Abstract
The Voices Should Be Heard community-based participatory research project provided a platform for individuals experiencing homelessness to share their life stories and experiences. Participants offered their reflections on the oppression of homelessness and how the service delivery system could be improved. This article synthesizes these reflections and offers recommendations for practice aimed at reducing the oppression of homelessness and promoting social change. Using a strengths-based perspective, we offer points of entry for working with individuals experiencing homelessness.
Keywords
In early 2013, two social workers—one immersed in a private, nonprofit human service agency, and the other in a nearby state university—shared during a field meeting their mutual admiration for the moving excerpts of stories from Story Corps aired on National Public Radio—the kind of stories you must hear in their entirety, even it if means being late or sitting in your car a little longer. During the course of what started as a typical student field visit, the Voices Should Be Heard project was created as we considered whose stories weren’t being told. Using a community-based participatory model, we created a platform for 28 individuals experiencing homelessness to share their stories. Our guiding principle was that the act of telling one’s story, and the story itself, would be a form of social justice, prompting others to consider not only the oppression of homelessness, but also the embedded presence of resilience in even the bleakest of human circumstances. The storytellers and their stories helped us identify ways to create a more socially just and compassionate service delivery system. Three prominent themes emerged in the narratives: identity, perspectives on life, and service delivery. Recommendations for practice designed to mitigate the oppressive qualities of homelessness and enhance individual resilience are offered in this article.
Background
In the United States in 2017, 553,742 people were experiencing homelessness (National Alliance to End Homelessness). Very little research is conducted on the oppression or lived experiences of individuals experiencing homelessness, despite the recognition that “further research is needed that facilitates the voices of homeless people to be heard” (Williams & Stickley, 2011, p. 438). People living in poverty are not often afforded opportunities to share their perspectives, or they may believe their input will not lead to change (Reutter et al., 2005). The lack of voice reveals a much larger societal issue of the silence and invisibility of particular individuals in society.
In order to overcome homelessness, researchers have pointed to an important disconnection that exists between the services that are available and the services that are truly necessary (Voronka et al., 2014). Shier, Jones, and Graham (2010) recommend that providers consider personal challenges, such as difficulty maintaining a positive self-image and coping with social isolation, alongside the physical burdens of homelessness when developing programs and services instead of solely providing shelter and sustenance. Studies also demonstrate that positive self-esteem, a strong sense of self-worth, and a capacity for hope (May, 2000; Patterson & Tweed, 2009; Shier et al., 2010), aside from affordable housing, seem to be some of the most important factors in defeating homelessness.
The storytelling approach with individuals who are experiencing homelessness serves multiple purposes; not only does it introduce alternative and empowering possibilities, but it also begins to address the oppression of homelessness. Recounting stories allows the storyteller to express self-worth, which can be both “liberating and empowering” (Williams & Stickley, 2011, p. 434) and also provides indispensable data for others on the storyteller’s lived experience. Sharing stories can impart a new understanding, a chance for self-development, and an opportunity for “all parties to . . . learn from each other” (Roscoe, Carson, & Madoc-Jones, 2011, p. 52). In the social work field, where much of practice is based on the ability to form relationships and elicit narratives, a narrative is much more than “just a simple story” (Roscoe et al., 2011, p. 50). The narrative is “a mode of knowing” (Czarniawska, 2004, p. 6). Indeed, the narrative contains “other forms of communication which convey the social and cultural location of the teller” (Roscoe et al., 2011, p. 50). It is through the words of people who live with homelessness that we can begin to more fully understand the phenomena of homelessness (Butler, 1993) and begin to understand how the service delivery system may unwittingly contribute to the oppressive qualities of homelessness.
Addressing the larger social problem of homelessness requires confronting stereotypes that exist about people experiencing homelessness and challenging social structures that create and perpetuate large-scale marginalization (Finley & Calabrese Barton, 2003; Taylor, 2013). Walsh, Lorenzetti, St. Denis, Murwisi, and Lewis (2016) argue that practice strategies and service delivery, in particular, must address three levels of oppression: individual, cultural, and systemic.
The individual level of oppression occurs when the negative beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of the dominant group are consciously or unconsciously expressed.
The cultural level of oppression is the norms, values, and ideals that reflect dominant culture and are expressed through stereotypes, stigma, and language that is repeated and perpetuated through mass media and dominant discourse.
