Housing Studies, Vol. 15, No. 4, 613–638, 2000

Housing Histories and Homeless Careers:A Biographical Approach

JON MAY

Department of Geography, Queen Mary and West�eld College, University of London,London, UK

[Paper �rst received October 1998; in �nal form June 1999]

ABSTRACT Though distinctions are commonly drawn between the long-term and morerecently homeless, our understanding as to the nature and shape of what Randall refersto as ‘homeless careers’ is limited as are our understandings of the dynamics drivingthose careers. This is because studies of homelessness have seldom incorporated alongitudinal dimension or have worked with only a simplistic and incomplete picture ofhomeless people’s housing histories. The paper argues for the adoption of a biographicalapproach in studies of homelessness and reports on the �rst complete set of accommo-dation biographies constructed with single homeless hostel users. It is shown that, ratherthan �tting a description of either the long-term or more recently homeless or followinga progressive ‘drift’ into homelessness, the majority of men interviewed had in factexperienced numerous homeless episodes in the past but with each of these episodes beingof relatively limited duration and separated by much longer periods in (their own)accommodation. Examining the nature of that accommodation, it is shown that thehousing careers of these men had been almost entirely dominated by the use of poorquality and often insecure private rented bedsits and �ats whilst almost all hadsimultaneously been either long-term or permanently unemployed. With few additional‘vulnerabilities’ to help account for their frequent returns to homelessness the paperchallenges a conventional ‘political model’ of single homelessness to explain these men’shomeless careers in relation to their position of multiple structural disadvantage. Thepaper contrasts these biographies with the biographies of those who were either visiblyhomeless for the �rst time or who better �tted a description of the truly long-termhomeless and concludes by outlining the ways in which a biographical approach mightfurther our understanding of single homelessness more broadly and enable the formu-lation of more appropriate responses to the problems of homelessness.

Introduction

Though by no means as yet accepted by all, a new orthodoxy is slowly emergingamongst those seeking to explain single homelessness. Identi�ed �rst byBrandon et al. (1980) and subsequently developed by Liddiard (1992) within a‘political model’ homelessness is seen as neither simply a housing nor a welfareissue, caused by neither only structural nor individual factors. Instead,homelessness is explained with reference to the manner in which changingstructural conditions impact most severely upon particular groups, either be-

0267–3037 Print/1466-1810 On-line/00/040613–26 Ó 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd

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cause of a simple position of structural disadvantage or (more usually) becauseof some further vulnerability that renders a person especially ill equipped tocope with those changes (Pleace et al., 1997).

In support of such an explanation, advocates of the political model point tothe manner in which changes over the past 15 years or so in the nature of andrelationships between housing and labour markets, demographic and welfareregimes have mirrored an increase in single homelessness amongst preciselythose groups most vulnerable to these changes (Carlen, 1996). At the same time,rather than simply discount the role that individual vulnerabilities play in thehomelessness dynamic, such vulnerabilities are presented as a contributoryfactor, useful for explaining why one person in an otherwise similar position ismore likely to become homeless than another. Thus, noting the increasingproportion of women, the unemployed and those under the age of 25 in thesingle homeless population, for example, the same studies also point to thecontinued over-representation within that population of those with a history ofinstitutional care, problems of mental or physical health, drug addiction oralcohol dependency (Anderson et al., 1993).

The advantages of such a model are clear. Whilst offering a convincingexplanation of the factors shaping recent changes in the single homeless popu-lation, it is also useful to the formulation of any response to the problems ofsingle homelessness with advocates of the political model tending to point tovariations of a ‘housing plus’ solution. Hence it is argued that although the moregeneral need is for an increased supply of secure and affordable housing, anyresponse to single homelessness must also take account of the need for increasedtraining and employment opportunities and recognise that a signi�cant pro-portion of single homeless people will require additional support once placed inhousing if they are to retain that accommodation (Neale, 1997).

Despite its growing acceptance, however, there remain a number of problemswith the manner in which studies adopting this model have proceeded. Notleast, surprisingly few have deployed the kinds of methods that enable it to beunpacked in any detail. Rather, most continue to rely upon the kind of quanti-tative approaches—speci�cally the questionnaire survey—that though demon-strating a clear ‘�t’ between a changing single homeless population and thebroader processes driving an increase in single homelessness in recent years,cannot trace the different ways in which people negotiate these broaderstructural changes and with differing outcomes (Akiyu, 1992). As a result, toooften it can appear as though a person’s homelessness is an inevitable conse-quence of either their structural position (with the speci�cs of how that position‘translates’ in to homelessness left largely unexplored) or a speci�c set ofvulnerabilities, with the role of the latter perhaps over-emphasised in explana-tions of why some people are more likely than others to become or remainhomeless (Jones, 1993).

In part as a result of these limitations, a number of more recent studies havebegun to adopt alternative methodologies including semi-structured interviews,ethnography and participant observation with the aim of framing “the issue ofhomelessness in terms of an agent, contending with a set of social problems,rather than as an individual entrapped in history … [and with an understandingof people] as active participants in the experience, negotiation and (re)creationof their personal and social histories” (Tomas & Dittmar, 1995, p. 497). The turnto a qualitative approach has been far more successful in developing our

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understanding of the complex interplay of factors that can lead to a personbecoming homeless. It has also helped explore the experiences of homelessnessand the different ways in which people negotiate that experience (Watson &Austerberry, 1986).

But these studies too are ill-suited to moving beyond an explanation of whypeople become homeless to a fuller understanding of the nature and dynamicsof what Randall (1988) refers to as ‘homeless careers’—moving beyond questionsas to why a person may become homeless towards a better understanding of thelength of time that different people remain homeless or the factors shaping aperson’s movements in and out of homelessness over time (Farr et al., 1986;Rossi, 1989). This is, most obviously, because irrespective of the methods usedmost studies of homelessness are conducted only at the point at which a personpresents as ‘visibly’ homeless and concentrate most fully upon their experiencesat that time or their circumstances immediately prior to that time such that “thelife stories of homeless people are typically devalued, shunted aside or uncon-sciously limited” (Daly, 1996, p. 10).

Drawing upon a biographical approach only rarely used in studies of home-lessness but increasingly common in other �elds, the paper demonstrates how arecovery of those stories essential if studies of homelessness are not to continueto deny homeless people an identity and agency beyond only their position as‘homeless’—can further our understanding of single homelessness in importantways and of homeless careers in particular (Hutson & Liddiard, 1991; Jarvis,1997; Jones & Stevens, 1993; Murie & Jeffers, 1987).

Analysing the �rst complete set of accommodation biographies constructedwith single homeless people, the paper suggests that previous studies havemisrepresented the basic nature and shape of homeless careers and have failedto identify the key dynamics driving those careers. Rather than progressive, aspreviously suggested, it is shown that for the majority of single homeless peoplethe experience of homelessness is neither singular nor long term but episodic,with each homeless episode interspersed with often extended periods in theirown accommodation and with no increase in either the frequency or duration ofhomeless episodes over time.

Examining the processes driving those careers it is further suggested thatprevious studies have over-emphasised the role that individual vulnerabilitiesplay in the homeless dynamic. With few of the episodically homeless displayingsuch vulnerabilities, that dynamic is better explained with reference to thebroader housing and employment histories described by those whose lives havebeen almost entirely dominated by the use of low quality often insecure privaterented housing and long-term unemployment. The paper does not deny theimportance that further problems of alcohol or drug dependency, mental orphysical health play in the lives of some homeless people, and the trulylong-term homeless in particular. But it challenges conventional understandingsof homelessness that would explain the experience of a signi�cant proportion ofhomeless people as one emerging out of a further set of problems that positionsome as ‘especially vulnerable’ to broader structural changes and thus moreliable to become homeless than others in otherwise similar positions. It suggestsinstead that for the majority of single homeless people their homelessness maybe explained by simple reference to a position of multiple structural disadvan-tage: the coming together of a legislative framework that restricts poorer singlepeople’s access to more secure forms of housing; a housing market that restricts

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poorer people’s access to accommodation found almost exclusively at the lowerend of the private rented sector; and long-term unemployment.

