Shelters Fix House-lessness, Not Homelessness

Hang-on what? Houselessness? Does that mean there are ‘Houseless People?' How are they different to ‘Homeless People?'

If I define Houselessness as ‘an inadequate experience of shelter,' (tangible) and the simple way of fixing that was to provide adequate shelter... how many ‘homeless people' would be left if we just provided adequate housing for the houseless?

There would still be some people whose experience wasn't just an inadequate experience of shelter, a great majority of them actually.

Why? Because homelessness is so much more than an inadequate experience of shelter. If fact shelter has absolutely nothing to do with homelessness.

I define Homelessness as ‘an inadequate experience of connectedness with family and or community.' (intangible). A very big swag of housed people experience this loneliness and isolation also.

You know how you hear on the news "A family is homeless tonight after their house in suburb ‘x'  caught fire and despite fire fighter's efforts it was completely destroyed."

They aren't homeless! That family still has each other and all their social connectedness and contacts are still intact. A building was destroyed, nothing more. Ok, so they are houseless. They need shelter. But come on folks, they aren't homeless! The difference between that family and someone living on the streets is the level of connectedness they experience.

Misunderstanding homelessness and not even being aware of the difference to houselessness lets so many service providers down - and the people they serve.

Shelters should sit with the concept of houselessness and realize that is what they are responding to and the business they are in - providing shelter to houseless people.

While it wasn't the first application of the word houselessness... when the U.N. started using the word back in 2000, I thought a lot more service providers would catch on. Sabine Springer, a researcher at the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements wrote: "Homelessness: A proposal for a Global Definition and Classification." (sorry can't find the full text online anymore - drop a link in the comments section if you can and I'll add the link in here).

Sabine pointed to the fact that homelessness is a term burdened with many possible meanings. The U.N., in its data collection and research efforts, then started to use the term "houselessness" instead. Because she said - ‘While homelessness is not just a housing problem, it is always a housing problem.'

I've been banging on about houselessness since the mid nineties (sorry Sabine) and I'm sure others were well before my little brain wrapped itself around the concept. I'd like to go further than Sabine and say Houselessness isn't just a better word - it's a separate and different thing to homelessness.

Houselessness is a liberating word if we can use it to drag our thinking on shelter into one room and say O.K. if houselessness is one thing, and we strip the concept of shelter from the word homelessness... what is left for homelessness to cover if it no longer applies to needing shelter?

As I said earlier, let's  understand homelessness as an inadequate experience of connectedness with family and or community.

Question 1. What service providers focus on increasing people's experience of family and community connectedness?

Question 2. What service providers working with people living on the streets focus on this issue?

Some of you may be thinking ‘So they just need some friends right? What's the big deal?' It's bigger than that. Living on the margins of society and being on the outer and ‘separate from' is a massive deal.

[See making mainstream friends after long-term homelessness.]

Someone living on the streets could have contact with 30 plus people per week who are paid to have contact with them, but that isn't a genuine experience of connectedness.

Sitting in public space they are ignored, feel invisible and unwelcome by the public.

For anyone living on the streets the concept of not belonging to mainstream society is an entirely logical conclusion. Living on the streets every day there are so many responses and interactions that just reinforce that negative. ‘You don't belong with us.'

Shelter by itself is an adequate response to houselessness. Further ‘wrap around' services are needed to address mental health, drug and alcohol abuse and all the other issues. But so many of these service providers overlook the need for connectedness.

The sector overlooks the need to gain social connectedness and doesn't understand how central it is to alleviating ‘homelessness.'

If you are a service provider, how could your current offering be added to so you responded more directly to the lack of connectedness with family and community that people living on the streets experience?

Example: Got a soup kitchen? Roster a group of volunteers on to sit and eat with your guests and get to know them, not just dish out the food "Hi - here you go - next."

I always include a mention of the Homeless Forums at the end of my posts here, but for this post the invitation for current and formerly homeless people to join and connect with each other around the world is very pertinent to the post. You can list the Homeless Forums as one service in your answers to questions 1 and 2 above.