Homelessness is more than houselessness: a psychologically‐minded approach to inclusion and rough sleeping
| Published date | 17 November 2011 |
| Pages | 183-189 |
| Date | 17 November 2011 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/20428301111186822 |
| Author | Martin Seager |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
Homelessness is more than
houselessness: a psychologically-minded
approach to inclusion and rough sleeping
Martin Seager
Abstract
Purpose – This paper seeks to identify and remedy a fundamental absence of psychological thinking in
the current conceptual framework underpinning services for homeless people.
Design/methodology/approach – After describing the psychological limitations of current approaches
to homelessness, an attempt is made to define what a psychologically-minded service culture would
look like and the concept of ‘‘re-homing’’ is introduced. The concept of ‘ ‘psychologically informed
environment’’ is explored as one important practical development in this direction. A brief case study is
used to illustrate the power of re-homing.
Findings – Findings and observations relating to the lack of psychologically-informed practice within
current approaches to homelessness and mental health are reported.
Originality/value – The originality of this paper lies in its identification of a clear psychological basis for
limitations within the current service paradigm for homelessness people and its provision of a new and
pragmatic concept of ‘‘re-homing’’ based on the psychological-mindedness that is already to be found
in other aspects of human society and culture.
Keywords Homelessness, Rough sleeping, Psychological-mindedness, Attachment, Re-homing,
Psychologically informed environments
Paper type Viewpoint
The limitations of our current approach to homelessness and rough sleeping
‘‘A house is not a home’’. This famous phrase taken from the title of the Burt Bacharach/Hal
David song (1964) is telling us something obvious, a psychological truth that we all know
from collective personal experience. However, when it comes to service models and
practices for homeless people we seem to become blind to this simple truth. When it comes
to tackling homelessness we act as if ‘‘getting a roof over a person’s head’’ was more
important than what is going on inside their head and as if the physical shelter provided by
the roof was more important than any psychological shelter that might be provided under
that roof from the relationships formed between that person and the others who live there.
Given the way we behave towards the homeless, it would, therefore, be more accurate and
honest if we renamed them the ‘‘Houseless’’. By the end of the Bacharach/David song the
obvious truth is pointed out that it is love, relationships and emotional attachments that make
the difference between a house and a home. Indeed, it is love relationships and emotional
attachments that make all of us who we are and make our lives meaningful and worth living.
The artist Vincent Van Gogh, when writing to his brother Theo, said ‘‘the most effective
medicine is love and a home’’. He did not say ‘‘food and a house’’. Likewise, Oliver Twist
had several houses but no real home until the end of the famous Dickens story, and Harry
Potter’s real home was the Hogwarts School until he created his own family with
Ginny Weasley.These simple and obvious truths about the importance of relationships are to
be found throughout everyday human life, art, literature and religion. They can also be read
on or between the lines of all scientific researches into psychological or mental health.
DOI 10.1108/20428301111186822 VOL. 15 NO. 4 2011, pp. 183-189, QEmerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 2042-8308
j
MENTAL HEALTHAND SOCIAL INCLUSION
j
PAGE 183
Martin Seager is a
Consultant Clinical
Psychologist and Adult
Psychotherapist at Suffolk
Mental Health Partnership
NHS Trust, Ipswich, UK.
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