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Housing Studies
ISSN: 0267-3037 (Print) 1466-1810 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/chos20
From long-term homelessness to stable housing:
investigating ‘liminality’
Chris Chamberlain & Guy Johnson
To cite this article: Chris Chamberlain & Guy Johnson (2018) From long-term homelessness
to stable housing: investigating ‘liminality’, Housing Studies, 33:8, 1246-1263, DOI:
10.1080/02673037.2018.1424806
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2018.1424806
Published online: 31 Jan 2018.
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https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2018.1424806
From long-term homelessness to stable housing:
investigating ‘liminality’
ChrisChamberlain and GuyJohnson
Centre for Applied Social Research, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
ABSTRACT
This paper uses the term ‘liminality’ to refer to the experience of feeling
like an outsider when people are transitioning from one housing status
(long-term homelessness) to another (housed). Three dimensions of
liminality are identied: ‘material’, ‘relational’ and ‘psychological’. The
material dimension covers how people feel about their housing and
whether they nd it dicult to make the transition from homeless
to housed. The relational dimension focuses on whether people are
able to rebuild relations with family and friends. The psychological
dimension includes how people deal with the stigma of homelessness.
The paper demonstrates that most people can overcome the material
dimension of liminality if they are given appropriate support, but they
nd it more dicult to overcome the relational and psychological
dimensions of liminality. We conclude that moving on from long-
term homelessness is not straightforward and we point to the policy
implications of these ndings.
Introduction
ere is a substantial body of literature that accepts that becoming homeless is best under-
stood as a process (for a review, see: Chamberlain & Johnson, 2013), but much less has been
written about the process of exiting from homelessness. is paper outlines a conceptual
framework to investigate the process by which people exit from long-term homelessness,
using the concept of ‘liminality’.
e term ‘liminality’ has been used in a number of dierent ways (omassen, 2009),
but we use it refer to people feeling like ‘outsiders’ following rehousing. ree potential
dimensions of liminality are identied: ‘material’, ‘relational’ and ‘psychological’. e mate-
rial dimension covers how people feel about their housing. e relational area focuses on
people’s relations with friends and relatives. e psychological aspect covers how people
manage the stigma of homelessness.
To investigate whether people experience liminality requires in-depth information on
people’s experiences following rehousing. e paper draws on 157 interviews undertaken
over 2 years with 64 individuals who had experienced long-term homelessness. At the nal
interview, all of them were housed and most (87%) had been housed for 12months or longer.
KEYWORDS
Chronic homelessness;
community integration;
stigma; liminality
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 31 March 2017
Accepted3 January 2018
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
CONTACT Chris Chamberlain chris.chamberlain@rmit.edu.au
HOUSING STUDIES, 2018
VOL. 33, NO. 8, 1246–1263
e paper is structured as follows. First, we review studies of Housing First programmes
which show that 70–90% of the long-term homeless can be successfully rehoused. en,
we introduce the concept of ‘liminality’ to investigate what happens to people when they
are rehoused. Aer that, we outline our methodology. is is followed by a presentation
of ndings regarding the material, relational and psychological dimensions of liminality.
Finally, we point to the policy implications of our ndings.
Literature review
ere is a growing body of literature which nds that chronically homeless people can
be successfully rehoused if they are enrolled in ‘Housing First’ programmes rather than
traditional ‘Treatment First’ approaches (for example: Busch-Geertsema, 2013; Please &
Bretherton, 2013; Stefancic & Tsemberis, 2007; Tsemberis, 1999; Tsemberis & Eisenberg,
2000). Treatment First approaches move people through a series of stages, typically focusing
on their mental health and/or substance use. e aim is to stabilize homeless clients and
to provide them with sucient skills to maintain conventional housing. Treatment First
approaches are also referred to as ‘continuum of care’ or ‘staircase’ strategies to denote that
people move through a series of stages to establish that they are ‘housing ready’.
In contrast, proponents of Housing First argue that it is more eective to rst provide
people with conventional housing, and then to allow them to tackle other problems at their
own speed. e prototype for this approach is the Pathways to Housing model developed
by Sam Tsemberis and his colleagues in New York in the 1990s (Tsemberis, 1999, 2010a;
Tsemberis & Eisenberg, 2000). e approach is underpinned by ve core ideas: (1) housing
is a fundamental human right; (2) clients should be provided with housing before other
services are oered; (3) people undertake recovery at their own speed; (4) there is no
requirement for abstinence from drugs and alcohol; and (5) the aim is re-integration into
mainstream society.
Tsemberis & Eisenberg (2000) undertook the evaluation of the rst Pathways to Housing
programme. ey compared the housing outcomes for 242 persons enrolled in the pro-
gramme between 1993 and 1997 with the housing outcomes for 1,600 persons housed
enrolled in residential treatment programmes over the same time period. Aer ve years,
88% of the Housing First participants remained housed, compared with 47% of those in
Treatment First programmes. Other studies in the United States also report positive out-
comes for those enrolled in Housing First trials (Gulcur et al., 2003; Padgett et al., 2006;
Pearson et al., 2009; Stefanic & Tsemberis, 2007; Warnes et al., 2013). For example, Stefancic
& Tsemberis (2007) found that 84% of those in two Housing First programmes were still
housed aer two years and 68% were still housed aer four years.
Despite the apparent success of the Housing First approach, Tsemberis and colleagues
have become increasingly concerned about the delity of Housing First programmes to the
original model (Busch-Geertsema, 2013; Nelson et al., 2014; Please, 2011; Tsemberis, 2010b).
