Arts and Sciences, Irving K. Barber School of (Okanagan)
History and Sociology, Department of (Okanagan)
DSpace
UBCO
Cook, Shelley B.
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
University of British Columbia
Social capital is generally understood as the benefits received through people’s relationship with others. Although social capital is recognized as a fundamental ingredient in the psychological and material wellbeing of all people, little is known about how it functions for the homeless. Even less is known about context-sensitive accounts that consider the relevance of space and time in the production of social capital, the connection to the construction of homeless identity, and how social capital experiences of homeless people vary based on different factors, including gender. My doctoral research is an exploratory, participatory investigation of the space-time aspects of homeless social capital and the relationship to the trajectory of homelessness. It furthers theoretical and practical knowledge of homelessness, social capital, and the influence of gender through the use of Bourdieusian social capital theory and multiple methods and data sources. My research was conducted in Kelowna, BC, a mid-sized Canadian city, and involved one-year of fieldwork with time spent on city streets in locations known to be pivotal hubs of homeless activity. I conducted participatory mapping on an individual-basis with 29 street homeless adults, and on a group-basis with participants separated through a female/male binary. I used an advisory committee composed of formerly homeless people to guide research and interviews with key stakeholders with knowledge of street homelessness locally to inform my research approach. As a way to enhance policy and service recommendations, focus groups with key stakeholders and the advisory committee for the project were used to leverage research findings. Three key areas of findings were identified: 1) six distinct categories of homeless social capital with defined geographies, temporal aspects, and gender profiles; 2) three categories of fixed or variable factors with gender being the most important in shaping the space-time aspects of homeless social capital; and, 3) key themes from the thematic analysis of qualitative data, including the prevalence of negative social capital, the conscious performance of representations of homeless identity, and pronounced gender differences in the space-time aspects of social capital, including gendered survival and resistance strategies. The many theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed.
“Playing with Monopoly Money” – A Participatory Exploration of the Space-Time Aspects of Homeless Social Capital by Shelley B. Cook M.A., University of Victoria, 2002 B.A. (Hons), University of Victoria, 1993 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTORATE OF PHILOSOPHY in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Interdisciplinary Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) May 2019 © Shelley B. Cook, 2019 ii The undersigned certify that they have read and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled: “Playing with Monopoly Money” – An Exploratory, Participatory Approach to Understanding the Space-time Aspects of Homeless Social Capital Submitted by Shelley B. Cook in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of the Doctor of Philosophy Dr. Rachelle Hole, Associate Professor, UBC (Okanagan) Co-supervisor Dr. Jon Corbett, Associate Professor, UBC (Okanagan) Co-supervisor Dr. Carey Doberstein, Associate Professor, UBC (Okanagan) Supervisory Committee Member Bernard Momer, Associate Professor, UBC (Okanagan) Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Julien Picault, UBC (Okanagan) University Examiner Dr. Agnieszka Leszczynski, Western University External Examiner Date submitted to College of Graduate Studies: March 13th, 2019. iii ABSTRACT Social capital is generally understood as the benefits received through people’s relationship with others. Although social capital is recognized as a fundamental ingredient in the psychological and material wellbeing of all people, little is known about how it functions for the homeless. Even less is known about context-sensitive accounts that consider the relevance of space and time in the production of social capital, the connection to the construction of homeless identity, and how social capital experiences of homeless people vary based on different factors, including gender. My doctoral research is an exploratory, participatory investigation of the space-time aspects of homeless social capital and the relationship to the trajectory of homelessness. It furthers theoretical and practical knowledge of homelessness, social capital, and the influence of gender through the use of Bourdieusian social capital theory and multiple methods and data sources. My research was conducted in Kelowna, BC, a mid-sized Canadian city, and involved one-year of fieldwork with time spent on city streets in locations known to be pivotal hubs of homeless activity. I conducted participatory mapping on an individual-basis with 29 street homeless adults, and on a group-basis with participants separated through a female/male binary. I used an advisory committee composed