to critically reassess relation between moral and economy of agents from the poorest class. The relational concept of the poorest class designates here homeless, drug-users, and some poor individuals generally that all have common particular social practices on the one hand and a position within of the social space on the other hand.
Homelessness in the Czech Republic is a relatively new phenomenon. Because of ideological background before 1989, as a result of loss of employment, it could not show up. For that reason, it fully emerged in early 1990s. Under this condition, it has been also unresearched for long time. Moreover, most of the written papers have ignored key studies from abroad, especially from the USA. Therefore, this paper offers an overview of studying the homelessness in USA. It briefly describes historic and cultural movement from the pre-industrial poor to the urban centric homeless. Then, in light of distinguished periods of 20th century, it focuses on conditions of emergence and development American skid rows and particularities of their populations. Finally, the paper presents important studies of all these periods. Based on overview of American homelessness the paper articulates four propositions for a research in the Czech Republic. The research should focus on: (1) historic, socio-cultural and polical-economical context related to postsocialism and neoliberalism; (2) searching for less ideological conceptualizations of homelessness; (3) connecting poverty as the main factor of homelessness with other ones; (4) carrying out more ethnographic researches.
Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a survey method used to create samples of populations that are hidden and hard to reach. Even though the method has been used since the 1990s in studies internationally, it has not yet been used in Czech research. The RDS methodology tends to be described presented as a statistical tool that makes it possible to produce unbiased estimates of hidden or hard-to-reach populations, and at the same as a tool with which to effectively recruit respondents from the given populations. The goal of the article is to introduce RDS methodology and its uses and to present and assess its application in a homeless survey conducted in two Czech cities – Prague (N=322) and Pilsen (N=146). We show that as long as certain preconditions are met the method proves to be fact and effective, especially with respect to the speed at which it is possible to sample the homeless population. We compare the outcome of the RDS survey with that of a survey of the homeless population in Prague (2010) and assess whether and how the outcomes of the two samples differ in certain population characteristics. Finally, we offer practical suggestions and observations on using the RDS method for sampling homeless populations.