Young Homeless People and Urban Space

Fixed in Mobility

Emma Jackson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317936640
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Armut in der Soziologie

This ethnographic exploration of contemporary spaces of homelessness takes an expanded view of homeless space, threading together experiences of organizational spaces, routes taken through the city and the occupation of public space. Through engaging with participants' accounts of movement and place, the book argues that young homeless people become fixed in mobility, a condition that impacts on both everyday life and possible futures. Based on an innovative multi-method study of a day centre in London for young homeless people, the book contextualizes spaces of homelessness within the social relations and flows of people that produce the world city. The book considers how the biographical and everyday trajectories of young homeless people intersect with place attachments and forms of governance to produce urban homeless spaces. It provides a new angle on the city made by movement, foregrounding the impact of mobilities shaped by loss, violence and the search for opportunity. The book draws on mental maps, photography, interviews and observation in order to produce an engaging and rich ethnographic account of young homeless people in the city.

1 Almost Home?

The Production of the Day Centre

. . . But this is a refreshing stop
With munchies and the odd bit of pop
The staff try to bring a smile to our weary faces
And seem to understand that we’ve been through our paces
They know when we come
It’s to rest and get a home
Cause they know we’re fed up with our room
At least they feed and let us shower
So we’re the cleanest homeless this era
After a hard day’s night it’s good to come to this grandest of environments
Just a shame there ain’t a pillow with mints

From ‘Fresh Start’ by David S.¹

Let us begin this exploration of the relationship between young homeless people and the city by examining the place where the research took place. Fresh Start is a day centre for young homeless people (hostel residents, street homeless, sofa surfers) or those at risk of becoming homeless.² The centre’s ethos is based on the provision of a holistic service, including a drop-in, laundry facilities, a free meal, and advice on housing, health, education, training, and employment.³ But more than this, for some of the young people who use it, it is an ‘almost home’ space. It is described in the above poem as a haven, providing respite from a ‘hard day’s night’ with food, friendliness, and washing facilities. It also mediates access to accommodation, and it is a place of meeting others, of ‘getting things done.’

The day centre is not merely a backdrop to this book or to young people’s experiences of homelessness but is an active element of the research. It is a space that is being constantly produced (Lefebvre 1991): by the shifting sands of governance and funding, by the centre’s ethos, and by the actions of those who use and work in the space and bring it ‘performatively into being’ (Conradson 2003: 1985). In turn, this space impacts on young people’s day-to-day lives, geographies, and feelings of belonging.

This chapter attempts to unpick these dynamics in several ways. Firstly, by contextualising day centres within the responses to shifting government policy and social problems that have given rise to the particular formation of ‘the homeless network’ in the UK. Secondly, by examining the shifts in the functioning of the day centre from a place of refuge to a place of action. Thirdly, by exploring how it is shaped by the emotional ties and daily practices of the young people who use it. In Chapter 2, I will add another layer to this picture by examining how its super-diversity shapes the space of the day centre. But first, let’s take a visit to the drop-in.

If you came into Fresh Start on a Monday morning at opening time, you would see people of varied ethnic backgrounds between the ages of 16 and 22 queuing to sign in at reception, helping themselves to tea and coffee, waiting for advice appointments. Virgin Radio would be providing an inoffensive background noise. The names of the staff and volunteers working that day would be written on a whiteboard on the centre wall, as would any activities scheduled to take place. About five members of staff/volunteers would be dotted around the room. The mornings are usually a busy time and you would hear voices with accents hinting at the biographies-in-progress of the young people: Irish, Yorkshire, South London Cockney, Scottish peppered with London street slang. You might also hear other languages, most likely Tigrinya, Amharic (Eritrean and Ethiopian languages), or Somali. Very quickly, the buzz of voices would be punctuated by the rattle of table football, the sound of the doorbell, and the rhythm of the table tennis ball. Young people would be sitting around the large table in the centre of the room, or on the sofas, some alone, some in groups of two or three. They might be flicking through newspapers or discussing what they did last night or the most recent developments in the misadventures of whichever troubled celebrity is gracing the cover of the Sun. Some people would have come to the centre early to get on the housing list.⁴ Once inside, those people will wait to hear their names called. If the list of 12 places is full, then there will be people who are annoyed to have missed out.

