Relocation and wholesale life change: Does it work?
November 3, 2010 at 6:52 pm salfordgareth 17 comments
‘Location is everything’ – this is a statement widely accepted as true among homebuyers and those people on the TV. But how important is location for someone who is homeless and wanting to escape the problems in their lives that are preventing them from moving forwards?
The need for relocation is considered necessary among many for a wholesale life change. But what is a wholesale life change? It is something that many homeless people talk about as being necessary for them to turn away from the problems, habits, and people that they are familiar with and move into the future and life that they desire. ‘Wholesale life change’ is the best term I can think of to describe this process. Wholesale life change may not always be wanted; it can actually be unwanted too. I’ll use two examples to illustrate my point: the first, change for recovering drug users; the second, women escaping domestic violence.
Firstly, drug users have often discussed the difficulties in breaking free of their habit. But breaking free of the habit is complex. There are key people in their lives that are linked to drug use and they are part of a community of like-minded people. Like any community there are unwritten but widely understood rules, norms, and expectations. It is a familiar existence. When they decide to stop using the drugs and exit that community they also need to find new meaningful activities, new housing, and make new friends and relationships. To slip back into the ‘old’ lifestyle can be very tempting. To create a new life in the same place is difficult and therefore a wholesale change may be needed. Change includes relocation and the chance to start a fresh, different life.
In contrast to these are victims of domestic violence. Some flee their homes and the places they know to go somewhere they can be safe and hidden. They are escaping someone who is a threat to their personal safety and well-being. But relocation presents difficulties such as moving away from family and friends, and possibly uprooting children too. It is an imposed wholesale change which can often be unwanted.
What interests me now though is to know how much value there is in these wholesale life changes. Do they work? Is this a route out of, and away from, the life that they are trying to escape? What are the long-term consequences? Are they successful in achieving the life they want by going through these changes? I am hopeful that I will be able to find, and interview, some more people who can help me to answer some of these questions.
Entry filed under: Aspirations, Domestic Violence, Substance misuse. Tags: Aspirations, Community, domestic violence, drug use, escape, homelessness, life change, networks, substance misuse, wholesale life changes.
salfordgareth
lisascullion
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calneeagle | November 3, 2010 at 10:56 pm
I shall be very interested to see the outcome of your researches. My partner works in the field of domestic volence, and often has to arrange these ‘unwanted uprootings’. And in the field of addiction, we know that relocation is often helpful to avoid the previous circle of contacts, but only if the underlying addiction is properly tackled, otherwise a new ‘circle’ is found elsewhere. In this latter circumstance, the saying in AA and NA circles is ‘wherever you move, you take yourself with you’, and it is called ‘doing a geographical’.
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salfordgareth | November 4, 2010 at 9:36 am
Hi Martin, thanks for your comments and for taking an interest in the research.
I agree with what you are saying about finding new circles of drug users. I have been informed that it is simple enough, even when completely alone and with no contacts in an area, to wait outside a chemist and you will soon meet another user. “How can you tell who you should be speaking to?”, I asked. “You can just tell” was the straightforward reply.
With regards to our research outcomes, we are currently working on a paper which is due for publication in a special issue of the journal ‘Social Policy and Society’. This issue will feature articles from all four of the projects that are part of the ESRC’s ‘Multiple Exclusion Homelessness’ programme. The tone of our article is quite an interesting one I think and seems to challenge the reductionist nature of current thinking. Instead of attempting to isolate certain factors of homelessness, it looks at homelessness in the context of the person’s life course which reveals that it is often incidental, and just a bit part, to their bigger story. For those working in homelessness and related circles this will probably seem implicit, but I am not sure how much it has been reflected in the literature before now.
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jihn bloggs | November 13, 2010 at 10:38 pm
hi gareth..while the homeless sector not alone in thinking in single issues ie,alchool,addications,mental health,etc would not be far better to work/advocate in a holistic manner,meaning see “the person as a whole,not just parts” and in doing so jioned up thinking/working practices would hopfully start to be created,how many times you must have heard during interviews,went to this service,had to go through the whole process again another service…but services all homeless related….interviews,critera,assessments….etc
regards team homeless uk
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salfordgareth | November 16, 2010 at 9:10 am
Hi John
I think that this emphasis on ‘multiple exclusion’ does challenge the single issue thinking that you speak of. It would be interesting to know more about how the homelessness sector does address the need for joined up thinking and practices in order to tackle multiple exclusion and perhaps Professor Jill Manthorpe’s (Kings College London) research will shed more light on this issue. With regards to my own interviews, I can’t recall anybody (without going back through the transcripts) discussing annoyance at repeated interviews and assessments – bear in mind though the nature of our life course interviews, we are unlikely to pick up this kind of thing unless it is something that is really important to their life story.