The systemic level of oppression occurs when the structure of society has and perpetuates inequalities in wealth, privilege, and power between the sick and the poor or those stigmatized as “lower class” (Walsh et al., 2016, pp. 29–30).
Research on poverty should involve community partners, including those living and working in poverty (Reutter et al., 2005). Community-based participatory research provides a method for involving the community it seeks to understand and provides a venue for stories to be shared. Since the primary goal of research is to understand, storytelling that elicits narratives becomes an ideal method, particularly within qualitative research, that seeks to explore and understand specific themes. Participants experiencing homelessness—the individuals who most often go unheard in our communities—deserve “their voices to be heard, not only by the researcher, but by society” (Williams & Stickley, 2011, p. 434).
Method
From a post-positivist perspective, we conducted an exploratory project. The aim of our project was to provide a platform for individuals to share their stories of homelessness, examine themes of resilience and compassion, and disseminate stories and findings to the greater community for educational advocacy purposes, as well as to enhance service delivery. We ascribed to the idea that dissemination of the stories is a form of social action (Reutter et al., 2005). Following the principles and values of participatory research, we elicited the community members in a joint process that would ultimately be empowering and capacity building and that would allow us to learn from one another (Minkler and Wallerstein, 2003, as cited by Reutter et al., 2005). Action was built into our research design through inviting our participants into a process in which they could tell their story, reflect on questions that highlighted their wisdom and survival, and have their voices heard (Reutter et al., 2005). We involved clients of a local drop-in center that serves individuals experiencing homelessness with idea generation and naming the project, and once all interviews were concluded, we conducted focus groups with clients, sharing emergent themes, as a form of member-checking. Participants were also given the option to have their videos used for a video montage created for educational and advocacy purposes by a member of our team who was a graduate student working on his MSW capstone project. The data provided in this article is derived from the 28 individual interviews.
Following IRB approval, participants were recruited through a local drop-in center serving individuals who are in various stages of recovery and individuals experiencing homelessness. Individuals at the center were notified about the project through informal presentations and by word of mouth with center staff. Participants were informed that their involvement with the project was voluntary and could be revoked at any time during the project. They were informed of the study aims and that videotaped interviews would take place off site at the local university. Transportation, light refreshments, and a $10 gift card to a local store were provided. Participants were given a copy of their video on a USB, which could be viewed using the center’s computers. Participants who were actively using, experiencing psychosis, or demonstrated suicidal or homicidal ideation as assessed by center staff were excluded from the project.
The majority of the participants interviewed were male (75%) and ranged in age from 21 to 62 years old, with an average age of 39 years old. The group was predominantly Black/African American (n = 19, 68%), followed by White/Caucasian (n = 7, 25%), Latino/a (n = 1, 3.5%), and mixed race (n = 1, 3.5%). Three team members (an undergraduate student, graduate student, and co-principal investigator) conducted videotaped interviews ranging from 30 to 60 minutes in length, while the other co-investigator ran all sound and recording. At least one member of the center staff was present on site during the interviews. Participants were invited to generally share their stories, as well as to respond to the following questions: What has been your experience with homelessness? What are some of the most important lessons you have learned in life? What keeps you going and gives you strength? What would people be surprised to learn about you? What do you have to teach others? If you could accomplish one thing in life, what would it be? What is the kindest thing anyone has done for you?
Videotaped interviews were transcribed and put into ATLAS.ti. Using an inductive approach, the team conducted a microanalysis of the data using line-by-line open and axial coding for themes (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Each transcript was read and coded by, at a minimum, three members of the team. Multiple debriefing sessions were conducted to compare the emergent themes by participant and across questions. Themes identified through consensus were grouped and organized into family groups, further aiding in the identification of larger overarching themes. These themes are described in the preceding results section, and recommendations for practice are provided.
Results
The participant stories revealed a complex relationship between participants’ identity, views on life, and perspectives on services. Participant views on their experiences sharing their stories are also included.
Identity
Participants reflected on their identity in three primary ways: sense of self-identity, identity related to other individuals experiencing homelessness, and identity related to the service delivery system.