There might be new people arriving for the first time. They will be completing a short form with a staff member, aimed at assessing the young person’s situation. The reverse of the form outlines the centre’s working agreement and rules—including no drug use or preparation in or around the centre, no racist, homophobic, or sexist language, and, most contentiously, no use of mobile phones.

The main space in Fresh Start is the drop-in area, a large room with a long table in the centre. The walls are multicoloured, painted purple, green, and lemon, and boards painted with graffiti are used to divide the main space as necessary. There are two areas of sofas that are covered in red throws. To one side of the main table is a table tennis table. Behind the table tennis table is an area of sofas, which, before the smoking ban came in, was the smoking area. There is another area of sofas by the entrance next to the tea and coffee facilities. People often sit there while waiting for appointments. Other spaces on the ground floor include the kitchen (which has a hatch that opens onto the main drop-in area), the advice room, the counselling room, a laundry, two shower cubicles, the nurse’s room, a computer room, and the project room, in which workshops take place and which contains a store cupboard where young people can store their belongings.

After the initial flurry of activity on opening, the centre can stay bustling and busy or change into something more relaxed, depending on the combination of young people present and the activities taking place. Meanwhile, the housing team meet with the young people with appointments. Most people in emergency need are referred first to one of the short stay hostels. These are hostels specifically for young people (catering for those aged 16–21 and 16–25 respectively). Once emergency accommodation has been found, the advice team will start the process of doing referrals to long-term hostels. If a young person fits the criteria for being priority need, ⁵ they will be referred to the Homeless Persons Unit (HPU) of their borough of origin, who are obliged to provide accommodation. It should be noted this process is not always that straightforward; councils sometimes try to avoid this obligation.

During my 14 months at the organisation there were few occasions when the atmosphere was volatile. It is usually a friendly, noisy place. Lunchtime is important. Every day at 1:00 p.m. staff and young people sit around the table together to eat their lunch, a free meal provided by Fresh Start. This, perhaps unsurprisingly, is when the centre is at its busiest. Although there are usually between 40 and 50 young people through the doors each day, there are rarely more than 30 people in at the same time, apart from at lunchtime.

After lunch, the centre quietens down. There may be a workshop; these include women’s group, men’s group, football, art, IT, and sessions at the gym, and usually run from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM. One-to-one sessions on training and employment also take place during the afternoon. The main table is often used during these workshops, but at other times it hosts cards or board games. At 4:00 PM the young people have to leave the centre, and there is usually another burst of activity at a quarter to four as washing is picked up from the laundry and belongings stored in the project room cupboard. The workers then clear up and hold a debrief meeting where the day’s events are discussed.

Just as the day has a rhythm, so has the week. Monday is often busy as there is no housing advice at the weekend. There is also a yearly cycle in Fresh Start. Every month has a theme (Black History Month, Anti-Violence Month, LGBT Month, Housing Month). Other seasonal changes affect both the number of people and atmosphere in the centre. During a short-lived summer heatwave there was an unfamiliar aggressive charge in the air. There was a yearly lull in September as people started new college courses.

There are difficult and emotionally charged conversations taking place. Those arriving in the centre for the first time can be apprehensive, upset, scared, embarrassed, angry. But humour, though not always easy to convey, is also key to interactions in the centre. This should not detract from the extremely difficult situations that the young people are in, but at this scene-setting moment it should be pointed out that talk between the young people is often fast paced and funny. Added to the mix is the fact that many of the long-term users have built up trusting relationships with staff, which form the base for joking exchanges. Such humour is important to the creation of a homely space.