Exploring the manner by which people negotiate that position, the paperchampions the use of a more developed biographical method hinging aroundthe construction of ‘triple’ biographies (Halfacree & Boyle, 1993). Such a methodis capable of further unpacking the manner by which a person’s experiences indifferent arenas ‘come together’ to place them in a position of multiple disadvan-tage. It also re-inserts the question of agency within a proper consideration ofthe structures of opportunity and constraint that frame a person’s action at anyone time. Moving beyond this, as it captures something of the sequential natureof social action, a biographical approach may also help explain why those whobecome homeless may remain homeless or why those who have been homelessonce frequently become homeless again (and again) at some later stage of theirhousing career (Adams, 1990; Jarvis, 1997).

Understanding Homeless Careers

The most obvious factor constraining a fuller understanding of homeless careersis the dif�culty in establishing any kind of longitudinal dimension to studies ofhomelessness (Sosin et al., 1990). Though such problems are not unique to thoseworking with homeless people, the rapid movement through accommodation ofdifferent kinds and the high degree of geographical mobility that sometimesaccompanies such moves has meant that remaining in contactwith single homeless people so as to establish this longitudinal dimensionhas proved especially problematic (Conover et al., 1997). In light of suchdif�culties those wishing to trace the development of homeless careers havemore usually turned to some kind of biographical approach in an attempt toreconstruct a person’s homeless history up until and including their currenthomeless episode.

But in the most part such histories have remained extremely schematic—typically consisting of little more than an indication of whether a person hasused night shelter or hostel accommodation prior to their current homelessepisode, of the number of times a person has slept rough and for how long orthe details of their last few addresses (Anderson et al., 1993; Jones & Stevens,1993). Though such information allows for crude distinctions to be drawnbetween the �rst time and previously homeless, it gives little indication of howlong a person has been homeless, in comparison to time in accommodation, forexample of the ‘shape’ of their homeless career and its relationship to theirbroader housing history—the timing and duration of individual homelessepisodes and intervening patterns of accommodation use; or of the detailedrelationships between homelessness and a person’s experiences in other arenas,so as to allow for a fuller consideration of the relationships between homeless-ness and unemployment, for example. Nor does it allow for a consideration ofthe ways in which different forms of homelessness (whether ‘visible’ or ‘hidden’)relate to each other and as is necessary if we are to deploy a more sophisticatedunderstanding of homelessness as part of a broader continuum of housing needrather than an absolute state (Watson & Austerberry, 1986).

Yet such issues are clearly of some importance. Not least, the health andwelfare needs of people who have been ‘visibly’ homeless for a long time(staying in night shelters or hostels, in bed and breakfast accommodation or

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sleeping rough) and of those with a prolonged history of rough sleeping inparticular have been found to be especially acute (Bines, 1994). Likewise, just asit is becoming clear that the accommodation and other needs of homeless peoplediffer, as does the kind of housing or assistance desired by homeless peoplethemselves, so too it may be that different kinds of homeless career requiredifferent kinds of intervention (Vincent et al., 1995). Finally, whilst both popularand academic accounts continue to construct homelessness as progressive,where a period of street homelessness can make employment and thus accom-modation ever harder to �nd, it is not at all clear how such processes operateover the longer term or whether, and if so how, the circumstances, experiencesand characteristics of those who continue to be homeless for some time after �rstbecoming homeless differ from those whose homelessness is of far shorterduration (on the ‘vicious circle’ of street homelessness see Carlen, 1996).

The most detailed housing and homeless histories so far constructed are thosedeveloped by Sosin et al. (1990) and Hutson & Liddiard (1991). In the �rst ofthese studies, conducted in the US, an attempt was made to trace the accommo-dation biographies of some 450 single homeless men over a six-month period(Sosin et al., 1990). Using the data provided by this study Pavialin et al. (1993) setout to answer three key questions concerning the nature of homeless careers,namely: (1) whether homelessness should be considered a sudden and singularaccommodation crisis; (2) whether it should instead be de�ned as a long termand relatively permanent state; or (3) whether once homeless a person’s home-less career tends to develop by means of ever more frequent homeless episodesof increasing duration towards a point at which it can be considered permanent.In contrast, Hutson & Liddiard (1991) worked with the accommodation biogra-phies of 115 young people aged between 16 and 25, including both those visiblyhomeless at the time of the study and those who had been homeless at somepoint in the past.

Although drawing upon very different explanatory frameworks and workingwith different populations, both studies drew similar conclusions regarding thenature and ‘shape’ of homeless careers. Thus Pavialin et al. conclude thatalthough such careers rarely develop to the point at which a person’s homeless-ness can be considered permanent—in-so-far as all the men interviewed hadspent some time within the six-month period in accommodation either of theirown or of friends and relatives, rather than night shelters, hostels and otheraccommodation provided speci�cally for homeless people—they are clearlyprogressive; with a tendency amongst even the more recently homeless for a �rsthomeless episode to be followed by subsequent episodes of both increasingfrequency and duration (Pavialin et al., 1993).

For Hutson and Liddiard (1991) and though noting that the careers of somerespondents were ‘interrupted’ before running their full course, the accommo-dation biographies of young people who became homeless are described astypically moving through a series of distinct stages. In the �rst of these, whilstsome became homeless immediately upon leaving home, most tended to use awide variety of accommodation including friends and relatives, private rentedbedsits and �ats and youth projects. At the next stage, though many returnedhome after an unsuccessful attempt at independent living, the use of bothfriends and especially relatives declined as more people moved in to their ownaccommodation, most often in the private rented sector. In the �nal stage,independent accommodation all but ceased and, if not sleeping rough, in times

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of accommodation crisis people turned either to friends (but rarely relatives) orto traditional hostels for the homeless, a feature of only these latter stages. Thus,as in the study by Pavialin et al. (1993) homelessness is understood as progress-ive with Hutson & Liddiard suggesting that where previous studies have drawndistinctions between the long-term and more recently homeless, what suchstudies may in fact be �nding is people presenting at different stages in a moregeneral trajectory towards street homelessness (Hutson & Liddiard, 1991, 1994).

Though useful, both sets of studies have a number of important limitations.Most obviously, whilst the de�nition of homelessness used by Pavialin et al.(1993) to de�ne the onset and exit from a homeless episode is ambiguous, thestudy’s timescale is such that it can tell us little that is meaningful about theplace of people’s homeless careers within their broader accommodation biogra-phies. With a timescale of only six months, and an exit from homelessnessde�ned as only 14 nights, it is quite possible that rather than tracing a series of‘homeless careers’ the study in fact reveals only the rapid movement of peoplethrough accommodation within what might more reasonably be viewed as asingle homeless episode. Further, neither this nor subsequent studies that haveused the same data can usefully explain the dynamics that drive these ‘careers’.Caught within an explanatory framework that seeks to explain homelessness bymeans of individual pathology, Pavialin et al.’s. (1993, 1996) studies considernone of the surrounding structural features that clearly shape a person’s abilityto �nd and to retain accommodation.

