Are “Good Boundaries” Good?: Ethical Discernment, Boundaries, and Community Action Amidst the Constant Crises of Homelessness

This paper will explore the concept of “good boundaries,” particularly as they relate to ethical responses to the ongoing homelessness crisis in the United States. This paper will consider how blanket understandings of good boundaries as virtuous can shape interactions between housed and unhoused people in unhelpful ways that ignore the complexity of people’s circumstances and further perpetuate economic segregation. Drawing from sources in Christian ethics as well as ongoing ethnographic research in a Christian church that prioritizes fostering community inclusive of its unhoused neighbors, this paper will explore how relationships across class differences nurture our ability to imagine more mutually beneficial ways of living well together. This paper will consider the limits and possibilities in a particular community’s practices of relationally discerned and ever-evolving boundaries, offering insight with broader implications for how ethical discernment within communities can help us to envision our collective well-being in the face of crises.