HOMELESS PERCEPTIONS
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Context Since the Welfare Reforms of 2009 and beyond, along with social and economic struggles of today’s society, homelessness within the UK has been rising. The culmination of current social and economic hardships, cultural stresses, the lack of affordable housing, more recent cuts to social care and mental health services within NHS. How can we address this social problem before it becomes an even bigger one?
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Exploration Design project exploring homelessness within the UK and understanding the public perception of this increasingly important social problem, with an aim to humanise the homeless community and alter the perceptions of them within society, by addressing the harsh stereotypes.
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With Thanks to
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Contents
Visiting Existing Services Interviews Insights and Perceptions More than just a Home Street Presence Pervasive Homeless Deterrence Technology Public Space Street Furniture Design Proposal
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01 Visiting Existing Services After doing some initial online research into and around the available services in the local area, I started contacting and visiting some of these services and talking to some people familiar with the Homeless Communities and Services available in Newcastle.
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“A nation will not survive morally or economically when so few have so much and so many have so little.� Bernie Saunders
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Ouseburn Farm Ouseburn Farm provides an integrated setting where people with disabilities and the able-bodied can work together, in developing and running a farm project. It’s clear to see how the farm benefits a wide community of people, engaging vulnerable adults, volunteers and members of the public developing agricultural, horticultural and environmental skills through livestock, growing and environmental projects at the farm.
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Furniture Restoration Project The Furniture Restoration Project is run by Ouseburn Farm in which they give the volunteers the opportunity to repair and recycle furniture donated by the public and upcycle the furniture to give it a new lease of life and then it is sold on. This not only provides money for the farm from waste but also offers occupational therapy and valuable life skills for those involved.
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Cafe from Crisis Cafe from Crisis is a chain of cafĂŠs set up by the charity Crisis, where they employ and offer volunteering opportunities to people experiencing homelessness. It has a very positive atmosphere with a strong community, offering good food at an affordable price, a touch point for the people involved and opportunities for vulnerable adults to gain up to level 2 qualification in food and hygiene.
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Crisis Skylight Another project of Crisis is the Skylight programme, where people are given the opportunity to take part in community projects ranging from building outdoor classrooms for Ouseburn Farm or redesigning the reception desk for the cafe. It offers the opportunity for many of the volunteers to give back to the community that helped them get to where they are.
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Tyneside Foyer The Tyneside Foyer is based on Westgate Road in Newcastle, and is run by Home Group housing association. It is a housing service for 18-25 year olds in Newcastle. During my visit to the Foyer I got the opportunity to talk to a group of young people who have experienced homelessness and engaged some of the service users in some research based focus groups and activities.
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02 Interviews Rough Sleeper Young Homeless Person Online Communities Volunteers Experts
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“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm� Winston Churchill
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I stay here until I’m moved on by the police, then I have to be 500 metres away from town centre. Steve
Rough Sleeper Steve can regularly be found at the top of Northumberland Street outside the Northumberland Baths, and he has been homeless for 2 years with odd spells in supported housing and hostels, however he strongly disliked living with other people. Steve offers his services as a local handyman for ÂŁ5 an hour with an aspiration of having his own affordable one bedroom flat.
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As soon as you have something positive to focus on you tend to forget about everything else. ‘Gareth’
Young Homeless Person During my visit to the Tyneside Foyer I talked to a lot of young people experiencing homelessness and Gareth is a persona of a combination of the service users I met at the Foyer. One thing that was clear is that a lot of these young adults had experienced some form of trauma during their childhood that had influenced them in becoming homeless.
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Community is lost on our individualistic culture. Kelly Kamman WAV Support Group
Online Communities Whilst watching videos on Youtube about homelessness I came across a lot of videos done by a project called ‘Invisible People’ and then I managed to find their online support group and asked for some help with my initial research. A lot of people responded and were positive about trying to help with the project to help other people experiencing homelessness. I had many conversations with people at different stages of homelessness.
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I initially started just because it looked good on my CV. That changed very quickly. Jake Stanley
Soup Kitchen Volunteer The reasons for Jake volunteering originally started for his benefit however he said the rewards were much greater for him than he realised, another interesting point Jake raised was that the actual structure of the soup kitchen he volunteered at was attached to the back of a church, which was never in use at the same time as the soup kitchen operating times. Could this large dormant community space not be utilised instead of temporary structures?