Whilst drawing upon a more sophisticated explanatory framework, Hutson &Liddiard’s study considers only young people’s housing careers and the biogra-phies they construct contain no record of the duration of each accommodationevent such that it is dif�cult to place a person’s homelessness in the context oftime spent in their own accommodation. More signi�cantly, dif�culties emergein interpreting the dynamics driving those biographies. For example, althoughreporting that some 70 per cent of the young people interviewed had originallyleft home following serious family con�ict which had in turn constrained theaccommodation options of many in times of future housing need, it is not cleargiven the high levels of such con�ict across the sample population as a whole,why only some of the young people interviewed should go on to the �nal stagesof street homelessness (Hutson & Liddiard, 1991). More generally, though thedifferent factors shaping each person’s biography are clearly outlined in a seriesof careful case studies, at no point is there an attempt to aggregate those factorssuch that it becomes possible to see whether the circumstances of those whosehomeless career developed through each of the stages identi�ed differed, or inwhat ways, from those able to avoid such a trajectory.

Developing a Biographical Approach

It was in part to move beyond such limitations that the study reported here wasconducted. The aim was to construct a more detailed set of accommodationbiographies—including every accommodation and rough sleeping event, andthe duration of those events, since a person had �rst left home—and for a widerrange of single homeless people than previously attempted. Further, rather thantracing only a person’s housing and homeless history the aim was to attempt theconstruction of a series of ‘triple’ biographies, outlining any changes in a

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person’s personal and employment circumstances along the same timeline so asto better contextualise any changes in accommodation circumstance and to beable to relate those changes to that person’s experience in other arenas (Forrest& Murie, 1991; Maya & Tuma, 1987).

The construction of so detailed a set of biographies—capable of capturingaccommodation events ranging in duration from a single night to severalyears—is by no means easy or straightforward and not least because the detailedordering of events necessary for such biographies requires considerable abilitiesof recall. The ability to recall events to this level of detail and sequentially hasbeen found to differ according to circumstance, dependent in part upon a personhaving an established temporal frame in which to set those events (Tonkin,1995). Such a frame is commonly provided by a person’s employment historysuch that the long-term unemployed, for example, �nd such narratives dif�cult(Barclay, 1986). Likewise, people often �nd it dif�cult to accurately recallespecially traumatic events, or may at least be unwilling to do so until suchpoint that a relationship of trust has been established with the person for whomone is undertaking the act of recall (Rubin, 1986). Given that homeless peoplehave also often been unemployed for long periods of time, may lack otherobvious markers by which to frame events (not least, a stable accommodationbiography), and that the events being recalled—becoming homeless—may alsobe traumatic it is clear that establishing detailed biographies from which toreconstruct a person’s homeless career may be dif�cult, even in those caseswhere recall is not hampered by more obvious problems of memory loss ordisruption experienced by those with a history of drug or alcohol dependencyor mental health problems (Evert & Oscarberman, 1995; Jones, 1993; Vincent etal., 1995).

The study was based in a resort town on the south coast of England. With apopulation of approximately 250 000, the town has previously been identi�ed ashaving both unusually high levels of single homelessness and of rough sleepingin particular relative to its size, and a high level of provision for the homelessin the form of a well co-ordinated local network of advice agencies, soupkitchens, day centres and supported housing schemes (Shaw, 1998). The townalso has two direct access hostels, providing some 82 beds between them, anda dormitory-style night shelter with space for a further 12 men. Following therecent closure of a supported housing scheme for vulnerable young women,accommodation for homeless women is, however, far less developed to theextent indeed that only three beds are speci�cally set aside for women in one ofthe direct access projects with the other two only accepting men.

Because of this, and because homeless women also tend to make up a farsmaller proportion of those using the town’s day centres and soup runs, thedecision was made to concentrate the study upon the homeless careers of singlehomeless men. At the same time, having conducted a pilot study with users ofa local day centre, a decision was also made to base the study at the night shelterand the smaller of the two direct access hostels. Whilst it is recognised thatthis restricts the study’s �ndings to those currently using night shelter andhostel accommodation (rather than bed and breakfast hotels, sleeping roughor in other forms of insecure and temporary housing) such restrictions alsohave a number of advantages. First, by interviewing all but �ve of thoseresident in two of the direct access schemes within the same two-week period(some 43 people) the biographies may be considered broadly representative of

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the wider single homeless direct access hostel population. Second, and moreimportant perhaps, working with a relatively static population gave space forthe development of the kinds of relationships necessary to construct biographiesat the required level of detail.

The ways in which these relationships developed differed considerably ac-cording to the person being interviewed and the atmosphere and dynamics ofthe two schemes. All developed over time, with one advantage of working at thenight shelter being that the author had already worked there as a volunteerwarden for some 18 months prior to the study and such that strong relationshipshad already formed with a number of men using the scheme. Building uponthese relationships, the biographical interviews only proceeded once a personhad either asked to be interviewed or when it was felt a relationship of suf�cienttrust had developed to conduct the interview—such that although interviewingonly those resident in either scheme at the same time, a number of theinterviews themselves were conducted outside of this two-week period. Themost obvious result of this time spent establishing strong relationships with eachof the respondents was that by the time of interview people began to movebeyond the kind of standard narratives that had often characterised earlierinformal discussions and were able to talk in some detail about events (the breakup of a relationship or the loss of their home, for example) that had often beentraumatic.

The recounting of a standardised narrative is a common feature of life historywork and such narratives may in themselves give important clues as to theinternal ‘rules’ by which different people make sense of their lives (Chamber-layne & King, 1993). Yet where such narratives work to obscure a set of basicbiographical details essential to a study they may also be problematic. Theomission of certain kinds of information or events (a person’s drug habits or themanner in which they left employment or accommodation) is perhaps especiallycommon in life history work undertaken with homeless people and not least aspeople may in the past have been punished for revealing such information;during resettlement work or when making a bene�t claim, for example. The caseof ‘Peter’ illustrates this process well (all names have been changed). Previouslydenied a place in a supported housing scheme having declared his drug use, thecontributory role of that drug use to the break up of his marriage and thus tothe loss of both his marital home and subsequent accommodation only becameapparent having already talked with Peter on numerous occasions. It was onlyafter these initial discussions that Peter was ‘formally’ interviewed.

Though constructed around a formal interview guide, the interviews them-selves were relatively free-�owing giving people the time to talk around theirbiographies so as to capture the multiplicity of factors shaping their actions atparticular points in time and explore the detailed timing of events in differentparts of the biography (for example, those relating to housing or employmentchange) (Akiyu, 1992; Halfacree & Boyle, 1993). Likewise, although it wasexplained that the resultant biographies had to be both accurate and sequential,people were encouraged to explore their biography in the way they foundeasiest, with some starting at the point they left home and working forwards andothers from their current situation and working back in time (Campanelli &Thomas, 1994; Martin & Roberts, 1984).

Rather than taped, the details of each person’s biography were recorded on aseries of pre-prepared interview guides detailing:

Housing Histories and Homeless Careers 621

· the type and duration of each place of accommodation (with banded infor-mation in days, weeks and months up to �ve years and actual time, in years,for longer periods);

· the manner by which they had found that accommodation;· people, if any, with whom they shared;· the form, and their responsibility for, rent or other payments;· security of tenure;· details of income, bene�ts and employment;· reasons for leaving that accommodation.

A second sheet recorded details concerning any periods of rough sleeping,including the length of each continuous episode and details of attempts, if any,to access accommodation at that time and the factors relating to the inability todo so.

As a person talked, a new sheet was completed by the interviewer for eachplace of accommodation or episode of rough sleeping recalled with thesecombining to form a continuous triple biography relating to changes in accom-modation, employment and personal circumstances with the whole recordedalong a single timeline. Rather than asking people to date their biographies, thetimeline itself was constructed by combining the duration of each accommo-dation or rough sleeping event to give a total time in days since �rst leavinghome. At the end of each interview, and following a break, the interview wasre-convened. Here, the author would draw a crudely annotated timeline mark-ing each point of accommodation and, working from the completed interviewsheets, recount the person’s biography to the interviewee. At this stage thoughit was not uncommon to �nd that respondents had omitted a number ofaccommodation events from their account, more usually those of shorter dur-ation, these could simply be inserted in their correct place in the chronologysuch that a full biography was established.