of formerly homeless people to guide research and interviews with key stakeholders with knowledge of street homelessness locally to inform my research approach. As a way to enhance policy and service recommendations, focus groups with key stakeholders and the advisory committee for the project were used to leverage research findings. Three key areas of findings were identified: 1) six distinct categories of homeless social capital with defined geographies, temporal aspects, and gender profiles; 2) three categories of fixed or variable factors with gender being the most important in shaping the space-time aspects of homeless social capital; and, 3) key themes from the thematic analysis of qualitative data, including the iv prevalence of negative social capital, the conscious performance of representations of homeless identity, and pronounced gender differences in the space-time aspects of social capital, including gendered survival and resistance strategies. The many theoretical, methodological, and practical implications are discussed. Key words: street homeless/homelessness, social capital, space-time, participatory mapping, Bourdieu, performance, gender differences, identity, trajectory of homelessness. v LAY ABSTRACT Social capital is generally understood as the benefits received through people’s relationships with each other. Although social capital is recognized as an important ingredient in the psychological and material wellbeing of all people, little is known about how it functions for the homeless, especially context-sensitive accounts that consider the relevance of space, time, and gender. My doctoral research investigates homeless social support (a.k.a. social capital) from a gendered-perspective, how it shapes homeless presence in the urban environment, identity as a homeless person, and opportunities for change. Research was conducted in Kelowna, BC, and involved one-year of fieldwork with time spent on city streets. Fieldwork consisted of interviewing street homeless women and men on an individual and group-basis and creating space-time maps of their social capital. Findings were leverage through focus groups with key stakeholders and the advisory committee for the project. Implications for service delivery, theory, and methodology are discussed. vi PREFACE This research project was approved by the Behavioural Research Board at the University of British Columbia (Okanagan campus) - Certificate H16-01114. I am solely responsible for the design and conduct of the research project, the analysis of the data and the writing of the dissertation. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract………………………………………………….……………………...…...….… iii Lay Abstract…………………………………………….………………………...…….… v Preface…………………………………………….……………………………...….....…. vi List of Tables…………………………………….…………….......………....…........…... x List of Figures...................................................................................................................... xi Acknowledgements…………………………….……...…….....………….....…….....…... xii Dedication………………………..……………………...…...….……………….....…….. xiii Chapter 1. Introduction..................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The drift or spiral downward into homelessness.…....….………......…………....... 2 1.2 Research approach, questions, & objectives……………....……....……….…….... 4 1.3 Overview of dissertation..……...………………………...………....…………...… 7 1.4 Terminology.............................................................................................................. 8 Chapter 2. Literature Review……………………………………………………......…. 10 2.1 Conceptualizing social capital.................................................................................. 11 2.1.1 Bourdieu, social capital, & cultural capital..................................................... 14 2.1.2 Habitus, fields, & doxa.................................................................................... 15 2.2 The structure & functioning of street homeless social capital................................. 19 2.2.1 Homeless people & their relationships............................................................ 19 2.2.2 How social capital works in a street homeless context................................... 20 2.2.3 Working social capital cross-culturally........................................................... 21 2.2.4 Forging strong ties........................................................................................... 23 2.2.5 The space-time aspects of street homeless social capital................................ 24 2.3 Keys areas of further inquiry................................................................................... 26 2.3.1 Challenging the pre-conscious nature of habitus............................................ 26 2.3.2 Conceptualizing street homeless social capital in space & time.................... 29 2.3.3 Considering the personal & structural context............................................... 30 2.3.3.1 Individual & structural factors.......................................................... 31 2.3.3.2 Social policy responses to homelessness.......................................... 32 2.4 Research approach................................................................................................... 