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Martin | November 14, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Hi Gareth
I have enjoyed your blog and am particularly looking forward to your more ‘substantive’ observations and findings. To this end, when can we expect to see the Social Policy and Society articles?
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salfordgareth | November 16, 2010 at 9:14 am
Hi Martin. Thanks for taking an interest in the research and the blog. I am told that the special issue of Social Policy and Society is due for publication in October next year. I would hope that there would be electronic access to the articles before that date but I am not sure what the journal’s policy is on that matter so cannot say for sure. I will certainly share any news about publications on the blog as soon as I have concrete information.
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john bloggs | November 16, 2010 at 8:58 pm
hi gareth any news we post to you..
team homeless uk
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john bloggs | November 17, 2010 at 7:25 am
Wholesale life change..” not what service providers can do for clients,what clients can do for providers”
team homeless uk
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john bloggs | November 17, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Hi gareth..some news for you..
SRA conference takes place at the British Library on 07.12.10 in London,amoung other presentations will be some research taken place by Nottingham into Multiple Research Homlessness,with Peter Dwyer professor of social policy from Unv of Salford,one the the spokespersons…
more details can be found at Methodspace..
regards Team Homeless Uk and narrative Bob
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salfordgareth | November 22, 2010 at 8:54 am
A link to the conference abstracts:
http://www.the-sra.org.uk/documents/pdfs/workshop_abstracts.pdf
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john bloggs | November 17, 2010 at 9:09 pm
opps! should be Multiple Exclusion Homelessness Research
sorry about that,to err is to be be human
team homeless uk
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john bloggs | November 24, 2010 at 11:47 pm
hi gareth..Prof Peter Dwyer from Salford Univ will be giving a seminar on making sense of Multiple Exclusion Homelessness,with Insights from a recent study..This will be held on December 15th at Northumbria Univ,,School of Arts and Social Studys..Lipman Building at 2pm…
regards team homeless uk
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salfordgareth | November 26, 2010 at 10:29 am
Thanks. Bumped into Pete yesterday – looking forward to hearing more about the project. Maybe he will get a chance to do something in the North West as part of his tour!
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john bloggs | December 18, 2010 at 10:29 pm
hi gareth…To read more about Peter Dywers methodology! on his take of Peer Research…this can be found by Google.. Sra Bowpitt, that would be Dr Graham Bowpitt part of the team,on MEH Nottingham….
its a good exercise! and going in right direction,but its peer interviewing,not peer research,because parts of methodology missed out,and also not really a balanced perspective for more than one reason 1,example ..what geographical areas were people interviwed,on the London section of research….
regards team homeless uk
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salfordgareth | December 21, 2010 at 9:56 am
http://www.the-sra.org.uk/documents/pdfs/sra_annual_conference_2010_presentations/workshops/bowpitt.pdf
This is an interesting set of slides. I agree, it’s more peer interviewing than peer research. But we must remember that doing the full research task is a complex job. It may be useful to have more input from people with homeless experience at other stages of the research. But research is often tedious and ambiguous: it’s never as simple and straightforward as it is presented to people at the end of a project. I would be interested to know if any of these peer interviewers developed a taste for the work and would be interested in doing it again but with greater involvement.
Also, I accept that these are a set of slides and I have not heard the presentation from the researchers. I hope that I do get the opportunity in the future because it raises some interesting questions. But what frustrates me about the slides is the amount of questions in it – I would really like to know the answers and I would hope that the research team would be able to provide them.
I would also like to know if, and how much, the peer researchers were paid to do the work.
Thanks for the link though, very useful indeed!
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john bloggs | December 21, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Gareth..bit more info for you..Nottingham Trent Universty..MEH
on News and Events page dated Monday 2nd Feb 2009 you will find that the exercise unfolds as “Homeless volunteers will act as Co-researchers”and partnered up with academic researcher.Charities will also support the recruitment of respondants from amoung their service users,and help to design the interview schedules,with the main focus on single people….
Now this begs a few questions…
Are all homeless people service users?
How was reruitment facilitated,”poster on wall?
Are all homeless people single? might be this week, next?
Starting to look like Multiple Exclusion
A solid evidence base?
regards team homeless uk
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john bloggs | December 22, 2010 at 12:09 pm
seasons greetings gareth..keep focused…
team homeless uk