Finally, a series of tape-recorded interviews were also conducted with a smallnumber of the original respondents (nine) after the construction of their biogra-phies. The aim of these was to expand upon people’s own interpretations oftheir histories, to �ll-in details concerning individual events (for example, theways in which a person coped when sleeping rough or the reasons behind theirmoves) and to give people the opportunity to explore their own experiences ofhomelessness, including their understandings of ‘home’ and ‘homelessness’(Tomas & Dittmar, 1995; Watson & Austerberry, 1986)1.

Housing and Homeless Careers Reconsidered

Because the biographies reported here were constructed with people currentlyusing night shelter and hostel accommodation, they cannot necessarily becompared to the biographies of other single homeless people. As has beendemonstrated by others, whilst hostel-based studies tend towards an under-rep-resentation of those with a prolonged history of rough sleeping so too they willinevitably contain a disproportionate number of the long-term homeless andthose with a long history of hostel use in particular (Jones & Stevens, 1993).Where previous studies conducted with women have traced quite differentpatterns of homelessness to those shown here, and quite different dynamicsunderlying their homelessness, nor should the biographies be understood as

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necessarily representative of the experiences of single homeless women (Tomas& Dittmar, 1995; Watson & Austerberry, 1986).

At the same time, although the sample population itself is quite small, thelevel of detail provided by the biographies means that taking the respondents asa whole it is possible to analyse over 100 distinct homeless episodes such thatthe sample may be regarded as equating to much larger surveys in which detailsare recorded regarding only a person’s current homeless episode (Randall,1992)2.

So too a consideration of the basic characteristics of the study’s populationdemonstrates those characteristics to be broadly in line with previous and muchlarger surveys of hostel users. For example, of the 43 people interviewed (all butone of whom was white) 12 were aged 25 or under, with an average age of 31.Only one person was working at the time of interview; 16 reported some kindof drug or alcohol dependency, 32 had at some time slept rough (six of whomhad done so for prolonged periods) and 31 had used hostels at some point in thepast (Anderson et al., 1993).

On its own, however, such information tells us little that is useful to anunderstanding of the dynamics of homelessness and may even be misleading.For example, asking only about previous hostel use or experiences of roughsleeping can give little indication of how long a person has been homeless or the‘shape’ of their homeless career. Thus, whilst 11 of the respondents were(visibly) homeless for the �rst time, for most this homeless episode was alreadyof some duration, meaning that many had slept rough on numerous occasionsor had already used a number of hostels. Moreover, though of the other 32respondents all had experienced numerous homeless episodes, by no means all�tted any easy or simplistic de�nition of the ‘long-term’ or ‘chronically’ home-less (Whynes, 1991).

Rather, looking in more detail at the housing and homeless careers of theseother respondents revealed marked differences in the nature of both people’sgeneral homeless ‘trajectories’ and their experience of individual homelessepisodes. For some, homelessness clearly formed the dominant feature of theirhousing careers, accounting for some 36 per cent of their time since �rst leavinghome and with individual homeless episodes typically in the range of some 18months. In contrast, for a much larger group not only was the total timehomeless relative to time since �rst leaving home less (9 per cent) so too eachhomeless episode was typically of much shorter duration, averaging at just overthree months each across the group as a whole.

Such differences complicate the rather simplistic models of long-term home-lessness identi�ed by Pavialin et al. (1993) and Hutson & Liddiard (1991). Mostobviously, rather than representative of those yet to move through the fulltrajectory into long-term homelessness, it may be that the homeless careers of themore recently homeless in fact differ in important ways from those of thelong-term homeless and that lying between both is a further group for whomhomelessness is neither a singular experience nor a truly long term one but whomight �t better within some notion of the ‘episodically’ homeless. The remainingpart of the paper explores the experience of each of these groups in turn.

The Long-term Homeless

Where the approach outlined above allows for a detailed examination of both

Housing Histories and Homeless Careers 623

the nature and dynamics of homeless careers, it becomes clear that even amongstthe truly long-term homeless such careers rarely develop in the ways identi�edin previous studies. Thus, looking at the biographies of each of the eight men forwhom homelessness had been a relatively long-term experience revealed neitherthat pattern of ‘drift’ identi�ed by Pavialin et al. (1993)—with homeless episodesof increasing frequency and duration—or any clear movement through a biogra-phy marked by different types of accommodation as identi�ed by Hutson &Liddiard (1991) (Figure 1).

Instead for some, like Russell for example, homelessness had been an almostimmediate and permanent experience following initial dif�culties in retaininghis own accommodation and an unsuccessful return home. For others, like Robor Alan, prolonged periods of rough sleeping, some lasting for two years ormore, had been interspersed with equally long stays in their own accommo-dation (whether in the private rented or social housing sectors) that hadinterrupted but by no means arrested a return to street homelessness. Stillothers, like Gary or Nick, had never had their own accommodation but hadinstead moved continuously between periods in hostels or on the street andspells with friends and relatives. Whilst for Bill a long period ‘on the road’ camerelatively late in his housing career after a life at sea with the merchant navy andwhich included shore leaves in seaman’s missions and hostels all around theBritish Isles.

More importantly, drawing upon information emerging out of a triple biogra-phy it is possible to identify a number of features that draw these otherwiseunique histories together. Most obviously, and other than the extensive periodseach had been homeless, each of these men shared a history of long-termunemployment. Indeed, although the group ranged in age from 21 to 49 yearsof age, only two of the men had ever worked and for them their homelessnesshad begun at the end of their working lives. Likewise, all but one had seriousand sometimes multiple vulnerabilities that had made �nding and retainingindependent accommodation extremely dif�cult. Russell, for example, sufferedfrom severe epilepsy (often mistaken for drug withdrawal when he �tted on thestreet) from which he had almost died when he last tried to live on his own.Gary and Chris were heroin addicts, starting for Gary before he left home andresulting in a number of spells in prison for offences related to attempts to �ndmoney for his habit, and for Chris when in prison and since resulting in severalstays in hospital from where he had be discharged without an address to go toand had subsequently ended up sleeping rough. Both Alan and Don werealcoholics, with their drinking starting at an early age after especially traumaticchildhoods. Whilst Don’s alcoholism had led �rst to the separation from his wifeand later to a series of evictions from private rented �ats, supported housingschemes and hostels, Alan’s had led both to his �rst long-term relationship—with a woman he met on the streets who also drank and with whom he was ableto gain a local authority �at—and to the break-up of that relationship and areturn to the streets.

Given these characteristics it may therefore appear that the men in this �rstgroup seem to �t with an understanding of (long-term) homelessness as both ahousing and a ‘welfare’ issue (Neale, 1997). Certainly, all but one of the meninterviewed considered themselves incapable of independent living. But thevery different experiences relayed by each also suggest that any response tothese men’s homelessness requires a move beyond a simple ‘welfare and

624 Jon May

Nick (age 21) 258 18 18 547 258 547 418Gary (23) 258 366 136 136 303 457 91Russell (26) 303 2444 547 574John (29) 3241 45 136 181 95 334 136 623Rob (31) 850 182 1488 547 930 547 837 202Alan (34) 5 258 552 2444 1081 182 18 590Don (49) 2302 10 3662 76 141 45 2417 323 45 2082Bill (49) 7421 1981 45 616 685 1

Explanation:Timeline begins with �rst accommodation or homeless episode on �rst leavinghome.Each episode represents a continuous period of accommodation or homelessness(in days).Each episode may consist of numerous separate accommodation events.Time homeless shown in bold.