A particular concern for some people has been the delity of Housing First programmes
in Europe. e fundamental principles of the European Housing First approach are similar
to the original Housing First model: (1) that housing is a human right; (2) people should
be rehoused as quickly as possible; (3) people undertake recovery at their own speed; (4)
there is no requirement to abstain from alcohol and other drugs; (5) and the long-term aim
is re-integration into mainstream society. However, in Europe these principles underpin
HOUSING STUDIES
1247
a broad range of service delivery models (Johnson, 2012), and the goal is usually to house
people as quickly as possible, rather than ‘immediately’.
In 2011–2013, the European Commission funded test sites in ve cities to evaluate the
Housing First model. Four of these sites – Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Glasgow and Lisbon
– shared the main principles of Housing First as outlined above (Busch-Geertsema, 2013,
p. 5). e evaluation found that:
Housing retention rates in Amsterdam and Copenhagen were extraordinarily high (over 90
per cent …) In Glasgow … a similarly impressive rate of over 90 per cent was reported, and for
the project in Lisbon the retention rate was still very near to 80 per cent aer … three years.
(Busch-Geertsema, 2013, p. 7)
Pleace & Bretherton (2013) have also reviewed the European evidence. ey conclude:
… research on Housing First is nding consistent success for Housing First services in terms
of ending chronic homelessness across a range of countries … French or Danish Housing First
services, working in radically dierent contexts, achieve very similar results to those reported
in America … Housing First in Denmark, the Netherland, Canada and elsewhere ends chronic
homelessness for 80 per cent or more of service users … (Pleace & Bretherton, 2013, pp. 31–32)
Most of the studies that have been reviewed rely primarily on the number of people
who have been rehoused to establish that Housing First is eective. But it has already been
pointed out that another aim of Housing First is to re-integrate chronically homeless peo-
ple into mainstream society. According to Busch-Geertsema (2013, p. 70): ‘Community
integration … relates to social contacts … enabling persons in need to live, work, learn and
participate in their communities’. Quilgars & Pleace (2016, p. 5) also refer to ‘the extent
to which formerly homeless people are able to live, work, learn and participate in their
communities’ but they refer to this as ‘social integration’. In this paper, we use the terms
‘community integration’ and ‘social integration’ interchangeably.
According to Tsemberis (2010b) Housing First programmes do achieve community
integration:
Housing First seeks to help clients integrate into their community as fully as possible … Clients
frequently interact with their neighbours at the local market, laundromat, movie theatre, coee
shop or park. e clients share the same community and socialization opportunities as their
nondisabled neighbours. Clients soon discover that being a lease-holding apartment renter
… is an enormous boost to one’s autonomy, self-determination, metal health and dignity.
(Tsemberis 2010b, pp. 53–54)
However, in one atypical passage, he notes: ‘these programs … help individuals graduate
from the trauma of homelessness into the normal everyday misery of extreme poverty,
stigma and unemployment’ (Tsemberis, 2010a, p. 52).
In the European Commission research to evaluate Housing First, Busch-Geertsema
(2013, p. 87) concludes that the: ‘Housing First approach is to be recommended as a highly
successful way of ending homelessness for people with severe support needs’, and he goes on
to identify key elements that contribute to success. Despite this, he also warns that: ‘expecta-
tions of policy makers and service providers need to remain realistic. Ending homelessness
provides a platform for further steps towards social inclusion, but is not a guarantee for it’
(Busch-Geertsema, 2013, p. 11).
Others have argued that the evidence on community integration is equivocal. Quilgars
& Pleace (2016) have reviewed the international evidence drawing on studies conducted
in 12 countries. ey point out that existing studies oen use dierent denitions of social
1248
C. CHAMBERLAIN AND G. JOHNSON
integration, and dierent methods of assessment (Quilgars & Pleace 2016, p. 11). ey
conclude that it is not clear whether Housing First programmes deliver community inte-
gration or not:
A key conclusion from this review is that Housing First researchers, working with other social
scientists, need to develop better measure of social integration that can be utilised consistently
in future evaluations. (Quilgars & Pleace, 2016, p. 11)
is paper will attempt to ‘shed light’ on community integration using an Australian
case study. We focus on three issues: (1) how chronically people experience the transition
from homeless to housed; (2) whether they can rebuild their social networks following
rehousing; and (3) how they deal with the stigma attached to homelessness once they are
rehoused. Next, we introduce the concept of liminality to provide a conceptual framework
to investigate these issues.
Conceptual framework: liminality
Van Gennep (1960/2004) rst coined the term liminality in his book on rites de passage in
tribal societies. He argued that liminality refers to situations where individuals are between
social identities during ritual transitions. Turner (1967) used the term ‘liminality’ in much
the same way in his work on religion and ritual among the Ndembu people of Zambia.
Turner (2008, p. 95) coined the phrase that individuals are ‘betwixt and between’ worlds if
they are experiencing liminality. In van Gennep and Turner’s work, people experiencing
liminality are in ‘no-man’s land’.
