“Homeless people have dreams too”

INSP’s Project Manager, Zoe Greenfield, visited the Camillian Mission for Social Assistance as part of  FEANTSA’s Ninth European Research Conference in Warsaw last week. She describes how homeless people are building a ship to travel the world…

A personal love of travel drew me to the St. Lazarus Boarding House run by the Camillian Mission for Social Assistance where the residents are building a boat with one mission: to travel the world.

The building, which now houses 100 men, was purchased in 1991 by Bogusław Paleczny, a charismatic Camillian monk who recognized that homeless people in Warsaw were in need of more than food handouts. He wanted to show that homeless people have skills and should be valued members of the community. A seafarer himself, he was the inspiration behind the project and the ship has been named in his honour: Marine Yacht Father Bogusław.

The ship has been a hugely successful tool in attracting media attention with journalists from as far afield as Japan visiting the project. The staff are often asked when the ship with be finished and they answer that it is already working! By attracting journalists to the project, it is helping to bring homelessness to the attention of the public and also city officials.

The residents of the boarding house have designed and decorated the rooms and corridors. The themes of travel and the sea run throughout, with a whole wall in the cafeteria dedicated to a map of the world (useful if you are planning to sail it!). In the basement a mural flows along the corridors covering walls and doors, showing a peaceful place with birds flying over a lake, flanked by dense forest.

The boarding house is now managed by Adriana Porowska, supported by a core team comprising an employment advisor, a social worker, a psychologist and a psychotherapist. The community within the boarding house is founded on the principles of care, dignity and respect. The staff and residents eat daily meals together. As Ariana explained, there is no one definition of a homeless person nor is it as simple as ‘the homeless’ and ‘everyone else’. People often ask ‘What does a homeless person look like?’ The answer, no matter who you are, is: ‘Like me.’

The staff from the boarding house also do street work, reaching out to people sleeping rough who are invited for meals and to use shower and laundry facilities. The harsh Polish winters mean that police often rely on social workers to identify bodies of people who have died sleeping rough in temperatures which have been known to plummet to -30°C.

There are positive stories too. Staff recently attended the wedding of a former resident and just days before the visit learned that he and his new wife are expecting their first child. A collage of postcards [right] in the office shows some of the places that former residents have visited or relocated to.

The ship, the murals and the postcards area helping to break stereotypes of homelessness. When asked why homeless people should build a ship to travel the world, one resident responds, “Homeless people have dreams too, so why not?”

FEANTSA: Homelessness in Times of Crisis

INSP’s Project Manager, Zoe Greenfield, attended FEANTSA’s Ninth European Research Conference in Warsaw last week. This is her report …

Organised by FEANTSA’s European Observatory on Homelessness and hosted by Warsaw University, the conference attracted delegates from all over Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia to hear speakers present research focused on this year’s theme 'Homelessness in Times of Crisis'.

The Situation in Poland

At the start of the day, Pawel Jaskulski of Saint Brother Albert’s Aid Society gave an overview of the situation in Poland. Highlighting the unique demography of the homeless population compared to other European countries, with 50% over the age of 50. He added that, unlike in some other European countries, homeless immigrants are exceptionally rare.

Current estimates put the number of homeless people in Poland at between 50,000 and 60,000 but in a country where acknowledging homelessness is a new concept, measuring it is even newer still. Others claim that the number of homeless people in the country could actually be in excess of 100,000.

The European preoccupation with home ownership

A second keynote was given by Prof Dr Marja Elsinga who discussed the European preoccupation with home ownership. Elsinga argued that the home ownership is not always better than renting. Although this is a commonly held belief, it is not backed up in evidence. The belief is fuelled by governments across Europe but Elsinga believes that they now need to reconsider. Whilst housing is a basic need, the connection to welfare, economy and sustainability must be acknowledged. Housing should feature on the political agenda as more than the subject of budget cuts.

With a total of 12 seminars running throughout the day, it was difficult to pick which to attend. The full programme, abstracts and speaker biographies are available online. Some key themes emerging in the sessions I attended are highlighted below.

The impact of economic and policy change in the four UK nations
Beth Watts and Suzanne Fitzpatrick
-    Economic crisis not key to homelessness patterns in the UK. Long running pressures are more important such as market patterns, welfare reforms.
-    Rise in homelessness is not inevitable in an economic crisis but rather it is a consequence of deliberate policy choices.
-    Ending private tenancies is now much more important as cause of homelessness.
-    On the ‘unholy mix’ of housing policy and welfare reforms: one of the implications is that people have a choice of how to respond – choose not to go through the statutory system therefore driving up overcrowding, especially in London. Statutory figures fall as people take themselves out of the system.
-    Underlying problem is lack of supply. Even if you cap rents, it does not solve supply so a policy intervention on capping rent might not work.
-    Intervention around security of tenure would have greatest impact. Private rented sector is now greater than social rented for the first in the post-war era.

Images and perceptions of homelessness: Press Policies and Public Opinion
Teresa Caeiro and Alda Goncalves
Research using Google alerts based news to assess the representation of homelessness in the news in Portugal asking ‘Has the crisis had an impact on the representation of homelessness conveyed in the news?’ Key findings:
-    Increased number of news stories on the theme of homelessness
-    Few references to the profile of homeless people. Indeed, not referred to as people at all.
-    Focus on work people do for the homeless rather than the people themselves. More about numbers than people.
-    The new homeless with higher qualification, been made redundant etc. on the rise.
-    No evidence of changes in the quality of life for homeless people.
-    Increased "use" of people in situation of homelessness by specific professional groups. Use of homeless people to promote celebrity but not necessarily changing anything in the life of homeless people. This is on the rise since 2012.
-    Revivalism of values related to charity - articles tend to promote entities more than to help the situation of the homeless.
-    Increased number of volunteers. Fashion of 'helping the homeless.

Three categories emerge - homeless people as:
1.    Not being: invisible, faceless, group, victim, object
2.    Not having: family, friends, income, health, employment, networks, housing.
3.    No power: to claim rights, to change situation.

Negotiating digital space in times of crisis
Jennifer Harris
Rapid acceleration of digitisation of advice and other legal services in the UK where telephone or online interaction has often become mandatory. Homeless people thought to be 'digitally excluded' and therefore left behind.

Homelessness and technology
-    Existing research challenges straightforward assumptions of digital exclusion.
-    Homeless people encounter barriers, regulation and control that restrict online access.
-    Homeless people do actively use technology in their daily lives but simultaneously encounter barriers, control and regulation that restrict access.

Reflections
-    Range of challenges: spatial, temporal and relational dimensions
-    Assumptions and expectations of service providers. IT and the internet seen as secondary to other service provision, indeed often first thing to be closed if any staff shortages.

Conclusions:
-    Increasing importance of technology as means to access services.
-    Technology does have a role to play in people moving away from homelessness but needs to be nuanced rather than a one size fits all approach to digital/tech.
-     Micro level - individual engagement with technology.
-    Benefits for both individuals and the organisations