36 2.4.1 Participatory mapping...................................................................................... 36 2.4.2 Typologizing street homeless social capital..................................................... 38 Chapter 3. Methodology.................................................................................................... 42 3.1 Paradigmatic positioning………………………………….……………....………. 42 3.2 Methodological framework & research design………………….……....………... 45 3.2.1 Community-based participatory research......................................................... 45 3.2.2 Multi-methods design....................................................................................... 46 3.3 Summary of methods & techniques.......................…………….…………....……. 47 viii 3.3.1 Methods…………………………………………….………………....……... 47 3.3.2 Reflexivity………………………………………….…………………....…... 50 3.3.3 Rigour……………………………………………………………….…....….. 51 3.3.3.1 Reflexive bracketing & reflexive member checking......................... 54 3.3.4 Ethics…………………………………………………….………………....... 57 3.3.4.1 Institutional ethics............................................................................. 58 3.3.4.2 Participatory ethics............................................................................ 59 3.4 Research activities…………………………………………………....…………… 60 3.4.1 Assessing the street homeless landscape…..…………………....…….…….. 60 3.4.1.1 Key stakeholders…………………………………………….….....…… 60 3.4.1.2 Identifying street homeless clusters..………………………….....…….. 61 3.4.1.3 The advisory committee………………………………………....….….. 63 3.4.2 Mapping temporal & spatial aspects of street homeless social capital.……... 65 3.4.2.1 Street homeless participants………………………………….....…...… 65 3.4.2.2 Participatory mapping……………………………………….…....…… 66 3.4.3 Leveraging research findings….....……………………………….….....…… 71 Chapter 4. Findings............................................................................................................ 75 4.1 The state of homelessness – Kelowna, BC................................................................ 75 4.1.1 Description of street homeless mapping participants....................................... 83 4.2 Geographies of street homeless social capital........................................................... 85 4.2.1 Typologizing geographies of street homeless social capital............................ 85 4.2.1.1 Locale types & categories markers................................................... 87 4.2.1.2 Overview of locale types................................................................... 90 4.2.1.3 Interaction between markers............................................................. 92 4.2.2 Mediating factors............................................................................................. 95 4.3 Thematic Analysis…………………………………………………….…....…...…. 99 4.3.1 Street Homeless Social Capital........................................................................ 99 4.3.1.1 Bridging the cultural divide ……………………..…...….....……… 99 4.3.1.2 Seeking sources of human kindness …………................................. 102 4.3.1.3 Performing as homeless.................................................................... 104 4.3.1.3.1 Leveraging social capital.................................................... 104 4.3.1.3.2 The performance................................................................ 105 4.3.1.4 Gendered street homeless social capital............................................ 106 4.3.2 Street Homeless Social Capital in Space............................................................... 108 4.3.2.1 Receptive versus non-receptive spaces............................................. 108 4.3.2.2 Claiming status through space........................................................... 110 4.3.2.3 Gendered geographies of street homeless social capital................... 111 4.3.3 Street Homeless Social Capital in Time................................................................ 115 4.3.3.1 Temporal fluctuations in the socio-spatial aspects of homelessness...….............................................................................. 115 4.3.3.2 Temporal distortions.......................................................................... 116 4.3.3.3 Gendered temporal aspects of street homeless social capital............ 117 ix Chapter 5. Discussion......................................................................................................... 119 5.1 Challenging the preconscious nature of habitus…………………………....……... 119 5.1.1 Theoretical implications……………………………………....……... 119 5.1.1.1 Playing with monopoly money………………….....…….… 119 5.1.1.2 Performance as resistance……….………………....………. 122 5.1.2 Practical implications………………………………………...……… 127 5.1.2.1 Developing authentic relationships………………....…..…. 127 5.2 The space-time aspects of street homeless social capital..………....….......……… 130 5.2.1 Theoretical implications………………..………………...………….. 130 5.2.1.1 Avoidance of negative social capital…………...…………. 130 5.2.1.2 The effects of time…………………………...……………. 133 5.2.2 Practical implications……………………………………...………… 136 5.2.2.1 Avoidance of negative social capital……………...………. 136 5.2.2.2 The effects of time………………………………...