Figure 1. Time homeless in relation to time in accommodation of the long-termhomeless.

resettlement’ model to take account of the very different needs of each (Pleace,1995). For example, despite their obvious vulnerabilities, earlier attempts toregister with different local authorities as in ‘priority need’ and their experienceof several hostels over the years neither Russell nor Chris had been able to gainaccess to supported housing and indeed saw this as their priority. Yet by nomeans all favoured this kind of ‘solution’ to their homelessness with neither Billor Don, for example, wanting any kind of permanent accommodation of theirown. Instead, they talked of the need for a more extensive hostel network thatwould allow those who wished to travel to �nd accommodation when theywanted it but also not to have to rely upon night shelters and hostels that wereunder increasing pressure from young homeless people who neither saw as partof the same homeless ‘community’ (Deacon et al., 1995).

Still others challenged the assumption that it was in fact homelessness thatwas the de�ning feature, or ‘problem’, of their lives. Rather than the problem,the repeated episodes of rough sleeping that had punctuated his housing careerwere instead understood by Rob himself, for example, as a ‘solution’ to abroader set of problems relating not to housing but unemployment. Unable to�nd work and repeatedly dissatis�ed with training schemes that offered littlescope to develop his skills, Rob’s solution to the boredom that characterised hisday-to-day life was to take to the streets. There, as he constructed shelters oropened up squats, he was at least able to �nd work of his own; using a rangeof skills from brick laying and carpentry to an understanding of householdplumbing that he had been unable to deploy in the formal labour market. Whilstsuch activities should not be confused with a desire to be homeless, of course,it might be suggested that for Rob his homelessness offered a kind of ‘magicalresolution’ to problems relating less to his position in the housing thanthe labour market, with Rob leaving a number of private rented �ats overthe years in order to enjoy the ‘work’ that being homeless entailed (Hall &Jefferson, 1976).

Housing Histories and Homeless Careers 625

Reassessing Long-term Homelessness: The Episodically Homeless

Whilst Rob’s experiences warn against framing long-term homelessness asalways and only a (housing and) ‘welfare’ issue, the biographies of a second setof respondents further complicate our understandings of the basic nature andshape of long-term homeless careers and of the dynamics driving those careers.Thus, the biographies of the majority of the men interviewed positioned them asneither the recently homeless—in-so-far as each had also been homeless prior tothe current study—nor as the long-term homeless, in as much as each of theseearlier homeless episodes had been of quite short duration and interspersed withmuch longer periods in accommodation of their own.

Despite almost half of this group being under the age of 25, nor does the shapeof their biographies �t the model described by Hutson & Liddiard (1991)in their examination of the housing and homeless careers of young homelesspeople. Rather than characterised by a series of distinct ‘stages’, with a steadydecline in the use of independent accommodation over time, for the majorityof this group their time both prior and subsequent to each homeless episodehad been spent in accommodation of their own, most often in the privaterented sector. Instead of a decline over time in the use of independent accom-modation and a progression towards ever longer homeless episodes, forthe majority of the 24 men making up this second group, their housing careerswere therefore instead dominated by the use of private rented accommodationthroughout, but interspersed by occasional and short-lived periods of home-lessness.

The clearest way to illustrate these careers is to consider their basic shape asa function of time spent in accommodation and time homeless (Figure 2),�eshing this out with details gathered from individual biographies (Figure 3).Whilst such biographies complicate our understandings of long-term homeless-ness, with the majority of respondents becoming homeless for only short periodsof time but on numerous occasions, they may also necessitate a re-appraisal ofthe traditional position of the private rented sector as a ‘transitional’ phase inpeople’s housing careers or as some kind of ‘youth’ housing market (Jones, 1993;Pickvance & Pickvance, 1994). Though almost half of the men in this group wereunder 25 years of age, a further 13 ranged in age between 26 and 56 years old,with the housing careers of these men too dominated by private rented housing,with a marked absence of other sectors (social housing, for example) and withnone of the kind of progression over time into other tenures usually associatedwith the notion of a housing ‘career’ (Table 1).

Moreover, looking at those times at which each became homeless, of 77separate homeless episodes no fewer than 36 followed the loss of accommo-dation in the private rented sector, with almost half of these addresses them-selves of less than three months duration and a third including no kind oftenancy agreement. The suggestion is therefore that when reliant upon (in-secure) private rented accommodation people often �nd themselves having tomove, a supposition that is supported by the average duration of address for thisgroup as a whole being just 0.8 years. It is at these points in an already unstableaccommodation biography that people often become homeless, as they areunable to �nd an alternative place to live.

Yet it is not simply that the accommodation available to such people wouldseem to place them at considerable, and repeated, risk of becoming homeless

626 Jon May

but rather that their homelessness is often precipitated by attempts to resolvethe dif�culties that accompany living in this kind of accommodation. Thus,looking at the factors that precipitated each homeless episode, rather than theusual ‘crisis’ events identi�ed in snap-shot surveys of hostel users (relationshipbreak-up, problems with housing bene�t or rent arrears, for example) the mostcommon reason offered for losing accommodation was simply the attempt to�nd improved living conditions.

In a situation where the single most common reason (20 of 77) peoplegave for losing their accommodation related to ‘wanting’ to leave privatelyrented bedsits or �ats it is clear we need to distinguish between what Jones(1993) describes as a ‘decision’ and a ‘choice’. Here, Albert for example,describes the process by which he �rst found and then left the bedsit he livedin immediately prior to moving to the south coast and in to the �rst of twohostels:

[The �at I was in] was this tiny little bedsit [which I’d taken] justto get off the streets. There was no bedding, nothing. The DayCentre gave me some bedding. I used to go there for a shower,because there was no hot water where I was. There was a … Bellingcooker in there, and a bed—nothing else. You couldn’t getnothing else in the room anyway. The place was terrible … fallingapart … one of those places where a lot of drinking went on,noise and that … [One day] the council came down to measurethe room and they said “this ain’t �t for you to live in” [but theydidn’t re-house me because they had] nowhere for [me] to go,not for a single man … In the end I just couldn’t stick it any longer[and] I just got up one morning, packed me bits and pieces and justwalked out … that night I probably regretted it to be honest withyou … but I just got up that morning and I thought “I ain’t havingthis place no longer” and I just left … And all I was doing more orless all day long was just walking around trying to get a bit of work.That was one of the reasons I came down here. (Albert, age 56, 4December 1997)

Albert’s account is not only about the kind of accommodation that themen interviewed here all too frequently described. It also concerns singlehomeless people’s position in relation to a legislative framework that makes noprovision for the housing of single people (unless found ‘vulnerable’) and thereliance of people caught in a position like Albert upon other forms of aid (daycentres, for example) for what many would consider the basic necessities oflife. But primarily it is an account concerning the experience of living ininsecure and often appalling private rented accommodation whilst also beingunemployed. As Richard makes clear, being unable to �nd work not onlymakes it harder to �nd a (decent) place to live it also adds signi�cantly to thedif�culties of trying to get by in housing like that described by Albert because“if you’ve got a job it’s alright like, you can ignore where you’re living but ifyou’re living in a place all day long—well, it’s no joke” (Richard, 24 December1998).