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Making someone feel needed, instead of trying to offer help. Giving them purpose is important. Janice Walton
Ouseburn Farm Adult Placement Coordinator One thing that was extremely obvious during the interview was her sheer passion for the projects she is involved in and her desire to have a positive impact and to give vulnerable people the volunteer work they need in order to gain a sense of purpose and belonging. The farm offers a range of agricultural, horticultural and environmental projects.
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I have a controversial view in that I believe all drugs should be legalised and controlled. Keith Gilfilan
Tyneside Foyer Senior Service Manager Keith is the Senior Service Manager of Home Group’s Tyneside Foyer. Whilst showing me around the facilities and services offered within the Foyer, I found out he used to be in the Durham Police Force which led me onto enquiring about his personal opinions on drug use and addictions in reference to homelessness. He believed that little progress is made through criminalising and stereotyping people with addictions as criminals.
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03 Perceptions and Insights After my initial research phase I compiled all the insights around the perceptions that are associated with homelessness and then decided which ones were most relevant to my project.
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“Know the existing rules well, so you can break them effectively.” The Dalai Lama
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Tramp, Hobo, Junkie Even the words associated with the homeless are very derogatory and dehumanising. When looking into homelessness there are a lot of stigmas and stereotypes that are unfairly associated with all members of the homeless community. I believe that through telling their stories we can humanise their situations, helping them step away from harsh stereotypes.
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What makes a house a home? Most members of the public have very little idea of what it truly means to be homeless or without a home. Many people forget about the social and structural support its offers to the people within them. How can I aim to better understand the differences and similarities between members of the public and the homeless communities?
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It feels good to help others One of the most prominent insights from these interviews is that within this project everyone I have met has wanted to give back to a cause, and the insight that it feels good to give and to have a positive influence on someone’s life. When applying to volunteer in Newcastle all the positions were filled, highlighting the fact a lot of people enjoy helping others, but could there be an easier way of helping out the homeless communities?
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Large dormant spaces With there being such a large divide in social classes with some people owning an excessive amount of land and buildings with nothing in, surely there could be a better way of utilising these large empty private spaces for better use whilst they are not in use and prevent them being a redundant space?
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Protect and Serve The police force have an incredibly hard job when it comes to dealing with homelessness, due to the recent introduction of Loitering Laws which essentially require the police to physically move people on from certain areas. The police are here to serve and protect all the public. When people see homeless people being moved on by the Police it only adds to the fear associated with them, insinuating that they are dangerous and should be feared.
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Fear and Exclusion Within human nature we often fear the unknown. Many people don’t understand why others have become homeless therefore they assume they have chosen the wrong decisions in life and should be feared. Also the way our society excludes homeless people from many communities and public spaces, increases that perception.
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Addiction isn’t Criminal It’s important to address the difference between being a criminal and being addicted. Addictions often form as part of trying to mask the pain from a previous trauma within ones life (mainly from childhood) and surely the mental, physical and financial pain of an addiction is enough without labelling them as criminals too and generalising them as a group?
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How does society exclude the Homeless Community? When thinking about this landscape of homeless deterrence technologies like the benches and spikes, it is important to consider the role of laws against loitering. For many cities, loitering laws have the effect of requiring law enforcement to arrest the homeless simply for being around. Such regulations target things like sleeping in public or even outdoor charity food service. This further complicates the relationship between homelessness and our public landscape. Why do you think the homeless so often choose bus stops in particular as a place to sleep? One reason is surely that it affords a kind of plausible deniability: I was just waiting for the bus.
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Hearing their Stories One of the biggest insights for me was when talking to homeless people about why they were on the streets, I realised how they have had such a difficult life and childhoods, consisting of numerous traumatic experiences. Through doing this research I have become aware of my own prejudices and stereotypes, yet as soon as I began talking to them I realised they are all people with the same aspirations and desires as others.
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04 More than just a Home During my visits to the different services and interviews I have been getting people who have experienced homelessness to write and draw ‘What it means to be homeless?’ as well as ‘What does a Home mean to you?’ with the aim of creating a poster.
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“Home is a notion that only nations of the homeless fully appreciate and only the uprooted comprehend.� Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose
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Home/Homeless Activity During my exploration project I have been getting people who have experienced homelessness and members of the public to fill in these forms with one side being what it means to be homeless and what is the meaning of a home to them, in order compare and contrast the results.
