Presentation that accompanied the launch of the final report from this 2 year ESRC funded project at the Mitchell Arts Centre in Stoke-on-Trent in May 2012.

1. Losing and finding a home:
Homelessness, multiple
exclusion and everyday lives
Report launch
Mitchell Arts Centre, Hanley
25th May 2012
Research award: RES-188-25-0016

2. Background
• In 2009 the Economic and Social Research Council
(ESRC) launched a co-funded programme of research
into ‘Multiple Exclusion Homelessness’.
• The aim was to help inform national and local policy
and practice when tackling homelessness across the
United Kingdom (UK).

3. Multiple Exclusion Homelessness
• Not a new label but aims to describe those people
who are among the most vulnerable, routinely
excluded and costly to society
• Focuses upon homelessness +
• + worklessness + poverty + severe mental health
problems + drug and alcohol dependencies + state
care + the criminal justice system and so on

4. Key current policy in England
• Local authorities need strategies to deal with
homelessness
• Investment into hostel provision
• End to rough sleeping by 2012
• Set up of Working Group across government

5. Problems underpinning policy
• Credit crunch – increase in numbers of homeless
households
• Increase in the use of temporary accommodation
• Reduction in various welfare budgets
• Reduction in funding available to public and
voluntary sector services

6. A glimmer of hope
• Little evidence of a drive to develop strategic
approaches to homelessness as the house of cards
tumble
• But...
– Increasing focus on ‘troubled families
– Renewed interest in ‘invest to save’ models of thinking
– Social impact bonds – drawing down private finance to
deliver social good

7. Our broad aims
1. Draw attention to issues affecting multiply excluded
homeless people
2. Understand their circumstances, their challenges and
their everyday lives
3. Explore how we might best help to tackle these complex
issues in the future

8. The situation in Stoke
• 16,340 children are living below the poverty line
• 73 claimants apply for every job
• 200 people have been found rough sleeping in North
Staffordshire
• Rent restrictions for the under 35’s may mean
people move on from their current accommodation

9. The situation in Stoke
• Massive industrial decline
• Ranked the 17th most deprived area, a third of the
area amongst the most deprived in the country
• Pro-active approach to tackling homelessness in
place for the last 7 years.

10. The research

11. • 18 interviews with people providing various services.
• 104 interviews with people who were homeless or
multiply excluded in some way.
• Aim was to get a thorough, detailed and rich picture
of the lives people were leading.
• Importantly – did not start with their homelessness
but asked people to tell us about their lives

12. An overview of findings…

13. The lives people lead...
• Complexity surrounds almost everything - there is
an enormous range of homelessness circumstances,
the events which have preceded it, the ways in
which it is experienced and perceived – the unique,
individual, and complex experience of homelessness
and exclusion

14. Lauren, 18
It all started around 9, 10 when my mum and dad
split up and then I started the drink and the drink led
to like sex and drugs and loads of stuff like that and
then it got for years I was going out fighting with
people. It was like no one could save me and then my
dad kicked me out and my sister took me on and
then she kicked me out and then I met a partner.
Domestic violence. He battered me when I was
pregnant, so there's loads of stuff.

15. The reasons people become
homeless
• Very rarely a single ‘risk ‘ factor.
• More likely there are ‘triggers’ that can build up over
time. For some traumatic experiences during
childhood go someway to laying the foundations

16. Gemma, 31
My mum and dad were both smackheads. They
didn’t have a clue what to do with us. The house was
filthy, disgusting. We were hardly ever fed. My dad
abused my sister on a regular basis. You know, it was
just mental cruelty. They used to ask us what we
wanted form the chippy, go out get it and then eat it
in front of us instead of giving us it. My dad put his
roll-ups out on me and on my sisters and brothers.
My nan used to come, my mum’s mum, and she used
to try her best but she was old, couldn’t cope with us.
Then social services got involved and we got taken
away.

17. The reasons people become
homeless
• For many others the stories people tell are often
constructed against a high prevalence of parental
divorce, parental absence, unsettled family lives and
a lack of affection.

