Losing and Finding a Home

Health and Homelessness: A Response to the Crisis Report

December 21, 2011 at 4:03 pm salfordgareth 4 comments

The Crisis report publicised in today’s media draws attention to the health problems experienced by people who have experienced homelessness. More specifically, the research finds that their life expectancy is on average 30 years less than the rest of the population. Researchers also found that drugs and alcohol play a role in one third of deaths of people who are homeless; that they are more likely to commit suicide; and, are more likely to be killed in a traffic accident.

The Universities of Salford and Lincoln have conducted research into multiple exclusion homelessness over the previous two years (as one of the four research teams in the ESRC/JRF funded programme). Instead of a statistical study, we were more interested in the insights that can be yielded from a qualitative study: we did this by conducting life story interviews with people who were homeless. This method has allowed us to identify and analyse the complex, intertwined events of an individual’s life. Many of our participants experienced some sort of physical or health problem; alcohol and substance misuse was also prevalent.

One interesting finding was the role of dyslexia in the life stories of people who had become homeless. Trent, a seventeen year old interviewee, discussed how dyslexia was caught up in his journey through education. Trent had vivid memories of being neglected by his alcoholic parents at the age of ten – the same age he developed a habit for alcohol himself.  He discussed how these problems combined to lead to his early exit from high school:

Int          When did you find out you had dyslexia then?  

Trent         It was when I was in Year 7, when I went high school. They thought I had something wrong with me, but they thought it was because of my behaviour, ‘cos I wasn’t at school or anything.

Trent          When you were at primary school?         

Rsp         Hmm, they thought it was ‘cos I was a young lad, growing up, being naughty, but when I got to high school they found out I’d got dyslexia and it’s just, like I had to strive for my exams like, but I never got to do them in my own level. I got kicked out in the last year.

After leaving school early, Trent began to sell drugs and joined a gang. He also carried a gun to keep himself safe. Later, he realised that his friends were ‘using’ him (and giving him somewhere to sleep) only because he was giving them drugs. He identified a turning point in his life as the time he left them to move in to a hostel; once there, he received support to seek employment and independent accommodation.

In contrast to Trent, Scott was a forty-one year old interviewee (and just six years younger than the average life expectancy age identified in the Crisis report) who had experienced health problems throughout his life story. Scott was sexually assaulted by his father at the age of five. Because his father was arrested, Scott was ostracised by his family and, at the same time, he turned to smoking cigarettes, and eventually alcohol and drugs, too. He started smoking cannabis at age twelve, cocaine at twenty-one, and heroin at twenty-six. He described himself as a ‘right swine’ as a child. At the age of eleven he was involved in an accident which resulted in colitis and a pierced liver, lung, and kidney. He was away from school for a year and felt apathetic about education when he returned. He was placed in care but left at age fifteen when he moved to London. He slept rough for two years, and at age sixteen, he was raped.  Scott then spent around fifteen years employed by Gypsies with whom he would travel internationally. When this ended, he struggled to work again and returned to rough sleeping and substance misuse. At forty he had a heart attack which prompted him to stop using drugs and cut down on alcohol.

What is interesting about these stories is that it allows us to think about the bigger picture of an individual’s life: it adds some meaning and depth to the statistics we read in research projects about homelessness. We can see from these examples that problems with health are not necessarily a result of homelessness, nor have they become homeless because of their health problems. It just isn’t that simple. Trent’s issue with dyslexia was not picked up on early in school; indeed, his behavior was attributed to be that of a ‘naughty boy’. Scott clearly had problems with his health from the unfortunate accident he experienced as a child. His pathway to alcohol and drugs is, according to Scott, his method of coping with the abuse he suffered as a child. Though he first used them when he was a child, he began to use harder drugs after he became homeless. The heart attack he experienced as a forty year old is attributed to his years of drug and alcohol use.

There are also two contrasting narratives in these examples, too. For Trent, he had a problem (dyslexia) which was combined with several others (parental neglect, being surrounded by other drug users) that would eventually lead him toward homelessness. Homelessness, one would hope, is the turning point for him to move forward and progress with his life. Scott, on the other hand, has experienced some kind of physical and mental distress for almost his entire life and for which his experience of homelessness has contributed.

The Crisis/University of Sheffield report has highlighted the problems associated with poor life expectancy and health outcomes. To understand the role of alcohol and substance misuse, as well as problems with physical and mental health, an individualised analysis such as the life story approach has been useful in acquiring insight; it can also help us to identify where, who, and how in a person’s life course particular problems can be picked up on and addressed before they lead to homelessness. We hope this blog post helps to provoke further thought and discussion.

Entry filed under: Discussions, Findings, Health, Homeless people, Rough sleeping. Tags: alcohol misuse, colitis, Crisis, dyslexia, ESRC, health, homelessness, JRF, Life expectancy, life story interviews, Lincoln University, mental health, rape, Research, Salford University, Sexual abuse, Sheffield University, substance misuse.