Losing and Finding a Home

Doing Stuff with Homelessness Research

November 22, 2011 at 1:54 pm salfordgareth Leave a comment

We’re now two years on from the beginning of this research project and we’ve come a long way. We’ve forged partnerships with homelessness service providers in Stoke, and conducted and analysed one hundred life story interviews with homeless people as well as around twenty stakeholders in the city. But while one significant part of the research process has come to an end, it is at this point that we start putting our work into the public domain. To begin with, there are some papers available to download, for free, here.

As you may or not be aware, our research project has been part of a wider programme of research in the multiple exclusion homelessness programme. The findings from the programme were launched at an event in London in September, which was chaired by Jon Snow, the Channel Four journalist, and attracted significant nationwide media attention. A JRF round-up document was also produced to coincide with this event and this can be accessed here. The round-up was received well across a wide audience and received support from many stakeholders in the field, including the Minister for Housing, Grant Shapps. It is also encouraging to see outputs from the wider research programme regularly being shared and disseminated via Twitter.

Yet, it feels as though there is so much more work that we can do. We have a number of academic papers which we are working on, but we also recognise that we have more to contribute and in ways we did not foresee when we began our research. Working with partner organisations in Stoke has helped us to share knowledge, understand what the goals are, and find ways of supporting each other to achieve what we all want: better outcomes for homeless people in the city. As an example, we recognise, as a group (the voluntary sector, local authority, and the research team), that more can be done with other public service bodies, and the private sector, to develop opportunities for homeless people to move forwards. We are finding ways to increase their awareness, demystify misconceptions around homelessness, and consider the role different services and employers may play in the life stories of individuals and the ‘ecosystem’ of the city.

We also want to improve the network of homelessness researchers in the country. At the moment, researchers appear disconnected from each other. This is partly because homelessness is an area of concern across disciplines, such as housing, social policy, and to a lesser degree, psychology. A mixture of disciplines is a welcome asset to the study of homelessness, but it will benefit from improved links between individual researchers and institutions. Finding ways of bringing them together and sharing knowledge will help to inform future directions of study and lead to better understandings of homelessness, new practices, and provide evidence for policymakers.

Finally, we’re looking to do more with the findings of our own research project. The life experiences of the people interviewed are fascinating. Listening to the stories, and reading them, inspires a tremendous mix of emotions: sadness, despair, anger, happiness, laughter, surprise, hope, fear, awe, and wonder - all the emotional responses you would expect to experience in hearing human stories. These are the things that remind us that, among the professional jargon, we are dealing with real human experience; we are reminded of why homelessness is such a serious social issue. But, there are limits to our abilities as a research team and for our work to have an impact on others, we are currently working with talented, creative individuals to help us re-tell these stories. We’re also looking for funding opportunities to do more creative work and engage larger, more diverse audiences and, at the same time, draw upon the talents of homeless people themselves. To exemplify this point, I’ll finish the post with a short film which was created by young people with experience of homelessness. Volunteers at the YMCA in Stoke produced this film with the support of regional television, and it was aired on local news about a year ago:

Entry filed under: Findings, Homelessness services, Policymaking, Project update, Public engagement, Research. Tags: awareness, city ecosystem, creativity, dissemination, emotions, film, Grant Schapps, homelessness, housing, jargon, Jon Snow, JRF, knowledge, misconceptions, networks, policymaking, Psychology, public engagement, Research, social issues, social policy, Stoke, television, understanding homelessness, YMCA.