Even whilst noting the dramatic increase in the proportion of the (long-term)unemployed amongst the single homeless population, it may therefore be that

Housing Histories and Homeless Careers 627

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628 Jon May

‘Shaun’ (age 22)Brought up by his grandparents after his parents’ divorce, Shaun left home at 16 unable toafford a �at of his own. After a period in two bed and breakfast ‘hotels’ he moved in withfriends before being able to get enough money to secure a deposit on his own bedsit. At theend of the tenancy the landlord offered him a place in another bed and breakfast for a fewweeks until Shaun was able to move into a new �at owned by the same landlord. Over thenext few years Shaun moved through seven bedsits and �ats, sometimes living on his ownand sometimes with his girlfriend and interspersed by the occasional stay at his girlfriend’sparents or with friends. With neither of them able to �nd any work, Shaun and his girlfriendeventually decided to move to the south of England, stopping on the way in London whereShaun had relatives. Reaching the coast they again found a private rented �at which theyshared until their relationship ended and Shaun moved out. Still unemployed, for the nextcouple of months Shaun moved between different friends before �nally running out ofplaces to stay and, after a night on the street, came to the hostel where he was interviewed.

‘Simon’ (age 22)Simon’s housing career has been more chequered. Again, leaving home at 16, Simon’s �rst�at was provided by social services. After six months Simon grew lonely and moved in withhis father for a little over a year before moving away from the town in which he grew upin order to try and �nd work. There followed a period of some four months of movingbetween hostels and rough sleeping in different towns before Simon moved back to his hometown and into a series of four private rented �ats, staying for about six months in each. Stillunable to �nd work Simon then moved away again, this time to take up a governmenttraining placement in a local resort. Sacked after only a few weeks Simon returned to hishome town, this time staying in a local hostel for a few nights before being offered move-onaccommodation in the form of a private rented bedsit. Leaving again after a few weeks, andagain to try and �nd work, Simon moved further down the coast to another resort whereafter a few nights sleeping rough and a couple of weeks in a bed and breakfast hotel he wasable to �nd work that included live-in accommodation. Keeping the job for only three weeks,Simon decided to try and look for work in London where again he had �rst to sleep roughbefore gaining a place in a hostel and then sharing a room above a local bar rented froma landlord claiming Housing Bene�t for self-contained bedsits but providing only sharedaccommodation. Following an argument with the landlord Simon again found himselfhomeless and, still out of work, moved back to the south coast where another week sleepingrough and two nights at the night shelter bought him to the hostel where he was interviewed.

‘Andy’ (age 35)Andy did not leave home until he was 26, when he moved into a two-bedroom privatelyrented �at with his wife. For the next seven years Andy worked in a series of businessesrun by either his own or his wife’s family. When their marriage broke up Andy moved inwith his brother but, keen not to outstay his welcome, quickly moved on to other relatives.As the strain with both his own and his wife’s family grew, Andy ceased working in thefamily business and decided to move to a new area of London. Following a few months ina large hostel he then moved down to the south coast in the hope of �nding both somewhereto live and employment, having worked in the town some years earlier. Staying �rst withone of the friends from the hostel with whom he had moved and who had gained a localauthority placement in the town, Andy and another friend quickly found a bedsit each inthe same building although neither was able to �nd work. But they stayed there for onlya few weeks before moving twice again, the last time so that Andy could share with a newpartner. When this relationship ended Andy again found himself both unemployed andhomeless and, rather than moving back to his family, approached the hostel where he wasinterviewed.

Figure 3. Homeless and housing careers of the episodically homeless.

Housing Histories and Homeless Careers 629

Table 1. Accommodation used by episodically homeless aspercentage of time in accommodation since �rst leaving home

(excluding time homeless)

Private rented accommodation 47%Local authority/housing association 16%Friends 8%Relatives 8%Tied accommodation 7%Prison 7%Squats 2%Owner occupied 1%Other 3%Independent accommodation 76%Secure independent accommodation (accommodation with 36%tenancy or mortgage agreement in respondent’s own name)Average duration of each address 0.8 years

Note: (Percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding).

previous studies have under-estimated the importance of the connections be-tween homelessness and unemployment or have at least failed to unpack thoseconnections in suf�cient detail. Certainly, with only three of the 24 respondentsin this group reporting any kind of drug, alcohol or mental health problems, oneof the most striking things about these men is the almost total lack of anyadditional vulnerabilities that might otherwise help explain their frequent re-turns to homelessness. Rather, the most obvious and striking characteristic tyingeach of these biographies together is a story of long-term and chronic unemploy-ment that severely limited people’s housing options. Indeed, half of the men—with 11 of these being under the age of 25—had never had any kind of (formal)paid employment, whilst all of the others had either become homeless since lastworking (an average period of �ve years) or had been homeless at periods in thepast when they were also out of work.

Rather than seeking to explain the homeless careers described here in relationto either and only a person’s access to accommodation (that is, in relation to thestructure of the housing market) or their employment biographies, such careerstherefore need exploring in relation to the dynamics operating between housingand labour markets that place people in a position of multiple structuraldisadvantage. Indeed, and not surprisingly, following those who simply wishedto look for a better place to live, the next most frequent reasons for leaving theaccommodation immediately preceding a homeless episode were directly relatedto the experience of unemployment: either when a person lost their job (seventimes); because they moved in order to try and �nd work somewhere else (fourtimes); or because job loss preceded, and added to, some other crisis that servedas the main precipitating factor in the loss of their accommodation, for exampleproblems of rent arrears or the break-up of a relationship.

More signi�cantly, perhaps, in only one of 77 homeless episodes experiencedby this group did a person become homeless whilst in employment, and onlythen to lose their job soon afterwards. In other words, it is not simply that recentyears have seen an increasing proportion of the unemployed rather than the lowpaid or insecurely employed making up the single homeless population (Greve,

630 Jon May

1997). Rather, it is that the experience of homelessness can no longer beconsidered apart from the problems of unemployment and might to someconsiderable degree be something only experienced by those outside the labourmarket, either by virtue of unemployment, sickness or disability.

Another possibility is to explore the dynamics of homelessness in relation notto housing or labour markets but those informal means of accommodation andsupport that people often turn to in times of housing need and which preventpeople from presenting as visibly homeless, most obviously the support offriends and especially relatives. As Jones (1993) has argued, a person’s access tothese kinds of informal networks should not be confused with a person’sindividual characteristics. Rather, the types of family background that often leadto a person leaving home prematurely (and perhaps without a place to go) andrestricts any subsequent access to accommodation and support from familymembers, themselves show remarkable structural similarities regarding parentalunemployment, family poverty, or existing housing stress. Even in the absenceof a history of overt family con�ict or abuse, such situations therefore oftenmake it dif�cult for people to turn to their families in times of housing need.

But whilst such explanations are clearly of some use in helping to explain themore limited housing options facing many young people—and seven of the 12young people interviewed here also reported either leaving home followingsevere family con�ict or such con�ict arising on the (only) attempt they made toreturn to the ‘parental’ home—we should also not allow them to over-determineour explanations of homelessness. The use of friends’ accommodation in particu-lar, for example, was a common feature of many of these men’s housing ‘careers’with a (smaller) number also turning to relatives in times of crisis. Indeed, Table2 would suggest that ‘hidden homelessness’ is by no means a dominant featureonly of the housing careers of homeless women (Watson & Austerberry, 1986).Considering people’s use of temporary accommodation it is clear that theepisodically homeless at least are in fact more likely to turn to friends (and toa lesser extent relatives) than they are to night shelters or hostels in times ofsevere housing stress, with some 25 per cent of this group never having turnedto hostel accommodation prior to the time of study and despite previousexperiences of rough sleeping.

That people did not always turn to these networks, or that it was often notpossible to stay with friends and relatives for long, should not necessarily beseen as a sign of family ‘dysfunction’ or of more general social isolation. Rather,in the case of friends people reported the dif�culties experienced staying withfriends whose own housing circumstances were often very similar to their own.In other cases it became evident that it was not so much that people were unableto turn to relatives because of some kind of family con�ict but that (in the caseof the older respondents in particular) such networks were either simplyunavailable or people who had been living independently for years simply didnot want to have rely (again) on family (or friends) to help resolve their housingdif�culties, as Andy’s account illustrates (Figure 3).