Social theorists have subsequently used liminality to understand a wide range of situ-
ations where individuals are between social identities, including: people’s experiences in
prison visiting rooms (Moran, 2013); the lives of sex workers in Brazil (de Meiss, 2002); the
process of transition in post-communist societies (Bauman, 1992); and the experiences of
refugees (Mortland, 1987). Hynes (2011) has written extensively about asylum seekers who
she refers to as ‘between liminality and belonging’. e notion of ‘living in limbo’ has also
been used to draw attention to the plight of refugees who live in an ‘intermediate state in
which one has exited from the old but is not yet accepted elsewhere’ (Bousquet, 1987, p. 34).
e idea of liminality has also been explored by a number of authors interested in home
-
lessness. ey contend that people experience liminality on the way to becoming chronically
homeless (Hopper, 2003; Hopper & Bauhmol, 1996; Snow & Anderson, 1993). According
to Hopper & Baumohl (1996, p. 5), ‘Liminality refers to the sometimes perilous passage
from one “status slot” to another’. Hopper (2003, p. 20) notes that when people rst become
homeless they are ‘betwixt and between’ worlds. e experience of liminality gradually fades
as they become enmeshed in the homeless subculture (Hopper, 2003, pp. 20–22).
Snow & Anderson (1993) also contend that people experience liminality on the way
to becoming chronically homeless, but they use the term in a slightly dierent way. ey
divide the homeless population into three groups: the ‘recently dislocated’, ‘straddlers’ and
‘outsiders’. e recently dislocated are new to the homeless population and they oen show
‘a strong desire to return to the world from whence they came’ (Snow & Anderson, 1993,
p. 47). Outsiders have made a clear break from mainstream society and their priority is
surviving on the streets (Snow & Anderson, 1993, pp. 57–58). Straddlers experience limi-
nality because they remain attached to the world from which they have come, but they also
HOUSING STUDIES
1249
participate in the homeless subculture. ey straddle two quite dierent worlds. In this use
of the term, liminality refers to having a ‘foot in both worlds’.
Previous authors have focused on the transition from housed to homeless. In contrast, we
investigate whether the long-term homeless experience liminality when they are rehoused.
As already indicated, the term ‘liminality’ refers to feeling like an outsider. People who
experience liminality when they are rehoused typically feel they ‘don’t t in’, that they ‘can’t
cope’ or that they ‘don’t belong in this place or in this community’. e concept of liminality
is useful because it draws attention to how people make the transition from one housing
status (homeless) to another (housed).
is paper builds on the work of previous authors, but it oers a new insight. We identify
three potential types of liminality which we refer to as the ‘material’, ‘relational’ and ‘psy-
chological’ dimensions. e material aspect covers how people feel about their housing and
whether they nd it dicult to make the transition from homeless to housed. e relational
dimension focuses on how people rebuild relations with friends and relatives following
rehousing. e psychological area covers how people deal with the stigma of homelessness
once they are rehoused.
Methodology
Both services where we collected data were in Melbourne. e services followed the main
principles identied in the European version of Housing First. e rst service was a pilot
programme known as Journey to Social Inclusion (J2SI). e programme provided chron-
ically homeless people with intensive support for up to three years. To be eligible for the
J2SI programme, people had either: (1) to have slept rough continuously for 12months or
more; or (2) to have been homeless episodically for at least three years (Johnson et al., 2011,
p. 4). Forty people were recruited into the programme.
e second service was the Melbourne Street to Home (MS2H) programme. is provides
chronically homeless people with intensive support before they access housing, and with
intensive support for up to 12months aer permanent housing has been secured. ere
were 82 people invited to join this programme.
People recruited into MS2H were asked to take part in three in-depth interviews in the
rst two years, as were half of those recruited into J2SI. To be included in the sample for this
paper, respondents had to have been rehoused successfully aer joining their programme.
ey also had to have completed at least one in-depth interview. In total, 64 individuals
met these criteria and they had completed 157 interviews. Two years aer joining their
programme all 64 individuals were in social housing dispersed throughout the community.
However, they had been housed for dierent amounts of time: 73% had been housed for
18months or longer; 14% had been housed for between 12 and 17months; and 13% had
been housed for less than a year (Table 1).
e interviews focused on the participants’ experiences of homelessness, their health and
housing histories, their social relationships, their hopes for the future, and the factors that
contributed to successful rehousing. Most interviews yielded in-depth qualitative informa-
tion. e qualitative data-set was coded using NVIVO. We used coding categories associ-
ated with being homeless and with being housed – for example: experience on the streets;
drug and alcohol use; boarding houses; emergency accommodation; housing and home;
friends and family; identity and the management of stigma; aspirations for the future. When
1250
C. CHAMBERLAIN AND G. JOHNSON
qualitative data are used, people’s names and various personal details have been changed
to ensure condentiality. Ethics approval for the research was given by RMIT University.
Social characteristics
Seventy-ve per cent of the participants were male and 25% were female. Two-hs (38%)
of the respondents were aged 30–39; another one-third (31%) were aged 40–49; and one-
h (17%) were aged 50–59. e educational attainment of participants was low: 16% had
nished Year 12; 37% had completed Year 10 or Year 11; and 44% had le school before
completing Year 10 (Year 10 is currently the minimum leaving age).
Half (45%) of the respondents had their rst experience of homelessness when they were
18years old or younger. e average amount of time that had elapsed between people’s rst
experience of homelessness and their current experience was 19.2years. Most people had
moved out of the homeless population a number of times, but these returns to conventional
accommodation had subsequently broken down.
Almost all (94%) of the participants had slept rough, 92% had stayed in a boarding house
and 80% had been in crisis accommodation. Eighty-six per cent reported a chronic physical
health condition and 73% had experienced mental health issues. All of the participants
were receiving a government support payment and 86% had been on a support payment
for three years or longer.