Fresh Start’s statistics (from 2007–2008) ⁶ break the ethnic composition of their client group into 3% Asian, 23% White British/Irish/European, 8% Mixed, and 56% Black/Black British. These categories could be further broken down; for example, the 56% Black/Black British is comprised of Somalis, British African Caribbean, Eritrean, and more. In this time period, 6% of people who attended were asylum seekers and 14% were refugees. The various scales of dislocation that constitute the day centre are explored in more detail in Chapter 2; for now it will suffice to point out that the patterns of movement that effect and constitute London, at local, national, and international levels, can be seen here in this mix of people. Such trajectories emerge in conversations: a young person and a volunteer worker have a lively conversation over lunch about which is the best parish in Jamaica; two young women chat about the comparative miseries of London and provincial towns; an ex–boy soldier from Sierra Leone plays Scrabble with a refugee from the Congo. Loss and violence are often powerful undercurrents in these stories and often go unspoken in the drop-in.

There is a higher proportion of young people who have been in the criminal justice system in Fresh Start than in the general population. In their initial contact interviews, 19% said they had a criminal record. As this information was taken as soon as the young people entered the centre for the first time, the actual figure is likely to be higher. Although a direct comparison can’t be made, as the age group of Fresh Start is 16–22, the 2007 figures⁷ for England and Wales show that 45,000 people aged between 18–20 were found guilty of an indictable offence. This is 2% of the 18- to 20-year-old population. Also probably underestimated in the statistics based on the initial contact form are the levels of usage by gay, lesbian, and bisexual people: 2% gay, 2% bisexual, and 1% lesbian. As some LGBT young people become homeless because of conflict (sometimes violent) with their family and friends around their sexuality, it is not surprising that this isn’t something that can always be discussed openly in a first interview with a stranger. These issues often come up when individuals have built up trust with the staff in the centre.

This brief close-up sketch is intended as a snapshot. And, like a snapshot, it is fixed in a particular time⁸ and place. However, this description also hints at links between this place and others, in terms of organisational links with hostels and other homeless services, and also in the complex set of geographies that come together here through the presence of a super-diverse group of young people. Examining the day centre as a dynamic space can open up this in-between space further, probing the relationships that structure and re/produce it.

Let us start by unpicking how this day centre fits into a wider landscape of changing policy and the provision of homeless services.

'Shifting Sands': Homeless Services and the Changing Policy and Governmental Landscape

‘. . . The rules are always changing depending on what government’s in and what they see as current.’ Susan, staff member

The network of homeless services in London is not a monolithic structure but rather a patchwork held together by a combination of partnerships, funding mechanisms, and regulations. In order to understand this formation and the day centre’s place within it, it is necessary to zoom out from its interior and to examine the shifts in the management of homeless sector across time; moving from the establishment of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act in the 1970s, to the dismantling of the welfare state during the Thatcher years, to a focus on vulnerabilities, social exclusion, and partnership-working under New Labour, to the more punitive approach of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition from 2010 onwards. These shifts are intertwined with the spreading of neoliberal policy across the world— ‘neoliberal’ is used here to refer to the reworking of the state, organisations, and individuals using market-based principals and technologies (Davies 2014; Peck 2010). This shift towards neoliberal governance has shaped not only spaces of homelessness but also the technologies of welfare delivery and the subject positions and subjectivities of homeless people (Cloke et al. 2010; Rose 1996). While these processes are part of a global story of increasing neoliberalisation, this is not to suggest that this has been rolled out in a uniform, top-down way across countries. In order to understand why the landscape of homeless provision and its regulation in the UK is so different, for example, to that of North America (see Duneier 1999; Gowan 2010; Knowles 2000), it is necessary to look more closely at the reworking of the relationship between the state, the local authority, and homeless services.

Fresh Start was founded in 1967 to address the needs of young homeless people with drug problems in central London during a period of the ‘redis-covery of homelessness’ in the UK (Wardhaugh 2000; Waters 1992). This period included the landmarks of the screening of TV drama Cathy Come Home (1966), the founding of homeless charity Shelter (1966), and, most crucially, the passing of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act (1977), which gave local authorities the responsibility for permanently housing some categories of homeless people—and which is still central to homeless legislation today. The Act enshrined the distinction between ‘priority need’ (including thos...