Self-identity
As our first participant shared with us, “being homeless doesn’t make you a nobody.” (Participant 1) From being feared, to being invisible to the point of not being seen as human, feeling different was a common experience for the participants. “When I be walking down the street and people see me, they like—you know, they, they move—like outta the way. Like I’m gonna do something. . . . I’m a regular person just like you.” (Participant 7) As this participant continued to share, “Just because someone’s homeless . . . they still are human beings just like you. But they might be in a more worse situation than you are . . . [as] if you switched positions . . . same person, same everything, but you’re just in a different situation.” (Participant 7)
Participants also felt it important we know that just because someone is homeless, it does not make them any less of a person. Participants spoke of being “good people.” “You can meet a lotta good people who are homeless . . . if you just take the time and talk to them. These homeless people, they’re not all, for lack of a better word, degenerates, or drug addicts, or something. A lot of them . . . their life has let them down.” (Participant 13) Or, as stated by another participant, “This could happen to anybody. . . . I basically just want them to know that there are good men out there who fell by the wayside.” (Participant 6)
Other individuals
Participants also alluded to a “homeless hierarchy,” demonstrating the importance of being seen as “not that type of homeless person.”
Some people need to be put through a sifter, and what’s left in the sift, maybe they could be emergency. But the pure powder below might be the ones who could start off on a different level. Like maybe something close to housing. You know, I’m not asking for a handout, but you could tell when someone [is] from a background that’s just crazy, and you could tell when someone is from a background where they just need a leg up and off they go. You know, it’s like they [are] self-motivate[d]. And then you have people who just . . . fight over a chair in a shelter, or fight over a bed in a shelter. That mentality should be sift[ed] out. . . . I think [there] should just be some kind of like psychological sit-down and figure out who is who from who’s not who. And maybe we could take you to a housing district where we give you a number of months to pull yourself together versus send them to emergency shelter where you just, in my opinion, live with animals. (Participant 6) I have no addiction to no drugs or none of that. That’s why [this] makes me a better man than a lot of homeless people out there. I don’t think I’m better than anybody, but I understand what it is to struggle. (Participant 9)
Service delivery system
Participants also reflected on their identity within the service delivery system, highlighting their lack of personal identity.
I’m suppose[d] to be a case number and another person who’s just gonna go through the cycle. (Participant 6)
Participants also expressed the importance of maintaining one’s own legal identification, both for securing services and as a symbol of legitimacy. As two participants noted, And it is so important to have an ID. You really don’t realize what you cannot do without an ID. . . . I learned a long time ago moving around that they have traveler’s aid, as long as you don’t have a warrant and you have an ID, they’ll direct you somewhere to go. Whether it’s a church or food pantry or whatever usually they’ll direct you, in some kind of direction. I couldn’t do it. Didn’t have an ID. (Participant 20) The main thing I say is . . .if you are gonna be homeless—if you are homeless and if you become homeless—just make sure you have an ID—social security card, birth certificate. At least then you can find you a job. (Participant 9)
Perspectives on Life
When asked what helped them survive, participants revealed belief systems and views on life that underscored their resilience. As one participant told us, To have faith and believe, because without faith and belief nothing would become possible. It means that you trying to handle the whole world on your own. But if you have that man upstairs, the Almighty . . . at least you’ve got someone else to help you, hold your burdens. (Participant 1)
Yet another participant shared, You know, man, you better grab each day and run with it. My motivation and theory of life is all the positions, all the bad things. I don’t even call them bad things . . . it’s called life experience. You can find bad. You can find good things in tragedies if you see it . . . [if] you have breath in your body, [and] you able to walk, that’s an opportunity. (Participant 15)
Relationship with Service Delivery
Participants’ relationships with the service delivery system were complex, highlighting both disconnections and possibilities.
Maybe the system wasn’t always ugly. But it became ugly. . . . You feel like no one is helping you, and you feel lost most of the days. (Participant 6) We have more information than the caseworkers have, and it shouldn’t be like that. . . . You know, you just can’t sit there and wait for your caseworkers to do it. To me, they are overloaded. (Participant 1)
Participants also reflected on the ways in which service providers related to them.
From what I’ve seen from different places, you have some people that really care, but then again you have some that just look at it as a paycheck. (Participant 23) When I was homeless I didn’t need somebody to teach me a lesson, or, you know, “You did it to yourself” . . . punish them more than being homeless. There’s a reason why people are in the state they’re in. (Participant 20)
Participants also noted the assumptions with which they were confronted.
I just want people to know that homeless people, you know, everybody has their own story. You don’t know why somebody’s homeless. Don’t assume that somebody’s homeless because they, you know, just a fuckup, or they using drugs. . . . I don’t want to be judged by people because I’m homeless. (Participant 22)
The possibilities that existed within relationships with providers also emerged from the stories. Just as providers were capable of blaming and dehumanizing individuals experiencing homelessness, participants also revealed that the relationship had the power to instill a renewed sense of worth, dignity, and even humanity.