Material dimension: housing and home
In this section, we investigate whether there is a material dimension to liminality. First,
we need to distinguish between liminiality and ontological security. In a famous paper,
Padgett (2007, p. 1926) dened ontological security as, ‘the feeling of well-being that arises
from a sense of constancy in one’s social and material environment’. Markers of ontological
security include ‘constancy, daily routines, privacy, and having a secure base for identity
construction’ (Padgett, 2007, p. 1925). Ontological security is primarily about outcomes. In
contrast, people who experience material liminality feel like outsiders in their new home.
Material liminality is about process, or how people make the transition from one housing
status to another.
First, we examine what happened to people when they returned to conventional accom-
modation. Did they experience the material dimension of liminality? en, we investigate
whether they achieved ontological security in the longer term.
e change from homeless to housed usually happens abruptly – as Tom said ‘one day
you’re homeless and the next you’re housed’. However, all of our respondents reported that
Table 1.Length of time houseda.
aInsufficient information on eight people to establish time housed.
HOUSING STUDIES
1251
this sudden change in their circumstances resulted in a period of acute disorientation. ere
were three main reasons for this.
First, none of the participants had furniture or white goods to put in their new home. Both
services provided basic furniture and kitchen equipment to get people started. Nonetheless,
nearly everyone lacked furniture when they were rst rehoused. Sandra said the rst year
was ‘pretty tough’ because ‘this was my rst home in a long time and everything I owned
had been lost or stolen’. According to Tom, ‘e rst three months were the hardest. I knew
the place was mine but it was very bare. I only had my bed, my table and chairs, pots and
pans and … a crumby old TV’. Anthony said, ‘I had no furniture, no nothing until Street
to Home bought me some furniture and things’. People were housed, but they did not have
the material possessions that make a ‘house into a home’.
e second reason why the break with the past was stressful was because many people
felt isolated in their new accommodation. Sociologists have found that when routines are
disrupted many people experience ‘heightened anxiety’ (Giddens, 1984, p. 64). Oen they
feel lonely and uncertain about what to do. Anthony said that when he rst moved inside it
was ‘scary because I didn’t know no-one and I was very lonely’. According to Jobe, ‘I suppose
it was the boredom and the loneliness that got to me most’.
e third reason why most people felt like outsiders was because they were not used to
running a home. Many people had diculty paying bills, cleaning the house, buying food,
and dealing with landlords and neighbours. For some, these were new skills that had to be
acquired. For others, these were skills that had been lost or forgotten. e responsibilities
that the housed take for granted are oen daunting to those not used to them. As Alex noted:
Because I’ve lived on the streets for a while I’ve never had responsibilities of paying rent, paying
this, paying that. All of a sudden I got a house and I got stuck paying this and that and it’s a
shock to the system.
When Ziggy was asked about paying bills and managing his home, he said: ‘I didn’t think
it would aect me as much as it did … It takes a while to get back into a routine’. Running
a house is stressful for those with little experience.
Over time, many people began to overcome the material dimension of liminality and to
feel comfortable in their housing. ey began to develop the markers of ontological security.
One way people started to create ‘home’ was by lling their places with objects and things.
Some people purchased goods from second-hand shops and some were given furniture by
friends or relatives. Others recycled furniture that had been discarded. Bart told us, ‘I haven’t
paid for anything in my at. I’ve got a lot of it from hard rubbish collections … If I see it
and I like I it, then I take it home’. People gradually acquired the furniture they needed to
make their place feel like ‘home’. Brendan said: ‘It didn’t feel like home at rst … but once
you starting getting all the material stu then you know it’s yours’.
People oen use personal memorabilia as ways of signifying that their place is ‘home’
(Winstanley et al., 2002). Jobe told us that when he lived in emergency accommodation:
at was my home, but it wasn’t my home. Like I never unpacked my things or anything like
that. (Since I’ve had this place) I’ve unpacked everything and put pictures on the wall. I’ve
taken my photos out and put them up as well - because this is my home.
Other people chose particular colours that they liked or other forms of decoration that
signied it was ‘their place’. Bess said:
1252
C. CHAMBERLAIN AND G. JOHNSON
I’ve made a few cushions. I’ve made curtains for the kitchen, purple ones for the lounge room
and blue ones for the bedroom and they all look really good … I’ve got all my plates up there
… yeah, it looks really cool!
It is not only the collecting of material objects that make a house into a home. Having
one’s own ‘place and space’ helps people to feel in control of their lives. People reasserted
control in areas where housed people take control for granted. Ilona said:
Having a place of my own – it’s just so amazing! … You can shower, you can keep clean, you
can wash your clothes … Being in a house you can actually cook … It’s just so much better
when I cook for myself … When I was on the street I could never do that.
Jason remarked that having his own place had given him back ‘control of my life’. Control
over one’s space, autonomy to do what you want, and a feeling of safety and security are
all important psycho-social markers that people utilize to establish ‘home’ (Hiscock et al.,
2001; Kearns et al., 2000).
At the nal interview, we also asked respondents whether their place felt like ‘home’ and
most said it did. Rod said:
Home is somewhere where you can sit down and relax. You don’t have to get up at six o’clock
in the morning and walk away … You can be there 24h a day if you want and you don’t have
any hassles like the door being kicked in and torches shoved in your face. Shit, it’s magic
having a home.
Others referred to material things and giving the place to their ‘personal touch’. Bart said,
‘It’s completely decked out and it’s my touch, my smell, and it’s mine!’ Others said they could
now have access to their children: ‘Yeah, my kids come and visit me … It feels good’ (Alex).