………. 139 5.3 Considering the personal & structural context………..…………….…...………... 141 5.3.1 Theoretical implications…………………………………...………… 141 5.3.1.1 Locale types & mediators……..……...….……...………… 141 5.3.1.2 Gender, geography, power, & resistance…...…...………… 145 5.3.2 Practical implications……………………………………...………… 150 5.3.2.1 Locale types & mediators……………….…...….………… 150 5.3.2.2 Gender, geography, power, & resistance……........……….. 153 5.4 Limitations & Future Research………………………………………....…………. 155 5.4.1 Limitations………………………………………………...………… 155 5.4.2 Future Research…………………………………………....………… 159 5.5 Reflections……………………………………………………………...…………. 163 Chapter 6. Conclusion………………………………………………………....………… 169 References………………………………………………………………………….....…… 172 Appendices........................................................................................................................... 208 Appendix A List of Stakeholders......................................................................................... 208 Appendix B Letter of Initial Contact & Recruitment – Key Stakeholders.......................... 209 Appendix C Letter of Informed Consent – Key Stakeholders............................................. 211 Appendix D Letter of Initial Contact & Recruitment – Advisory Committee Members..... 215 Appendix E Poster - Advisory Committee Member Recruitment....................................... 218 Appendix F Letter of Informed Consent – Advisory Committee Members........................ 219 Appendix G Script - Initial Contact & Informed Consent (oral) – Participatory Mapping Participants....................................................................................... 224 Appendix H Social Capital Worksheet (Individual Sessions).............................................. 228 Appendix I Script – Group Mapping Sessions..................................................................... 230 Appendix J Script – Focus Groups………………………………………….…………….. 231 Appendix K – Certificate of Approval (Full Board) ............................................................232 x LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Summary of research methods……………………………………………......... 49 Table 4.1 Typologies of homeless social capital by marker................................................ 89/90 Table 4.2 Mediating factors by category.............................................................................. 95 xi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1 Map from men’s group mapping session............................................................ 113 Figure 4.2 Map from men’s group mapping session........................................................... 114 Figure 4.3 Map from women’s group mapping session...................................................... 114 Figure 4.4 Map from women’s group mapping session...................................................... 115 xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For their patience, guidance, and unending support, I acknowledge the immense contribution of my learned committee members - Rachelle Hole, Jon Corbett, Carey Doberstein, and Bernard Momer. Thank you for believing in me. I am deeply indebted to the multiple key stakeholders who gave of their time to share their expertise and observations with me. I thank them for their passion, concern, and commitment to the community. For their trust, courage, and willingness to share their journey, a most heartfelt thanks the street homeless participants. And finally, I acknowledge the tremendous contribution of my advisory committee members – Shannon, M., Jess, Katie, and T. Without their support, this research would not have been possible. I thank them for sharing of their time, expertise, and energy; for teaching me and being patient through the process; and, for honouring me with their trust. xiii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my Mother...my greatest teacher, defender, and champion. She was with me at the beginning of my doctoral journey, but sadly, she cannot be with me at the end. I dedicate this dissertation and my PhD to my Mother because her example as a woman, her strength and perseverance as a human being, and her love and encouragement as a Mother, made me believe in a world where such things are possible. 1 Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION As a framework for speaking about the benefits acquired through people’s affiliations and networks of support, the concept of social capital has been the focus of much interest and debate by practitioners, policymakers and researchers in recent years (Baron, Field, & Schuller, 2000; Mohan & Mohan, 2002; Szreter & Woolcock, 2004). Social capital it is generally understood as the ability of individuals to acquire benefits via membership in a particular social network or other form of social structure (Whittaker & Banwell, 2002). Its resources consist of “the social and organizational ties on which individuals can draw for assistance” (Shinn et al., 2007, p 698). Social capital is recognized as a fundamental ingredient in the psychological and material wellbeing of people, even among the most resource poor populations, yet little is known about how it functions for street homeless people (Fitzpatrick, Irwin, LaGory, & Ritchey, 2007; McCarthy, Hagan, & Martin, 2002; Townley, Miller, & Kloos, 2013). Most research on social capital focuses on normative relationships “central to conventional society” and therefore, is not reflective of street homeless people’s relations with others (McCarthy et al., 2002, p. 835). Research that has explored the norms and networks of homeless people has failed to consider the range of sources of social capital available to people living on the street (Fitzpatrick et al., 2007). Even less is known about space-time sensitive accounts of social capital (Weller, 2010) that consider the relevance of time and the interconnectedness of people and place in the production of social capital (Holt, 2008). Given what is known and what is not yet known, including the lack of context sensitive accounts, homeless social capital provides an important and often absent perspective. The interaction between people, space, and time through the production of social capital determines the trajectory of homelessness. In this way, the temporal and spatial aspects of homeless social capital are also 2 important in the construction of the homeless identity (Rowe & Wolch, 1990; Weller, 2010; Williams & Sheehan, 2015). 1.1 The Drift or Spiral Downward into Homelessness Although social capital is integral to the survival of street homeless people (Bantchevska, Bartle-Haring, Dashora, Geova, & Slesnick, 2008), generating social capital in a street homeless context has powerful effects on identity development and thus, in establishing the trajectory of homelessness. The argument put forward here based on evidence from the homelessness literature and my research findings is that this occurs because the mechanism by which homeless people get pulled deeper into homelessness is social and the driver of their descent is the need for social capital. The trajectory of homelessness is described as the course by which people “drift down” (Benda, 1987) or “spiral downward” (Grigsby, Bauman, Gregorish & Roberts-Gray, 1990) into homelessness. These descriptors reflect what is often a progressive phenomenon and how when in states of absolute homelessness, entrenchment tends to deepen over time. In order for street homeless people to activate available sources of social capital in a street context, they need to enact culturally prescribed norms and standards of behaviour (Ensign & Bell, 2004). By reproducing representations of homelessness learned through their street affiliations they are contributing to the likelihood of their own survival because these representations result in life-sustaining aid. However, by behaving or performing as homeless, street culture is increasingly written on identity (Rowe & Wolch, 1990). Ultimately, this means that street homeless people’s main method of survival, which is activating available sources of social capital, is counter-intuitively, what keeps them cycling downward into homelessness. From this perspective, we can see how the drift downward into homelessness is, for some, self-perpetuating and bound up with an interest in self-preservation. 3 What is also evident is that there is a clear connection between social capital, street homeless identity, and the trajectory of homelessness. As a process of escalating marginality where each relational encounter builds upon the one before it, creating a natural and potentially destructive momentum, the lived experience of street homelessness is both a product and the production of homeless people’s changing social reality. In this way, the social context of street homelessness, which includes the people that the street homeless can rely upon for support at any given time and to what benefit, is a measure of how far a person has drifted into street homelessness. In other words, because street homeless people’s networks of support change over time based on their level of entrenchment in street culture, their inventory of their social capital is an index of entrenchment. Through the dynamic, evolving social context of street homelessness and in the movement between different place-based relationships, the trajectory of street homelessness is not just relational - it is also spatial and temporal. Social capital exists within a particular time-space structure (Massey, 2005; Rowe & Wolch, 1990; Weller, 2010). Being sensitive to context requires examining the temporal and spatial aspects of homeless people’s relational entanglements with the city or the places in which they live (Rowe & Wolch, 1990). As the “axes of identity…never operate aspatially…” (Bondi & Rose, 2003, p. 232), it is through street homeless people’s “more than human” connections with the urban environment that the homeless subject is relationally constituted (Lancione, 2013, p. 359). Understanding the nuances of street homeless people’s social capital and how it is connected to the construction of the homeless identity requires exploring the ways that movement, space, and time coalesce through particularized relational encounters intended to maximize personal and material benefit in the short-term, but that in longer-term, entrenches them further in street homelessness. 