Finally, whilst Table 2 describes a less prominent role for night shelters andhostels in the homeless careers of these men than might be expected fromtraditional accounts of the ‘long-term’ or repeatedly homeless, their experiencesof homelessness might also be of some importance to current debates concerningthe role of hostels in intervening in the homeless dynamic (Neale, 1995). Mostsigni�cantly, examining the accommodation most frequently found following a

Housing Histories and Homeless Careers 631

Table 2. Frequency of accommodation useby type in homeless episodes by episodi-

cally homeless

Friends 64Relatives 24Hostel/night shelter 59Rough sleeping 59Bed and breakfast 41Number of accommodation events 247Number of homeless episodes 77

Note: (Figures include accommodation used at time ofinterview.

rough sleeping event and that subsequent to a stay in a night shelter or hostelreveals the limited role that hostels currently play in interrupting that dynamic.Although for this group a night shelter or hostel represented the most commonform of accommodation following a period sleeping rough (accounting for24 of the 59 places of accommodation used immediately following a roughsleeping event) those same hostels were clearly far less successful in interruptingthese men’s homeless careers in the longer term. Thus, of the 38 hostel staysrecorded by this group (excluding that used at the time of study) in only 15 casesdid a person leave a night shelter or hostel to move directly in to their ownaccommodation. Further, in all but one of these cases this accommodation wasfound in the private rented sector, from which each was to become homelessagain at some later point in their biography (with a third of these cases followingthe loss of that same privately rented bed sit of �at) (Table 3).

The implication is that as these men’s homeless careers can be understood asthe result of the intersections of (long-term) unemployment and their relianceupon an (often insecure) private rented housing market, intervention strategiesthat rely simply upon helping people to gain entry back in to that market atthose times they present as visibly homeless will do little to challenge thelong-term dynamics of episodic homelessness. Yet this is not an argument forthe usual ‘housing plus’ solution, at least as proposed by those who would pointto the additional ‘welfare’ needs of the single homeless. With few of this grouparticulating any kind of additional vulnerabilities, rather than some kind ofsupported accommodation, the primary requirement of these men is simplyimproved and more secure affordable rented housing (whether in the socialregistered or a more tightly regulated private rented sector) and employment.

The First Time Homeless

Whilst the biographies explored above suggest a series of important differencesbetween the experiences of long-term and episodic homelessness, a question stillremains as to the nature of any possible relationships between the two. By itsnature, a biographical approach remains right hand justi�ed such that it is notpossible to know whether the careers described in the preceding section may inthe future develop into long-term homelessness or whether those who have ahistory of long-term homelessness will at some point in the future be ableto retain accommodation. At the same time, differences are clearly apparent

632 Jon May

Table 3. Accommodation used immediately following a rough sleeping event orhostel stay by episodically homeless

Accommodation used immediately following a rough sleeping eventHostel/night shelter 24Friends 9Bed and breakfast 8Relatives 6Rough sleeping 5Squat 4Private rental 2Owner occupied 1

Total rough sleeping events 59

(Explanation: where a person moves location within the same rough sleeping episode each place ofrough sleeping is calculated as a separate rough sleeping event.)

Accommodation used immediately following a stay in night shelter or hostelPrivate rental 14Hostel/night shelter 10Rough sleeping 6Friends 5Social registered housing 1Bed and breakfast 1Other 1

Total hostel stays 38

Note: Figures exclude accommodation used at time of interview.

between the shape of either group’s careers to the time of interview, andbetween the dynamics driving those careers; most obviously, the higher level ofindividual vulnerabilities found amongst the long-term homeless.

But a question remains as to any such differences between those whoat the time of interview were visibly homeless for the �rst time—some 11 peoplein all—and those who had also been homeless in the past. Where this lastgroup differed amongst themselves more than was the case with either ofthe other two groups, but also shared a number of the characteristics of peoplein either of those groups, they point to the importance of not discounting therole of individual histories and actions in our explanations of the homelessdynamic.

For example, ranging in age from between 26 and 51 years old, in contrast tothose who had been repeatedly homeless but in common with the long-termhomeless a number of this group had serious vulnerabilities, with four of the 11having a serious drug addiction and a further two problems of mental health.Similarly, although one of the clearest ways in which �ve of these men differedfrom all of the other respondents was that they had, until recently, spent theirwhole lives in work, four had never been able to �nd employment and another,although working early on in his adult life, had been unemployed for the lasteight years. The answer to differing experiences of homelessness would there-fore seem to lie in the ways in which, even whilst a combination of certainfactors may over-determine the likelihood of a person becoming homeless, thesefactors also always come together in different ways for different individuals andwith different outcomes (Jones, 1993).

Housing Histories and Homeless Careers 633

For example, for three of the respondents (each of whom had been inemployment the whole of their adult lives) homelessness had simply followedthe onset of their �rst experience of unemployment whilst also living in privaterented or tied accommodation. But for others their homelessness was the resultof a further combination of factors. Whilst George (in his late twenties) had aserious heroin addiction and Martin (in his mid-thirties) had suffered a series ofmental health related problems throughout his adult life, for example, neitherbecame homeless until such point as these problems worsened and precipitateda loss of employment. Likewise, whilst neither Terry, Craig or John—in theirmid-twenties and early thirties respectively—had ever worked, and Paul had notworked for the last eight years, all four had spent most of their lives living withrelatives and became homeless only at such a point as these support networks‘ran out’; either because they moved away from home in an effort to �nd workor because of family con�ict. At the same time, differences are apparent betweenthe broader housing histories of this group and the other respondents. Mostnotably, aside from the higher proportion of time spent living with relativessince �rst leaving home, some 30 per cent of these people’s time since �rstleaving home had been spent in social registered housing, more time in fact thanhad been spent in the private rented sector (at 27 per cent).

More importantly, and even without being able to look beyond the time ofinterview, one of the advantages of a biographical approach is precisely that itallows one to look at patterns of accommodation use following earlier periods ofhomelessness. One of the more striking things to emerge in an examination ofthe housing careers of the episodically homeless was how quickly once a personbecame both unemployed and restricted in their housing choices to a relianceupon poorer quality private rented accommodation they became homelessagain. Though each of the men in this �nal group of respondents were in their�rst homeless episode at the time of interview it is therefore quite possible thatthis episode will be followed by future episodes, particularly if they are unableto �nd work and have to turn to private rented accommodation in order to �ndhousing (as would seem likely in a context of continued restrictions on access tosocial registered housing for single people and the growing use of the privaterented sector by those seeking to house the homeless) (Rugg, 1997).

Conclusions

Studies of homelessness have been slow to utilise the kind of biographicalapproaches increasingly used in other �elds. Despite the obvious dif�culties inconstructing these biographies, this paper has demonstrated that it is in factpossible to construct detailed biographies with homeless people that describenot only their housing careers but also their experiences in other arenas. Abiographical approach gives space to a fuller examination of the complex waysin which people negotiate the opportunities and constraints shaping their accessto housing, employment and welfare, and allows for a consideration of the waysin which such negotiations are themselves shaped by a person’s individualcircumstances, characteristics, vulnerabilities and experiences. Such biographiesmay also represent the most appropriate method for unpacking the moresophisticated explanations of homelessness that have emerged in recent years.