Regardless of how people expressed their feelings about ‘home’, there was evidence that
many people had achieved a degree of ontological security. is nding is consistent with
evidence from other studies of homeless people who have been rehoused. For example,
Padgett (2007, p. 1933) found that: ‘Markers of ontological security were clearly in evidence
for those living in their own apartments – a sense of control, reassuring daily routines,
privacy’. More recent research in Australia points in the same direction. In a study of 60
formerly homeless people in supportive housing in Brisbane, Parsell et al. (2016) found that
most people thought of their housing as ‘home’, and this was a place where they controlled
daily routines and had autonomy and safety.
Overall, the ndings from our research are positive. People can overcome the material
dimension of liminality. However, it is important to remember that people overcame this
dimension of liminality at dierent speeds. Moreover, some people needed much more sup-
port than others. Nonetheless, having a house (and making it a home) does not necessarily
mean that people feel they ‘t in’. e relational dimension of liminality draws attention to
the fact that people’s social relationships inuence how they experience the transition from
one housing status to another. Next we focus on those relationships.
Relational dimension: family and friends
More than 40years ago, American researchers argued that homeless people became pro-
gressively detached from their bonds with people in the mainstream community (Bahr,
1973; Bahr & Caplow, 1973). In an o quoted passage, Caplow et al. (1968, p. 494) wrote:
‘Homelessness is a condition of detachment from society characterized by the absence or
HOUSING STUDIES
1253
attenuation of the aliative bonds that link settled persons to a network of interconnected
social structures’. Most of our respondents reported that they lost contact with friends and
family once they became homeless.
Next, we investigate whether there is a relational dimension to liminality. When people
make the transition from long-term homelessness into conventional housing do they feel
like outsiders, or can they rebuild relations with friends and relatives? First, we examine
friends, then we examine relatives.
As was pointed out above, most people lost contact with their friends aer they became
homeless. However, people usually acquired large numbers of casual acquaintances on
the streets and some people formed new friendships with other homeless people. Snow
& Anderson (1993) point out that the homeless subculture is not based on a set of shared
values as is the case with many subcultures. Rather, the distinctiveness of the homeless
subculture resides in the fact that it is a patterned set of behaviours and orientations that
are a response to the predicament of homelessness itself:
All too oen, individuals nd themselves thrown together in a common fate or dilemma not
of their own choosing … What these similarly situated individuals have in common is not a
strong and recognizable set of values, but a shared fate … is common predicament … give(s)
rise to an identiably unique set of behaviors, daily routines, and cognitive orientations and
may thus be construed as a subculture, albeit a limited or incomplete one. (Snow & Anderson,
1993, p. 39)
One consequence of this is that relationships between homeless people are oen based on
‘necessity’ at the time, rather than underpinned by shared values.
Once our respondents were rehoused, most of them did not maintain their friendships
with homeless people. When asked about his former friends, Adrian said: ‘No I avoid them
like the plague … ere’s nothing there for me now’. Other people said they were ‘polite’ if
they met former acquaintances in the street, but they never invited them home. Few people
maintained contact with friends who were still homeless.
However, most people did not reconnect with friends they had before they became home-
less. e preferred option was to develop new friendships. At her nal interview, Helen told
us that she had made ‘a couple of women friends’ and she had invited one of them home.
Ed had ‘a really good neighbour who lives next door’ and Daniel had made some friends
through his football team. Shane had made new friends at his further education course,
and Ilona had four neighbours that she spoke to regularly.
Typically, it takes time for people to build close friendships, and some of the new friends
are probably better described as ‘acquaintances’ or ‘casual friends’. Anthony had met people
in the local community, but: ‘I guess they’re associates, not real friends … I wouldn’t rely on
them’. Similarly, Bess had new acquaintances but ‘not new friends, not really’. A minority
(about 20%) of our respondents had been ‘loners’ while they were on the streets and most
of them remained isolated. Overall, building new friendships was challenging and some
people were better at making new friends than others.
Rebuilding family relationships was also not straightforward. One-third (32%) of the
participants had been in state out-of-home care. eir family relationships were oen char-
acterized by traumatic experiences such as abuse, rejection or neglect and some people had
no desire to re-engage with their family. Doug had a family but he did not: ‘know if they
are alive or dead. And I don’t care anymore’. Ziggy said:
1254
C. CHAMBERLAIN AND G. JOHNSON
I think it’s been over ve years since I’ve had any contact with any family members … there’s
been too much water under the bridge. ere was just nothing there as a child and there still
isn’t much there, I’m afraid.
However, many people did want to rebuild relationships with family members, particu-
larly parents. For example, Maureen was now much closer to her mother:
e last eight months have been fabulous with my mum now I’m no longer dependent on
alcohol … Our relationship is wonderful, it’s better than it’s ever been. She’s learnt to talk and
listen and I’ve learnt to talk and listen.
Similarly, Anthony said:
Me old man’s a lot soer now, you know, he’s 65, so he’s heading for retirement. It’s not a father
and son thing but we get along OK. Me mum, yeah, we get along great. And I’ve got me brother.
He’s married with kids. He wants me to go over there tonight and watch the footy.
For those people who had their own families, the priority was oen rebuilding relation-
ships with children. Lamar was elated that he could now see his sons: ‘I’ve worked so hard
to get this place and the boys love it’. Others were determined to maintain their housing
because they wanted to see their children. Brendan said:
Being homeless has done a lot of damage. I’ve always had my children around me. To suddenly
have them ordered from you makes you angry … My (support) worker attended the court
hearing with me and all the previous orders were dismissed … My son is at my house now.