4 1.2 Research Approach, Questions, & Objectives My research is an exploratory, participatory investigation of the space-time aspects of street homeless people’s social capital that builds on the literature on homelessness, social capital, and broadens the application of participatory mapping methods. It represents an attempt to unravel the relationship between social capital, space, and time as a way to better understand the role of social capital in the trajectory of homelessness and the construction of the street homeless identity - an area that requires more thorough exploration (Cote, 2007; Weller, 2010). Through a better understanding of the way social capital, space, and time act on the construction of the street homeless identity, practitioners and policy-makers are better able to disrupt the downward spiral. A further intent of research is to move the discussion of homelessness beyond homogeneity and emphasize individual agency by contributing a more nuanced conceptualization of homeless people’s connection to the urban environment that is relational, temporal, and contextualizes their experiences within urban space. By situating homeless social capital in space and time, this research advances understanding of the interconnectedness of people, place, and time in street homeless people’s survival. In this study I used participatory mapping methods to map the temporal and spatial aspects of street homeless people’s social capital. I conducted mapping activities on an individual basis with twenty-nine (29) street homeless adults, and on a group basis with street homeless adults separated by gender (female/male gender binary), with two separate group mapping sessions with women and two with men. Research fieldwork was extensive, and it involved significant time spent on city streets in locations known to be pivotal hubs of homeless survival. The framework I use for understanding homeless people’s affiliations and networks of support is social capital theory heavily informed by Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984, 1986) theorizations of social capital and habitus. Through the 5 stories and maps developed in individual and group mapping sessions, three key areas of findings were identified: 1) six distinct types of homeless social capital with unique geographies, temporal aspects, and gender profiles defined by eight categories of markers, 2) three categories (time, individual, social-structural) of factors (e.g., seasonality, age, social control) that influence the space-time aspects of street homeless social capital, with gender being the most pronounced, and 3) multiple key themes from the thematic analysis including the prevalence of negative social capital, the conscious performance of representations of homeless identity, strategies of survival and resistance, and pronounced gender differences in the space-time aspects of social capital. As a way to enhance policy and service recommendations, research findings were leveraged through the use of focus groups with local street homelessness experts and the advisory committee for the project. My research is structured around two main research questions: 1) What is the relationship between homeless social capital, space, and time? and, 2) How are locales - as a tangible expression of the socio-spatio-temporal aspects of homelessness - related to the trajectory of homelessness? My research is focused on the space-time aspects of street homeless people’s social capital (including source and type of support), and how the structure of their relationships and the importance of their relationships as sources of support shape the spatial and temporal aspects of homelessness. As social capital changes through the course of homelessness in response to the hardening of the homeless identity, the space-time aspects of social capital also change in connected or linked ways. Hence, the spatio-temporal aspects of homeless social capital conceptualized here as “locales” (Rowe & Wolch, 1990), is a window into understanding street homeless identity. There are three overarching objectives of my research. These are: 1) to highlight the lived reality of a hard to reach group, namely street homeless people, whose voices are often overlooked in the construction of programs and policies that directly impact their survival; 2) use participatory, spatial 6 methods and different perspectives to amplify and contextualize the social capital experiences of street homeless women and men; and, 3) use Bourdieusian social capital and related theory as the conceptual framework to advance both theoretical and practical knowledge. My study advances academic and practice-based knowledge in important ways beyond the value of the stated research objectives. Through attention to the context and complexity of homeless social capital, this research responds to the need for detailed, time-space sensitive accounts of homeless social capital (Rowe & Wolch, 1990; Weller, 2010). By considering the effects of gender on the spatio-temporal aspects of street homeless social capital, my research contributes to understanding of “hidden and variable nature of gendered homelessness,” an area that has received little attention in research, even amongst feminist scholars (Kladowsky, 2006, p. 365). By focusing on individual experience based on gender, this research also advances knowledge