Bourgois and Schonberg conducted their research in San Francisco over a period of more than 10 years, between 1994 and 2006. In this era, a rapid rise in housing costs, among other factors, led to a dramatic increase in the number of unhoused people in San Francisco and surrounding communities. Neoliberal economic policies instituted by Ronald Reagan and his political successors meant that when people lost their jobs in the economic recession of the early 1990s, there was little social safety net to catch them. As communities of unhoused people began to grow in places like Edgewater Boulevard and Golden Gate Park, public resentment of unhoused people grew.

The city’s mayor from 1992 to 1996 was Frank Jordan, a former police chief who had campaigned on a platform of restoring order to public spaces that city residents felt had been taken over by unhoused people. Jordan’s administration relied on punitive law enforcement. Jordan’s Matrix Program empowered the city police to dismantle makeshift shelters and encampments and to issue citations and make arrests for misdemeanors like sleeping in public and loitering—aspects of the criminal code that primarily target unhoused individuals. In Righteous Dopefiend, Bourgois and Schonberg provide clear evidence that these punitive policies exacerbate the harms that come with being unhoused and dealing with addiction, making it harder for unhoused people to improve their lives.