Nonetheless, in some cases relationships had improved with some children but not with
others. Shane said:
I have regular contact with my daughter … we have a grouse relationship. My son isn’t the
best. Like I said I don’t talk to him. I know he’s got issues with me in the past … But, yeah, I
just hope that one day he can nd space to forgive me …
Respondents were asked whether they felt accepted by their family. Table 2 shows that
at the rst interview 32% felt accepted by their family and this increased to 47% at the nal
interview. Another 13% felt accepted by some family members, but not others. Clearly, some
people had started to rebuild family relationships, particularly with children. However, at
the nal interview, 40% still did not feel accepted by their family. Getting used to living in
a house takes time, but for many people rebuilding family relationships takes longer and
in some cases rebuilding family relationships is not possible.
Sociologists have long recognized that family and friends connect individuals to a com-
munity. Relational liminality draws attention to another set of social challenges that people
face making the transition from homeless to housed. ese relational challenges are complex
because developing social relationships is a process that takes time. If we had observed the
64 individuals over a longer time frame, more people might have transitioned through
this stage. Social relationships also inuence how we think others see us and how we see
ourselves. In the next section, we focus on social identity.
Table 2.Accepted by family (%)a.
aNot all respondents answered this question. In some cases this was because they had no contact with family. In other cases,
the respondent was single and parents were deceased.
Baseline (N = 56) 24months (N = 47)
Yes, definitely 32 47
Yes, a bit 14 13
No, not particularly/not at all 54 40
100 100
HOUSING STUDIES
1255
Psychological dimension: managing stigma
In Australia, there are conicting images of homeless people in the public discourse. For
example, the Australian Government’s (2008) publication, e Road Home: A National
Approach to Reducing Homelessness, portrayed homeless people as victims of circumstances
and deserving of assistance. In contrast, the mass media sometimes portrays homeless
people in a very dierent light. Farrugia (2011) points out that: ‘Popular and media rep-
resentations construct “the homeless” as morally suspect, irresponsible, dangerous, dirty,
obscene or lacking subjectivity’ (Farrugia, 2011, p. 72). Similarly, Quilgars & Pleace (2016,
p. 8) note that media images of homelessness emphasize ‘individual pathology’ and the
failings of homeless people. When such typications of homeless people are widespread,
then a process of stigmatization has begun.
e famous American/Canadian sociologist, Erving Goman (1963, p. 3) dened stigma
as an ‘attribute that is deeply discrediting’ and that reduces the bearer from a ‘usual person
to a tainted, discounted one’. Link & Phelan (2001) have built upon Goman’s work. ey
point out that: ‘people are stigmatized when … they are labelled, set apart, and linked to
undesirable characteristics’ (Link & Phelan, 2001, p. 371) and this leads them to experience
status loss and discrimination. When people feel stigmatized, they are acutely aware that
other people look down on them, although they may feel that this opprobrium is unjustied.
First, we review a number of studies which indicate that homeless people in Australia
feel that homelessness is a devalued identity. en, we investigate whether our respondents
thought that other people looked down on them because of their homelessness. Finally, we
investigate whether our respondents were able to leave the stigma of homelessness behind
once they were rehoused.
A number of studies indicate that homeless people have low self-esteem. For example,
Parker & Fopp (2004, p. 147) found that 20 women using a homeless service in Adelaide
repeated ‘aspects of the dominant discourse’, blaming themselves for their homelessness. In
another study, Zuery & Kerr (2004) found that nine homeless adults experienced stigma
and discrimination. Mallett et al. (2010, p. 167) interviewed 40 homeless young people in
Melbourne. e researcher team found that young people blamed themselves (or their fam-
ilies) for their situation. In Farrugia’s (2011) study of 20 homeless youth, he found that the
young people knew that ‘homelessness’ connotes ‘attributes which are considered oensive
or reprehensible’ (Farrugia, 2011, p. 78). Farrugia argues that homeless people (young or
old) have to deal with the ‘symbolic burden of homelessness’, although he notes that this
‘burden’ can be managed in dierent ways.
Consistent with other studies, most of our respondents thought that other people looked
down on them because of their homelessness, or that they would look down upon them
if they knew about their homelessness. In the rst case, one is dealing with what Goman
(1963, p. 4) terms the plight of the discredited; and in the second case one is dealing with the
plight of the discreditable; although in practice most people are likely to have encountered
both situations.
Our respondents felt discredited when people in the mainstream community treated
them dierently because of their homelessness. ey oen claimed that such treatment
was unjust and unreasonable. For example, Nancy told us:
ey just look at you like you’re a piece of shit, you know what I mean? But it’s the truth, it’s
the way they look at you. ey look down on you … It’s not nice the way they look at you
1256
C. CHAMBERLAIN AND G. JOHNSON
because they don’t realise what you’ve been through … ey don’t know shit about the person.
ey just judge them.
Similarly, Jobe said:
Well, most people look down on you if you have nowhere to stay … you can be sitting there
with a big bag of clothes and so forth, just trying to rake up a few dollars on the streets so
you can get a drink and a feed … and they look down on you. ere’s too much judgment of
homeless people.
Others thought they were potentially discreditable. ey said that people would look
down on them if they knew they were homeless. For example, Keith said that he had never
told his family about his homelessness because they would be ‘absolutely horried’. Similarly,
Bess said: ‘My family would have a t if they knew I was sleeping rough’. Keith and Bess
knew how signicant others would view their situation without needing to ask them. ey
knew that other people saw homelessness as a devalued social identity.