in the broader social capital literature, which has tended to favour macro-level approaches to social capital that overlook the impact of gender (Kobayashi, Kawachi, Iawse, Suzuki, & Takao, 2013). By focusing on the experience of street homelessness within a mid-sized Canadian city, this research progresses understanding of homelessness as pervasive social issue outside of large urban centers. Whilst research was conducted within this specific urban context, as mentioned, a mid-sized Canadian city, my research approach can be used to understand experiences of street homelessness globally. To date, searches of academic databases and Google Scholar have not yielded any published research using participatory mapping methods to map homeless social capital. As such, it is reasonable to argue that this is the only study of its kind. 7 1.3 Overview of Dissertation My dissertation unfolds as a typical interpretive, qualitative study. Through it, I attempt to illustrate the totality of issues, needs, concerns, ideas, and questions that arose through research. In Chapter 2, I outline the conceptual framework for research. I begin by summarizing Bourdieu’s theory of social capital and related concepts of cultural capital, habitus, fields, and doxa. I then contextualize Bourdieu’s theorizations within the relevant homelessness literature. In this discussion I consider elements of both structure and functioning in the space-time aspects of homeless social capital over time, illustrating how homeless social capital operates in the context of homeless survival that propels the downward trajectory. Building on this discussion, I then highlight three main lines of questioning Bourdieu’s theorizations raise in the context of the space-aspects of homeless social capital and the trajectory of homelessness. These are: 1) challenging the pre-conscious nature of habitus, 2) conceptualizing social capital as a space-time event, and 3) considering individual and structural factors. In Chapter 3, I outline the research methodology, including my paradigmatic positioning, community-based participatory research as my overarching methodological framework, and the use of a multi-methods research design. I also discuss the various methods employed through my study, most notably individual and group participatory mapping. Before discussing the three main stages of fieldwork, including an overview of the three participants groups (key stakeholders, formerly homeless people, and street homeless adults) and how each are involved in the research, I summarize the approaches and techniques I used to ensure research was conducted in a rigourous and ethical manner. In Chapter 4, I discuss the three main areas of research findings in separate sections. In the first section, I provide an overview of the state of homelessness in Kelowna touching on key indicators 8 of severity of homelessness. I also include a descriptive summary of the street homeless women and men who participated in the research. In the second section, I outline the six main types of homeless social capital by their defining markers and the categories of factors that mediate homeless people’s access to space. In the third and final section of Chapter 4, I discuss the findings from the thematic analysis. This discussion is divided into three sections through which the relational, spatial, and temporal aspects of homeless social capital are separately reviewed. In Chapter 5, the Discussion Chapter, I return to the three areas of research from the Literature Review flagged for further exploration and discuss the theoretical and practical implications from each of these perspectives. After this discussion, I review research limitations, considerations for future research, and conclude with some reflections on research. In Chapter 6, I present concluding comments that center on the relevance and applicability of the approach and overall findings of research. 1.4 Terminology Before moving into a review of relevant theory and literature, it is important to clarify how I use certain terminology in this dissertation; in particular, the use of the terms place and space and the term street homeless/homelessness. In this research I use the terms place and space at different times to refer to different things, and on occasion, I use them simultaneously. Although both terms are used post-structurally, I use place to refer to a particular or defined geographic location, and space more abstractly, to refer to broader, more undefined geographic locations or areas (Cresswell, 2004, 2014). I use the term street homeless/homelessness to refer to the most extreme, visible forms of homelessness, an amalgam of chronic and episodic homelessness. The Government of Canada defines chronic homelessness as individuals, often with a disabling condition (e.g., significant mental or physical impairment), who are homeless and have been for at least six months of the last 9 year (EDSC, 2014). Under this definition, homeless means living in an emergency shelter or a place not intended for human habitation. Episodic homelessness is defined as being currently homeless and experiencing “three or more episodes of homelessness in the last year,” also with some form of disabling condition (EDSC, 2014). In this study, I use the term street homeless to refer to both of these groups of individuals that collectively represent the most disenfranchised among homeless populations. Together, these groups constitute approximately 15-20% of the homeless population (Aubry, Farrell, Hwang, & Calhoun, 2013). The street homeless population (adults) is my focus of interest in this study. 