Of nomads and vagrants: single homelessness and narratives of home as place

Within a growing and varied body of work exploring homeless peopleʹs own understandings and experiences of homelessness, increased attention has begun to focus upon the varying understandings of ʹhomeʹ held by those who are currently ʹhome-lessʹ. Most such work has been concerned with an examination of peopleʹs experiences of ʹhome as residenceʹ, with far less attention paid to homeless peopleʹs understandings of what might be termed ʹhome as placeʹ. Given the extent to which homelessness continues to be constructed as an experience intimately if not inevitably associated with the experience of movement, such an omission is surprising. As homeless people move within, between, and through places -- sometimes by necessity, sometimes by ʹchoiceʹ -such movements are liable to have a significant impact upon a personʹs sense of home as well as upon his or her experience of homelessness. The author examines understandings of home as place articulated by single homeless men living in night shelter and hostel accommodation in a large town on the south coast of England. Drawing upon a reconstructive life-history approach, the author sets the understandings of each respondent within the context of the mobility which has characterised that respondentʹs homeless career. In attempting to make sense of respondentsʹ experiences, four contrasting narratives of home as place are outlined, relating to the experiences of the ʹ(dis)placedʹ, the ʹhomesickʹ, those whose lives now move around a ʹspectral geographyʹ, and of the ʹnew nomadsʹ.