18. Patrick, 21
My dad couldn't cope with it through whatever
reasons of his own, so he left my mum, like. Decided
that part while my mum was in hospital. I went into
Social Services, into care.
Ollie, 26
I'm like the black sheep of the family I am, pushed
out…You need your family around you. I've got no
family around me, not even my little girl.

19. Lauren, 18
My mum moved away…I was living with my dad and
my dad was seeing other women, bringing other
women in the house and I was fighting with my
dad’s girlfriends…and then it was like my dad was
kicking me out. I had nowhere to live and then loads
of stuff.

20. Managing homelessness
• Homelessness was rarely the central event in
people’s life.
• The relationships they had at the time, their
substance misuse, their friends, looking for work all
tended to feature as more important than whether
they had secure accommodation

21. Managing homelessness
• People we spoke to experience of rough sleeping,
sofa surfing, camping in fields, staying with friends,
temporary accommodation, hostels.
• One of the surprises from the research was the
positive impact hostels tended to have for people

22. Ewan, 20
you can't just rely on your support worker to get you
a house if you're not committed. You've got to show
progression and you've got to be committed and
show that you are capable of doing these responsible
activities that life has to hold for you. If no one wants
to help themselves they ain't gonna get very far, are
they.

23. People with purpose
• Far from being hopeless and passed around from
pillar to post most people demonstrated a lot of
agency in their lives
• The presence of purpose
– Search for stability
– Relationships (familial and romantic)
– Escape from ‘wrong crowd’
– Desire for work

24. Billy, 23
I went to the Job Centre and they told me about
something called the Future Jobs Fund...’it’s only a six
month thing but it’ll be good for you. It’ll get you
another job’ She went through the list of jobs ‘I'll go
for that please duck’ . A week later she rang me up
‘Hi Billy you start next week’.

25. Tackling homelessness
• Service provision
• Reaching an epiphany/rock-bottom
• Looking for opportunities
• Support from others – particularly key workers

26. Derek, 26
[name] who works down there, well she's an
absolute diamond…she's seen a fair few things. But
she turned round and said to me, “The way I see it…
when you're lying on your death bed, are you going
to be able to turn around to yourself and say 'I'm
quite happy with everything I've done in my life. I feel
like I've helped people, I feel like everything that I've
done, all the bad things, I feel like I've done enough
right to counterbalance that. I've sort of made a
positive impact on this world',” and that's a really
bloody mantra to live by when you think about it.

27. Key point – people are rarely
victims
Graham, 51 - On understanding homelessness
You can have an opinion about somebody, don’t judge
him. You don’t know why he ended up there. “Oh, he’s a
tramp”. You know fuck all about his life…We've all got
stories. You've got a story behind you somewhere, know
what I mean? We've all got stories, we've all got sad
ones, tragic ones, course we have, but don’t go round
judging ‘em, you know what I mean.

28. Conclusions
• Homeless for many was just part of a whole host of
other experiences. Significant yes, but does not
define them.
• Homelessness often came later or last in their life
stories – they are people first
• People are not as hopeless as they can be portrayed
– demonstrate high levels of agency

29. Conclusions
• Simplistic structural solutions are inadequate due to
the sheer complexity of the issues concerned
• Need for psychologically informed approaches
listening, personalisation and empowerment
• Not just a public , community and voluntary sector
issue

30. The research team

31. The advisory group
Gill Brown (Brighter Futures)
John Farrar (YMCA)
Christina Harrison (Stoke-on-Trent City Council)
Sarah Haydon (Stoke-on-Trent City Council)
Simon Lovatt (YMCA)
Jane Morton (Stoke-on-Trent NHS)
Lisa Reilly (Arch North Staffordshire)
Stephen Robbins (Stoke-on-Trent City Council)
Gary Thomas (Salvation Army)
Samantha Williamson (Stoke-on-Trent City Council)

32. Somewhere nowhere: lives without homes

33. Further information
Dr Philip Brown p.brown@salford.ac.uk
This grant is co-funded between ESRC, Joseph Rowntree
Foundation and the Department for Communities and Local
Government. Research award: RES-188-25-0016