Maxwell Akiva Hellmann

While Los Angeles has long been recognized as a global leader in the residential long-term care industry, publicly-subsidized ‘board and care’ homes (B&C) have been quickly disappearing. After years of neglect, however, Californian politicians are casting this dying industry as the missing link in a ‘continuum of care’ aimed at keeping people out of jail and off of the streets. The portrayal of B&Cs as a humanitarian solution to a growing homelessness crisis raises the question of how the continuum of care relates to the ‘continuum of carcerality’ and what exactly ‘home,’ ‘community,’ or ‘care’ entail in the present moment? This project brings ethnographic attention to these care facilities ‘ situating them within a wider landscape of housing, social services, and poverty management strategies ‘ in order to examine the interplay between larger social and political economic trends and the intimate, quotidian struggles for a dignified life. By examining a space where the carceral state and (post-)welfare state intersect, I will explore the relationship between care, confinement, and social control. In turn, I will explore how various actors ‘ from residents, to facility operators, family members, and policy makers ‘ respond to, contest, and attempt to remake the status quo.