Could people jettison the stigma of homelessness once they were rehoused? e evidence
indicates that some people were much better at doing this than others. For some people,
holding on to a house and successfully managing a home had markedly improved their
self-esteem. For example, Bess said:
(Having a home) has helped me grow in a lot of ways. Yep, I can live on my own. I can look aer
myself on my own and on my budget … I like seeing what I am capable of doing, you know.
Like, I’m not such a bad person aer all. (Having a home) helps a lot with your condence.
When Sergei was asked whether he felt more accepted by society his sense of self-worth
was obvious: ‘I mean people look at me and they say: Well, he’s doing really well that Sergei,
doing really well. Doing a good job and he’s been housed for nearly 12months’.
Others spoke specically of feeling part of the community. Brendan said: ‘Yeah, I did
feel stigmatised when I was homeless. Now I wholly feel like I’m part of the community
again’. According to Mithran: ‘It’s a marked change from a year ago … Like I’m going out
and doing things with the kids … I’m getting a sense of community back’. Maurice said:
‘Having a roof over your head makes a big dierence. I feel more settled, more connected
with the community and everything’.
Table 3 shows that at the baseline interview 73% of our respondents felt that some people
looked down on them because of their homelessness and this had decreased to 50% at the
nal interview. is is a substantial decrease, but it still means that half continued to feel
that some people looked down on them.
Some who continued to feel the eects of stigma said that they no longer mixed with
homeless people but they found it dicult to t in to the community. For example, Lena
said that it is hard to jettison the stigma of homelessness:
It’s very hard to get rid of that stigma and it’s very hard to nd friends because you don’t want
to be friends with straight people and you can’t be friends with homeless people because they’re
too bad for you. It’s hard to nd a happy medium.
Table 3.Some people look down on me because of my homelessness.
HOUSING STUDIES
1257
Others implied that they were ‘between worlds’. For example, Sandra was doing a further
education course and meant ‘to be leaving my old world behind’. Nonetheless, she still found
it dicult to ‘t in’ and was nding that ‘quite challenging’:
So I don’t know where I t in and even though I am studying I still don’t know where I t in
studying. I’m supposed to be leaving my old world behind and trying to seek a new one and
study and meet new people but it’s just not happening … I am nding that quite challenging.
A minority continued to feel like outsiders long aer they have been rehoused. Josh told us:
I don’t feel part of the community … it’s been two years since I got a place and I’m still nding
it dicult out here. I’m still nding it really hard to incorporate myself into society and feel
like part of a group. I’m nding it really hard to meet people and make friends.
People were also asked whether they felt accepted by society. is was a more general
question that did not ask specically about homelessness. Table 4 shows that 35% felt cer-
tain they were accepted. Another 26% thought they were accepted ‘a bit’, implying that they
did not feel accepted by everyone; and 39% felt certain they were not accepted. Overall, it
appears that about two-hs (39%) of our respondents felt like ‘outsiders’ from mainstream
society, and another one-quarter (26%) felt ‘on the margins’.
We have seen that the number of people who felt looked down upon because of their
homelessness declined from 73% at the rst interview to 50% at the nal interview (Table
3). is indicates that the stigma attached to homelessness is not a ‘categorical identity’, and
that people can jettison this stigma over time (Johnson et al., 2008, p. 199). Nonetheless,
we think this is oen a protracted process. It can take people many years to come to terms
with having had a stigmatized identity, and some people monitor information about their
past long aer they have been rehoused.
Conclusion
is paper has drawn attention to the fact that exiting from long-term homelessness is best
understood as a process, rather than a straightforward transition from one housing status to
another. We have also outlined a conceptual framework to understand this process, using
the concept of liminality. Of course, there are some obvious limitations to our research. is
was a small study carried out in one city, and our ndings will need to be tested in other
settings, possibly using more robust quantitative techniques. Nonetheless, we think there
are some broader implications of our ndings and we turn to these next.
In recent years, assisting the long-term homeless into housing as quickly as possible has
become an important policy focus in many countries. e logic behind this shi is that
once people are moved into permanent housing they have stability and security in their
lives. is enables them to start working on other issues which are too dicult to confront
when they are homeless. e logic of such an approach is compelling and the evidence
convincing. As has already been pointed out, Housing First programme have achieved
Table 4.Accepted by society (%).
Baseline (N = 54) 24months (N = 49)
Yes, definitely 28 35
Yes, a bit 24 26
No, not particularly/not at all 48 39
100 100
1258
C. CHAMBERLAIN AND G. JOHNSON
high retention rates in the United States and in various European countries. In Australia,
projects in Sydney and Brisbane have reported retention rates of 90 and 95%, respectively,
aer 12months (Parsell et al., 2013a, 2013b), and projects in Sydney and Melbourne report
retention rates of 89 and 86%, respectively, aer 24months (Conroy et al., 2014; Johnson et
al., 2012). High retention rates demonstrate that given the opportunity and the right support
chronically homeless people can maintain their housing. e success of Housing First has
not only shied perceptions about the chronically homeless, but has also challenged the
orthodoxy of providing ‘treatment rst’.
However, what has been overlooked in the excitement of such promising housing out-
comes is the capacity of programmes to assist the long-term homeless overcome social
isolation and exclusion, core goals of Housing First. Cautionary statements in the literature
about the limitations of Housing First are oen overlooked by advocates who appear ‘bedaz-
zled’ by housing retention rates of 80–90% (Busch-Geertsema, 2013, p. 11). For example,
in Australia it is said that the long-term homeless can be successfully rehoused and ‘begin
travelling the journey to social inclusion and real participation in our community’ (Smith,
2012, p. 3). Presenting Housing First as a ‘magic bullet’ creates two potential problems.