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What does it mean to be Homeless? When looking at what people wrote or drew for this part of the activity I split them into two main groups the first was about their relationship breakdown as well as the lack of human connection and compassion. The second group was mainly about the lack of home comforts such as security, food and warmth.
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What is the meaning of a Home? When looking at the meaning of a home I split them into similar groups. The first group was connections within a home such as your family, laughter and familiarity, the second group was a collection of home comforts that many people tend to take for granted such as heating and privacy.
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What does it mean to be homeless? 60
What does a home mean to you? 61
05 Street Presence
Within this activity I plan on addressing the insight, that the homeless community are often ignored by members of the public with an attempt to get people to talk about this social problem.
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“All the contortions we go through (are) just not to be ourselves for a few hours.� Keith Richards
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One of the most interesting insights was that a cardboard box with aesthetically pleasing graphics gets more attention than a human being. Highlighting the insight that we are naturally drawn to nice looking things, even if they are highlighting a negative perspective.
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Generally the reaction from the public and homeless people was very positive and people were happy to talk about the problem and admit that sometimes they generalise and stereotype, however they are also quite interested in understanding their stories.
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Using the temperature as a tool for creating empathy, makes the daily struggles of being homeless easily relevant to everyone through pointing out the obvious created the biggest reaction, often with a long ‘Awww, that’s so true. That must be so hard.’
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This story came from one homeless person I met through ‘Invisible People’. The use of a name, age and life story highlights their humanity and creates empathy due to how fast homelessness can occur. Whilst displaying this box, one person explained that this was exactly the same as his story and he was homeless and addicted for 3 years but has now been clean for 7 years and happily married.
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Whilst this box was up on Northumberland Street one man went and stood on the box for around 3 minutes, when I asked his opinion on them he couldn’t speak English, however he used Google translate to explain how he thought it really made him reflect on the fact that we live in a very individualistic world.
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06 PHDT Pervasive Homeless Deterrence Technology is something that goes generally very unnoticed to the public’s eyes as it doesn’t affect them primarily, however when bringing this to their attention, how does it make them feel? How can we adapt these designs to make them more friendly?
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“Make the best use of pain, because pain is a good Catalyst for Creativity� Skepta
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Pervasive Homeless Deterrence Technology This recent development in urban architecture highlights how modern day cities are designed with conscious thoughts of excluding certain communities, through the use of subtly aggressive looking additions to our urban environments.
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Suggestive Human Connection Technology Whilst asking people on their thoughts about PHDT within urban environments I asked them to adapt these subtly aggressive installations to make them more accommodating to the users needs and desires, encouraging human connection and community.
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07 Public Space Street Furniture When looking at our urban landscapes and the aggressive nature of recent technologies could we design public street furniture to encourage human connection, compassion and communication instead of discouraging them and excluding people from spaces?
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“Urban spaces are aggressively rejecting soft human bodies� Darran Anderson, The Guardian
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Personification I beleive that giving the furniture a sense of personification could highlight the social problem, of rough sleeping as well as showing visually that we can and should support each other around us.
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Adaptability Through the use of movement and adaptability of the furniture it could act as an important instigation of conversations between two human beings, possibly asking to extend the furniture out so another person could sit down or the furniture could be extended into a large bed like structure to meet the users needs.
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08 Design Proposal At the final stage of my project I have set my self a design brief for the next stage of this process, with a set of criteria and parameters.
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“Experience, communtiy and human connection will hold greater value than our current monetary metric of social capital� Babita Bhatt
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Empathy Empathising with a homeless person is almost up comprehendable to most of us as most of us have little experience of their situation, whilst talking to people who have experienced homelessness gained the most empathy and sympathy for their situations. Their life stories reaffirm their place within society. Human connection and communication are quickly becoming obsolete and we have become a society of individuals, where we distance ourselves from real human connection.
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Designers Role The role of design within society is rapidly moving away from simply mass producing objects that are desirable to specific target markets and is becoming an umbrella term for an alternative way of thinking. ‘Design Thinking’ Designers’ unique approach to problem solving means designers should have a social and moral responsibility to address the problems that influence our habitats and environments.
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The Brief A piece of design that gives experience, community and human connection a greater value than our current monetary metric of social capital a piece of Street Furniture that is critical of this social problem, the furniture should encourage communcation, compassion and human connection, whilst subtly reminding the public of homelessness.
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