When I’m in her presence, I feel her kindness towards me as genuine. . . . And if I do mess up . . . she’s like, “Oh, it’s alright. It’s all right.” So things like that . . . just makes you feel human again. . . . She just believes in me. She just believes I’m going to do something in my life. (Participant 6)
Another participant described his surprise and sense of being given a second chance after missing an appointment with his case manager for disability verification.
They could have said, “Hey man, that was your shot.” You know? “We’re moving on to the next person.” But they didn’t. They stick with us, you know? (Participant 3)
Service providers also instilled hope through their refusal to give up.
They give us a chance. . . . Mike tells ya, “Keep your head up. Come through these doors as much as you like.” (Participant 16)
In the context of the relationship, the worker’s open and non-judgmental presence offers mutuality, where both people in the dyad feel impacted by one another. There was meaning for participants who described feeling such mutuality in a helping relationship.
I think I made such a profound impact on her. . . . She was just like—like looking [at me], right? And she said, “You know a lot . . . I want you to talk to these people because the drive you have, they need.” (Participant 15)
Not only did this participant feel “seen” by the service provider, but he also experienced his presence as having an impact on her. In reflecting on what he would want others to know about homelessness, another participant remarked, “It’s just the love and compassion. It’s what they need. A little bit of love and a little bit of compassion and maybe a little direction.” (Participant 20)
Sharing the Story
Participants also had comments about sharing their stories with us.
You [are] helping me too, ’cause just by talking to you I am learning. . . . I would like to influence a person. I wouldn’t mind telling my story. (Participant 16)
Another participant wanted his story to be used to offer hope to others experiencing homelessness.
[I want my story] to give hope . . . to let them know that there’s always a will and a way for you to accomplish something that you really want to go and do. (Participant 4)
When asked about how it felt to have her voice heard, one participant said, I actually feel good, in actually doing that, I feel less stress by speaking out you know, ’cause it’s not good to hold everything in because then you become like a ticking time bomb. (Participant 2)
Recommendations
As our findings suggest, interactions with service providers are critical to addressing the three levels of oppression in homelessness. Service providers, and the systems in which they work, have the power to either perpetuate oppressive attitudes, assumptions, and interactions or to cultivate relationships and opportunities in which individuals “feel human again.” Creating an environment of empowerment that invites an individual’s story to be shared can be developed in a variety of settings, including shelters, permanent supportive housing, drop-in centers, and any community-based homeless service organizations. Derived from our participant stories, we recommend the following practice strategies to help address individual and cultural levels of oppression: seeing the person before the problem, inviting the full story, working through the relationship, and eliciting stories of survival and wisdom. On the systemic level, we recommend rethinking protocol and service structure, focusing beyond today, incorporating a storytelling approach, and investing in staff development and support. Using the three levels of oppression as a framework (Walsh et al., 2016), the following recommendations are offered.
Individual and Cultural Levels
Negative attitudes, biases, beliefs, and behaviors can be expressed both consciously and unconsciously, reinforcing individual oppression. Oppression is further perpetuated by reinforcing stereotypes and stigmas (Walsh et al., 2016). Service providers can confront these two levels of oppression most directly in the ways they engage individuals needing services. Practice approaches, such as seeing the person before the problem, inviting the full story, working through the relationship, and eliciting stories of survival and wisdom, emphasize the humanity of each individual and can help mitigate this level of oppression.
Seeing the person before the problem
Individuals experiencing homelessness are often grouped together, rendered invisible, and made vulnerable to experiencing diminished self-worth. People are not their situation, “the homeless,” and when we choose this language we are forcing invisibility on their existence. Staying aware of the ways in which individuals separate and delineate themselves from others, especially other individuals experiencing homelessness, will help individuals experience being uniquely seen for the individuals they are. Furthermore, the relationship itself can allow individuals to experience their positive impact on others, as well as to feel a sense of agency and participation.
Inviting the full story
The subtle nuances to a question and the way in which it is posed can either invite an individual into deep dialogue or communicate indifference or judgment. Giving people the time and space to share their stories can provide a great deal of insight into who they are, what they want out of life, and their strengths and needs. Requesting to hear more about an individual’s story suggests that we are interested in context, complexities, and turns of events and are not simply looking for quick, factual answers to complete an assessment.