First, if Housing First underperforms against inated expectations regarding the benets
it can deliver, there is a risk that the eectiveness of the programme will be called into
question and funding put at risk (Kertesz & Johnson, 2017). is would be a major setback.
e second problem is that unrealistic expectations can lead to an underestimation of the
challenges of re-integration. Our study indicates that community re-integration is dicult
for a number of reasons.
First, when the long-term homeless are rehoused, everyone feels like an outsider in their
new home. Most people can overcome the material dimension of liminality if they are
given appropriate support, but some people make this transition more quickly than oth-
ers. Addressing the material dimension of liminality emphasizes the importance of having
ongoing post-settlement support arrangements to assist people through the initial period
of adjustment and to help them develop the skills and condence to keep their housing
(Lennon et al., 2005; Susser et al., 1997). Our ndings provide a cautionary reminder to
those policy-makers who believe that cases should be closed once housing is procured.
Second, people nd it more dicult to overcome the relational aspect of liminality.
Rebuilding family relationships is important. Parents or siblings can oen provide emotional
support or practical assistance when people need help, and these are ‘signiers’ that one is
accepted by other family members. However, we found that rebuilding family relationships
oen takes time, and for some people rebuilding family relationships is not possible. As
many as 40% of our participants did not feel accepted by their family, even though they
had been rehoused for 12months or longer.
ird, people nd it most dicult to leave behind the stigma attached to homelessness.
ere is a psychological dimension to liminality that is particularly dicult to overcome.
Most of our respondents had been successfully rehoused, but half of the participants still
thought that people looked down on them because they had been homeless. People continue
to feel embarrassed and ashamed about what has happened to them long aer they have
been rehoused. ey are in mainstream housing like other people, but they do not feel fully
accepted because they continue to carry the symbolic burden of homelessness.
We have no doubt that having one’s own place is an important signier of ‘normal-
ity’. Nonetheless, formerly homeless people face other barriers to re-entering ‘mainstream’
HOUSING STUDIES
1259
society, including dealing with stigma and rebuilding social relationships. Further, par-
ticipants in Housing First programmes oen remain unemployed aer they have been
rehoused. In their international review, Quilgars & Pleace (2016, p. 10) point out:
Available evidence does not suggest that Housing First services generate high levels of employ-
ment amongst participants … Results from the Housing First Europe study found that very
few participants were in paid work … a result similar to the ndings of a study of nine pilot
Housing First services in England (Bretherton & Pleace, 2015) … (A) large study of Housing
First outcomes in the USA (550 homeless people across 11 sites) found no signicant dierences
in levels of employment of participants aer one year … (Tsai et al., 2012)
All of our respondents remained unemployed or outside of the labour force at their nal
interview, and this is likely to have contributed to their sense of not tting in. Indeed, the
formerly homeless, like other marginalized groups, can nd themselves ‘part of society,
but sometimes never fully integrated’ (omassen, 2009, p. 19), even though they have
been rehoused.
Addressing homelessness and social exclusion are both important policy priorities. Much
progress has been made. Housing First programmes have made a signicant contribution
to addressing the problem of chronic homelessness. However, it is equally clear that there
is much work to do. It is crucial that the goal of community re-integration remain at the
forefront to policy-makers and service providers’ minds. Chronic social isolation is linked to
poor mental health, poor physical health, increased risk of suicide, as well as homelessness
(Wilkinson & Marmot, 2003). Without an explicit focus on social exclusion, many of the
housing gains that have been reported may well be lost. is would be a waste of resources.
Policy-makers should fund programmes that identify both housing retention and commu-
nity reintegration as core outcomes.
is paper makes a contribution to the literature on long-term homelessness by providing
a conceptual framework to understand how people negotiate the transition from homeless
to housed. We have shown that the transition out of long-term homelessness involves people
having to deal with the material, relational and psychological dimensions of liminality. In
addition, we have pointed out that people negotiate these transitions in dierent ways and
at dierent speeds. ese ndings have obvious implications for service providers, and we
have noted how some transitions appear to be more dicult than others. Policy-makers also
need to be aware of the enduring impact of long-term homelessness, and that people come to
terms with this in dierent ways and at dierent speeds. In our view, we need programmes
that achieve both housing retention and community reintegration as core outcomes.
Acknowledgements
e researchers would like to thank all the people who participated in the study for sharing their
experiences. We also wish to thank the sta at HomeGround Services (now ‘Launch Housing’) and
e Salvation Army Adult Services for their insights. Special thanks to Sandra Sesa for her invaluable
work on the data collection.
Disclosure statement
e authors have no nancial interest or benet arising from the application of their research.
1260
C. CHAMBERLAIN AND G. JOHNSON
Funding
e Melbourne Street to Home (MS2H) project was funded by the Australian Government
Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Aairs under the National
Homelessness Research Partnership. Additional funding was provided by HomeGround Services;
the Salvation Army Adult Services; and the Salvation Army Crisis Services. e Journey to Social
Inclusion (J2SI) project was funded by Sacred Heart Mission (St.Kilda).
Notes on contributors
Chris Chamberlain is Emeritus Professor, Centre for Applied Social Research, RMIT University. He
has a special interest in pathways into and out of homelessness.
Guy Johnson is the inaugural Unison Chair of Urban Housing and Homelessness at RMIT University.
He leads the Unison Housing Research Program which looks at failings in the housing system and
preventative measures to alleviate disadvantage.
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