Certainly a biographical approach is likely to be of some considerable use indeveloping our understanding of homelessness in a number of ways. For

634 Jon May

example, detailed accommodation biographies can be used to clarify the ways inwhich people �nd their way around an accommodation and service network orto examine the kinds of accommodation to which people turn when they becomehomeless. In so far as they give a far clearer picture of the relative duration andform of a person’s homelessness, they might also be used to further unpack ourunderstanding of the experience of homelessness and to better place homelesspeople’s own understandings of concepts such as ‘home’ and ‘homeless’ in theperspective of their lives as a whole (May, forthcoming).

Here, they have been used at a broader level of analysis to consider questionsrelating to homeless careers. Earlier studies examining the nature and shape ofhomeless careers have worked with only schematic or truncated housing histor-ies. They have provided an inaccurate picture of the basic nature and shape ofthose careers and misrepresented their essential dynamics. Where such studieshave drawn a clear distinction between the more recently and long-term home-less, and presented homelessness as progressive, the more detailed biographiesanalysed here describe a more complex picture.

Although not necessarily representative of other single homeless people, thetruly long-term homeless made up only a small proportion of those interviewed.For these men homelessness had indeed been a relatively long-term experience.But there is little evidence to suggest that their homeless careers had beenprogressive in any clear or simple sense. Rather, whilst for some homelessnesshad been an almost permanent experience, for others periods on the street or inhostels that had often lasted years were interspersed with equally long periodsin their own accommodation. Further, although some of these men talked of adesire for the kind of supported housing schemes that are often advanced asa solution to those who have been homeless for a long time, and who may alsohave signi�cant and multiple vulnerabilities, by no means all embraced theseschemes as an answer to their housing needs. A key advantage of a biographicalapproach is therefore that it can enable a clearer understanding to emerge ofdifferent people’s experiences and desires, recognising the individualityof homeless people and thus the need for a variety of responses to the problemsof homelessness without denying the structural similarities that lie behind(long-term) homelessness.

The study also revealed a signi�cant proportion of men who were visiblyhomeless for the �rst time. Although these men differed from each other in anumber of ways, drawing them together was either a stable and continuousemployment history, the end of which had preceded their homelessness or, ifunemployed, the extensive support of relatives with their homelessness begin-ning only when that support ran out.

But the majority of men interviewed �tted within a de�nition of neither thelong-term nor more recently homeless. Rather, even though each episode wasoften of quite short duration, these men had been homeless on numerousoccasions, with these occasions sometimes separated by up to several years. Inthe intervening period their accommodation biographies showed none of theprogression usually associated with the concepts of either a housing or homeless‘career’ but were instead almost entirely dominated by poor quality, ofteninsecure private rented accommodation.

Almost half of these men had also never been in work with the others alllong-term unemployed. Even whilst noting the increasing numbers of long-termunemployed amongst the single homeless hostel population, the housing and

Housing Histories and Homeless Careers 635

employment biographies of these men therefore suggest that it is possible wehave failed to recognise the full signi�cance of unemployment in the homelessdynamic. Inexplicable in terms of individual vulnerabilities, the repeated experi-ences of homelessness that characterised these men’s lives has been explained asthe result of a position of multiple structural disadvantage relating to theirexperiences in relation to both the housing and labour markets and a legislativeframework that denies more secure forms of housing to most poorer singlepeople. Whilst by its nature a biographical approach focuses upon the alwaysunique experiences of the individual, it is this shared position of multiplestructural disadvantage that may differentiate the peculiar and unique nature ofthe social exclusion of a signi�cant proportion of the single homeless populationand that sets these men’s experiences apart from the experiences of both thehoused population in general and other poor or unemployed people (Jones,1997; Pleace, 1998).

In so far as the study was conducted only with those currently homeless,the biographies analysed here cannot tell us about those people for whomintervention in the form of hostel accommodation, move-on assistance or sup-ported housing schemes has been successful. But it is clear that for these men,almost all of whom had some prior experience of hostel use, no such interven-tions had stopped them from becoming homeless again but had instead arrestedtheir homelessness only in the short term. More permanent solutions to home-lessness may therefore only lie with the kind of multi-dimensional strategiesnow being explored with young homeless people and, most obviously, the kindof accommodation and employment schemes to be found in the Foyer projects(Quilgars & Anderson, 1997). Whilst not wishing to detract from the particulardif�culties experienced by young homeless people (and it is notable, for exam-ple, that in the current study of those who had never worked almost all wereunder the age of 25) it should also not be forgotten that as here the majority ofsingle homeless hostel residents are in fact over 25 years of age. Where thesepeoples’ homelessness seemed to emerge from a similar dynamic as that foundamongst the younger respondents, it might therefore be necessary to expandsuch schemes.

In the longer term, however, the results of the current study clearly supportthose who would see a solution to homelessness as lying only with im-proved access to both employment and secure and affordable housing.Such housing is most likely to be found in the social registered sector.One indication of the ability of that sector to help stabilise a person’s housingcareer may be found by comparing the average length of stay in the privaterented and social registered sectors amongst these respondents as a whole.Where the former equated to an average of just 1.07 years the latter aver-aged at a little over four years. Given the role that insecure and poor qualityprivate rented accommodation has played in the return to homelessness ofso many of the men interviewed care should certainly be taken beforeembracing the ability of the private rented sector to offer a solution to thehousing needs of single homeless people. Whilst it may prove possible toimprove the quality and security of accommodation in that sector, recentinitiatives in this direction have found it extremely hard to do whilst alsomaintaining access to private rented housing for those on lower incomes orbene�ts and suggesting it may be time to (re)turn to other solutions to theproblems of homelessness.

636 Jon May

Correspondence

Dr Jon May, Department of Geography, Queen Mary and West�eld College,University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK.

Notes

1. These latter interviews were also important in so far as they allowed people to explore theirbiographies in ways other than as a story relating only to homelessness (the ‘framing’ mechanismof the study) (see Rosenthal, 1993). For example, in the case of Richard, who had been homelessnot once but on numerous occasions and including extensive periods when he had slept in his car,the interview quickly moved away from the problems he had experienced over the years in notonly �nding but retaining accommodation to a discussion of his dif�culties in �nding work. Thusit emerged that it was his sense of failure in �nding employment that most clearly structuredRichard’s sense of himself and helped make sense of his accommodation biography, which tendedto shift in line with his attempts to �nd work. This shift towards a life history approach istherefore of more than only methodological importance. Whilst Richard’s narrative worked todisrupt too easy an interpretation of his homeless career, where each interview moved beyond aconsideration of only those periods at which a person had been homeless to include a (schematic)account of their whole lives, the interviews therefore worked to reclaim an identity for eachrespondent beyond only their identity as a ‘homeless person’. Whilst this process may in itself beimportant to a more sensitive understanding of the appropriate form of any subsequent interven-tion strategy (see below) it may also be one of the reasons people actually enjoyed doing theinterviews. The interview process gave people an opportunity to talk about themselves in theirown terms rather than being already de�ned as having experiences that were only valid so longas they related to homelessness (Carlen, 1996).

2. In the following analysis homelessness is de�ned as any consecutive period of rough sleeping ortime spent in a night shelter, hostel or bed and breakfast hotel (whilst also claiming bene�ts). Inline with those who would de�ne homelessness along a continuum of housing need, includingpatterns of ‘hidden homelessness’, a homeless episode is also taken as including accommodationwith friends or relatives where that accommodation was of less than two months duration (andexcluding returns to the parental home). A two-month limit on this kind of accommodation wasimposed so as to include only those stays that might more obviously represent a temporary oremergency arrangement. An exit from homelessness is de�ned as any time in independentaccommodation irrespective of security of tenure (therefore including accommodation such assquats or periods spent as part of a travelling community) or accommodation with friends orrelatives of more than two months duration. An exit is also de�ned as including other forms ofinstitutional accommodation such as hospitals or prisons (Pavialin et al., 1993, 1996).

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