Homelessness across the continents

An internationally acclaimed screenwriter, editor and journalist is exploring homelessness in Newcastle and Nairobi with a Northumbria academic. Kenyan writer Billy Kahora is working with Laura Fish, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, on an ambitious research project that stretches from North East England to North East Africa.

The pair are setting up a collaborative writing and research project that will take a comparative look at homelessness in both cities. Homeless people in Newcastle and Nairobi will take part in creative writing workshops in order to share their stories and their voice.

Following his six-week stint as a Visiting Writer at Northumbria, Billy Kahora shares his experience with Northumbria News.

Why is homelessness and home such an important theme in your work?

My work tries to look at how order and chaos are intertwined in Kenyan lives, how tenuous and temporary any form of order remains because of socio-economic and socio-political circumstances in my part of the world. I’m curious about the unpredictability of Kenyan urban lives - and the building of things (a home, a profession, relationships) that other parts of the world take for granted and how quickly stability can flitter away because of the way the Kenyan world works.

I’m interested in how building stability in one’s life often hinges on amorality, immorality, corruption and even blind luck; how this leads to dysfunction, and how little industry, kindness and creativity is rewarded when these are the things that build homes, families and societies.

What do you and Dr Laura Fish hope to achieve in your research project on homelessness?

Firstly, we are setting up a collaborative writing and research project between Newcastle and Nairobi and will do a comparative take on homelessness in both cities. We hope to set up respective creative writing workshops for the homeless in both cities, and hopefully produce some collaborative creative writing between the two cities by the homeless. How did you begin your writing career?

I started writing seriously at Rhodes University, Grahamstown where my majors were Journalism and English. I did some creative non-fiction in my final year of Journalism School and won a short story prize at the Grahamstown, Writers Festival which is part of the larger Arts festival. I then sent a short story to Kwani Trust in 2004 that was accepted and when I got back to Kenya wrote a long non-fiction piece on a Kenyan whistleblower and this really set me on my way. I became an editor at Kwani and since then have been writing creative non-fiction and short fiction. So, my time at Rhodes and my first years back in Kenya were pretty key.

What has been the reception to you in the North East? Is this your first visit to this part of the country?

Everyone I’ve dealt with has been amazingly kind. Audiences for the public events I’ve done have been great. It is an incredibly warm place (with the people). Eight years ago, I lived in Edinburgh for about a year and a half and I passed through here several times on my way to London.

or cause?

The research suggests that contrary to common belief, unexpected life events could lead to anyone becoming homeless.

Researchers Adele Irving and Dr Jamie Harding looked at the life histories and causes of homelessness of over 80 people in Newcastle. They spoke to homeless people about their experiences, as well as staff from North East local authorities, hostels and support services in the area about the management of homelessness. They found evidence of anti-social behaviour on the part of homeless people, with high incidences of drug and alcohol abuse, mental health problems, violent behaviour, familial breakdown, negative social networks, unemployment and dependency on benefits, begging, sex work and crime.

However, the research indicated that these problems were often caused by homelessness itself. Roughly half of the homeless people interviewed had previously lived ‘normal’ lives, with high levels of educational achievement, positive family relationships, long periods of stable employment and no pattern of substance misuse or criminality.

“Crime and substance misuse were frequently responses to, rather than causes of, homelessness” Adele continued.

However, for other homeless people interviewed, existing antisocial tendencies had led directly to them being on the streets, as they had been evicted from the parental or marital home, rented accommodation and hostels.

“It was clear that some homeless people had anti-social tendencies,” says Adele Irving. “Almost half of those interviewed reported that they had rarely attended school and gained few, if any, qualifications. Many had experimented with drugs and alcohol in their early teens, and some exhibited violent behaviours.”

Sadly, for this group of homeless people, problems of anti-social behaviour could be traced back through a lifetime of exclusion, characterised by traumatic childhood experiences, including parental addiction, bereavement, going into local authority care, neglect and physical and sexual abuse.

What are your thoughts about Northumbria University?

Most of my public engagements have been at Northumbria University and there’s been an amazing kindness and professionalism in all my dealings.

What advice would you offer to creative writing students at Northumbria?

Discover your narrative voice as soon as you can and build on that. Think carefully about how you manage time in all you do and be very clear how much time writing will feature in everything else in your life. I think if one figures out what voice they want to write in and how much sacrifice writing requires in time and energy as compared to other things - then, they are on the right track.

Why is creative writing important in terms of sharing stories with an international audience? Creative writing offers structures, spaces, media reach that bridge communities, peoples, national borders and regions. All other forms of storytelling rarely have these structures - other forms of storytelling seem confined to their unique localities. Creative writing travels.

What inspires you to write?

My immediate inexplicable Kenyan world in both its material realities, and its possible imaginaries. This always makes me want to reconstruct that world on its own terms through its own aesthetic, beauty and language.

Do you have a favourite quote?

James Joyce: ‘The sentence is the greatest invention of civilisation.’

“For these people, the pattern of their lives had been radically changed by a significant life event – such as bereavement, relationship breakdown or redundancy – which triggered addiction, followed by eviction or the repossession of a home,” said Adele Irving. In these cases in particular, anti-social behaviour was often a consequence of being homeless, and not the cause. For example, some people reported turning to drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism to numb the cold and get them through living on the streets or to cope with hostel environments. Others stole food and drink for survival. In other cases, homeless people reported committing crimes in order to avoid sleeping rough, with prison often seen as a shortterm housing solution.

According to Adele, research indicates that punishing the homeless for their antisocial behaviour often only serves to further exclude them from society, and push them into committing more anti-social acts.

“Instead of punishing homeless people, which only reinforces these behaviours, policymakers need to give greater attention to the structural and systemic barriers - in the areas of housing, welfare and employment - facing the homeless,” she concluded.

Further studies conducted by Adele Irving and fellow researcher Oliver Moss have highlighted the experiences of homeless people in the North East through the production of a series of maps, created by former Innocent Drinks creative, Lovely JoJo. This research was shown as an exhibition as part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s 2014 Festival of Social Science in 2014.

Making an impact Academics from Northumbria’s department of Social Sciences have conducted extensive research relating to homelessness which has had a direct impact on the services available for vulnerable people. To view a case study, scan the code.

Imaging homelessness Scan the QR code to see Buzz Feed’s report on the project and the artwork that has been created in conjunction with service users.