Our participants shared that they needed to simultaneously have their personhood validated while being seen as unique individuals with stories and dreams that existed beyond the experience of homelessness. Questions about life goals, what one has to teach, and one’s vision for oneself in the future invited participants to reimagine their lives transcending homelessness and underscored their humanity. Embedded in these questions is the recognition of and appreciation for the multi-dimensional nature of the person and his or her life experiences, as well as an invitation to be more than simply “homeless.” When asking these types of questions, service providers are encouraged to recognize urges to “fix” the problem or the person or to “write off” the story as already known. Instead, providers are encouraged to shift into a stance of curiosity and deeply listen to the story, free of assumptions.
Working through the relationship
Despite expecting to be treated with a lack of respect and dignity, participants noted that when they are fully seen with respect and kindness, change begins to happen, and some degree of hope is restored. Service providers are encouraged to view the relationship itself as ground in which seeds of change can be planted and grown, given the right conditions of seeing the whole individual and responding with compassion.
Eliciting stories of survival and wisdom
The emergence of shared hope and common humanity between worker and client fosters connection, self-worth, and personal agency. Helping individuals to identify the wisdom from their life experiences and to use their story for the greater good empowers individuals to not only rewrite aspects of their story, but to also generate self-agency through the use of their story to enhance awareness and effect change. Actively seeking to connect clients to a broader community, service providers may offer mentoring and advocacy venues for clients to tell their stories. Being able to tell one’s story can help individuals connect to themselves and their communities, and also to a sense of being part of a collective or “shared” story.
Systemic Level
Systemic oppression of individuals experiencing homelessness perpetuated by inequalities of wealth, power, and privilege may slowly be altered through modifications to the service structure and delivery system. Based on participant reflections, we offer several recommendations: rethinking protocol and service structure, focusing beyond today, incorporating a storytelling approach, and investing in staff development and support.
Rethinking protocol and service structure
Caseloads, paperwork, and existing processes can easily stand in the way of workers’ time with clients. Relying on protocol instead of compassion becomes the norm for many service providers simply because there may be a lack of time. Our findings suggest that increasing the time available for direct client contact, as well as reducing caseloads, will help foster a more compassionate approach, thereby improving personal client outcomes (Shier, Jones, and Graham, 2010). Generating opportunities for clients to share their stories is discussed below.
Focusing beyond today
Workers often help people acquire basic needs first. However, once these basic needs are satisfied, we recommend providers help individuals plan for continued forward movement by helping them envision their personal aspirations and dreams, including career and educational goals. The system may help envision such possibilities for the people it serves by building this mindset into the structure of its programs through assessments, goal setting, and groups. Workers may be inclined to ask individuals to settle for a low-paying position with no growth opportunities, thereby settling for work that perpetuates inequality. The system must reject the oppressive mindset that “anything is better than nothing” and be able to see beyond today.
Incorporating a storytelling approach
Participants described the process of telling their stories as helpful, and, with proper support, a storytelling approach can be integrated within any community-based homeless service organization through storytelling programs or groups. If frontline staff have high workloads with piles of paperwork to process to meet funding-source or insurance requirements, or if they are feeling external pressures to “move people along,” implementing a storytelling approach can be challenging. Administrators in systems must commit to taking steps that will allow for service providers to change their approach. To truly engage with people, workers need to have the time to develop a rapport using an open, empathetic, nonjudgmental approach. Supervisors may need to support frontline staff in identifying their own biases and assumptions about homelessness and help them develop methods of inviting and listening to client stories. Administrators and supervisors can work together to restructure intake and assessment questions to be more open-ended and non-stigmatizing. Groups that encourage clients to share stories around particular themes (such as survival, wisdom, aspirations, meaning, and purpose) may augment more skills-based groups commonly found in social service organizations. While caseloads may need to be smaller to accomplish this, and some time will need to be invested in development and processes, the impact that it may have on program and individual outcomes in the end will demonstrate that it is well worth the effort, one person at a time.
Investing in staff development and support
Frontline workers in the homeless services arena vary in education and experience. Training, clinical supervision, and structured peer support are essential to implement the storytelling approach within case management and other current service delivery models. This may include trauma-informed care and self-care training, as well as the use of a strengths-based approach and a human rights/social justice perspective. Providing a peer support structure through which workers can process their own experiences in a supportive and understanding environment may be one of the most important investments that can be made in staff development (Killian, 2008). Finally, in order to help individuals feel a sense of hope, service providers themselves must feel hope. If service providers are subject to oppressive systems where they are not valued, properly trained, or given adequate resources to do their jobs, it is unlikely clients will experience compassion and humanity within the system meant to serve them.
Discussion
The oppression of homelessness is a dominant theme throughout the stories of our participants. Participants informed us that negative beliefs and attitudes are expressed by staff who rigidly follow protocol, giving the impression that policies take precedence over human compassion. Participants described being seen as “just another hopeless case.” The stories highlighted stereotypes and stigma within the service system, underscoring that individuals who are homeless are besieged by assumptions made about them by the general population, as well as by providers. Consistent with the findings of Williams and Stickley (2011), we agree that hearing the voices of individuals experiencing homelessness “may help to challenge negative stigmatizing public attitudes that need to be challenged to truly begin the process of the homeless population feeling a part of and not rejected by society” (p. 438). The stories also served to counteract stigmatized identities (Golden, 1992; Snow & Anderson, 1987) and provide voice to an agentive self (Hull & Katz, 2006).
Although presumably a core element of any service provision, our findings suggest that interactions that validate the very humanity of individuals experiencing homelessness were particularly meaningful to our participants, as they frequently reported feeling stripped of personhood, dignity, and identity. Service providers must be willing to see the person behind the problem and be a partner in managing overwhelming challenges, identifying participant wisdom and strength, and envisioning possibilities. However, given the daily traumas and downward spirals they witness, providers may need support managing their own internal responses and feelings of hopelessness and being overwhelmed.
Our findings also suggest that the system itself subscribes to an oppressive mindset that “anything should be better than nothing.” There is a common sentiment that beggars can’t be choosers; if you’re hungry enough, you’ll eat it; if you have nothing and someone offers you something, anything, you should take it because anything is better than nothing. However, people are asked to lower their own standards to the point of feeling less than human. While service providers often rely on donations to stretch their resources, in doing so individuals may feel that they do not deserve anything better, reinforcing the stigma of homelessness and inequality among people. Engaging individuals experiencing homelessness with the mindset that anything is better than nothing perpetuates a system of power and dominance over those perceived as second class.
Finally, we saw the power of storytelling in action. Telling one’s story and reflecting on one’s own resilience and wisdom empowered our participants and communicated to them that their stories mattered. As an intervention with far-reaching impact, the storytelling itself “facilitate(s) discovery of competencies and resilience” (Riessman & Quinney, 2005, p. 396), allowing narrators to see the positive qualities they possess that help them survive, and for some to address past traumas. This strengths-based approach was integral to our interviewing process and highlights how the act of storytelling may transform our participants—and, we suspect, our service delivery system as well. Framing questions as related to personal wisdom and survival may enable individuals to reconsider their experiences from a different vantage point and highlights the value of what they and their stories have to offer others. Service providers are in a unique position to empower participants whose stories ultimately help us all address the oppression experienced on individual, cultural, and systemic levels.
There are several limitations to our study. Choosing to allow stories to unfold in the telling meant that we did not receive all the same data from each participant, such as duration and frequency of homelessness. There is also a lack of demographic data reported on each participant, given that we chose to only use the information from the participants’ stories, in addition to noting their gender identity, age, and race. Although participants shared their perspectives on service delivery, they were not specifically asked about this. Had we directly sought out these perspectives, we may have received different responses. We also acknowledge that there are many different ways to conduct a storytelling project and recognize that using a semi-structured interview guide to help prompt stories may have deterred participants from sharing their story in their own way.
Conclusion
The Voices Should Be Heard participants shared stories demonstrating the oppression of homelessness. However, their stories collectively highlight the hope and faith that exist in the context of compassionate relationships and communities. Our aim in sharing their voices, and in offering recommendations based on their stories, is to expand awareness of the complex experiences of individuals experiencing homelessness and to provide a platform for untold stories to emerge. Privileging these stories is a form of social justice that offers insights into how to reform our approaches and systems to make them more compassionate and humanistic. As social workers deeply impacted by these stories, we agree with Ochs and Capps (1996): “Through narrative we come to know what it means to be a human being” (p. 31).
Footnotes
Disposition editor: Sondra J. Fogel
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project was funded in part by a Connecticut State University–AAUP Faculty Research Grant for $3,750.00