10 Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW In the Literature Review Chapter, I outline the theoretical framework for research and contextualize it within the literature on homelessness. I begin by describing Bourdieu’s theory of social capital and related concepts of cultural capital and his components of power including habitus, fields, and doxa, and their relevance in the space-time aspects of homeless social capital. I then turn to the homelessness literature to describe the structure and functioning of homeless social capital, illustrating how social capital works in a street homeless context that propels the downward trajectory. Informed by this discussion, I propose three areas of further inquiry that build on the main research questions. These areas are briefly outlined here before being described in detail in the body of this Chapter. The first is the reproduction of doxa via habitus necessary to activate social capital, which for street homeless people, occurs across two defined cultures – street and mainstream culture. The need to work their social capital cross-culturally raises issues regarding agency and resistance in the context of life sustaining performances of street homeless identity that vary markedly across street and mainstream cultures, as well as within cultures. The subtleties of straddling two cultures that often exist in opposition (Garcia & McDowell, 2010) calls into question the embodiment of culture and the pre-conscious nature of habitus. The second area of analysis Bourdieu’s theorizations invite is the evolving space-time manifestation of homeless social capital reflective of changes in habitus over time. Specifically, if the space-time aspects of homeless social capital provide a reading of entrenchment in street homelessness, what can be learned from highly contextualized, relational geographies of homelessness to inform understanding of homeless subjectification? The third and final line of questioning spurred by Bourdieu’s theorizations relates to who succumbs to the street. In particular, what are those factors central in shaping the space-time 11 aspects of street homeless social capital through the course of homelessness. Understanding who succumbs to the street and what makes some people more vulnerable to entrenchment than others requires examining what we know from the homelessness literature about root causes of homelessness and key individual, structural, and/or economic-political forces that drive the trajectory of street homelessness downward. In the final section, I discuss the main aspects of my research approach (e.g., the use of a typology approach and participatory mapping) in the context of the literature on homelessness. As a way to integrate and summarize the key points of Chapter 2, to conclude I revisit the main research questions and add additional questions to draw out the concepts more fully. 2.1 Conceptualizing Social Capital Although no common definition of social capital exists, it is generally understood as the ability of individuals to acquire benefits via membership in a particular social network or other form of social structure (Whittaker & Banwell, 2002). Alternatively, it has been described as the “glue” (Pooley, Cohen, & Pike, 2004) or as a “web” (Veenstra, 2000) that ties individuals and groups together within mutually supportive and reciprocally beneficial relationships. For de Souza Briggs (1997), social capital is “the stuff that we all draw on all the time, through our connections to a system of human relationships, to accomplish things that matter to us and solve everyday problems” (p. 2). Occupying the abstract space of “relations among persons” (Coleman, 1988, p. 100-101), social capital is not relationships per se, but what comes about through relationships with others. Despite its popularity, social capital is a highly contested concept, particularly among its three main theorists - Pierre Bourdieu and James Coleman from sociology, and Robert Putnam from political science (Fine, 2000; Winter, 2000). Although their terminology is different, their definitions of social capital are similar, with each defining it in terms of the social mechanisms or 12 norms and networks that facilitate mutual action (Winter, 2000). Where they do vary significantly is in how they operationalize social capital, as either an individual or a more macro-level concept, and in their treatment (or non-treatment) of issues of power, privilege and exclusion. Social capital is conceptualized at one of three levels: 1) the broadest “societal” or “class” level through a top-down approach, 2) the “community” or neighborhood level, or 3) the “individual” level of personal social networks through a bottom-up approach to social capital (Baum & Ziersch, 2003). Within the social science literature, social capital is most commonly conceptualized on a macro-level as a property of societies or a common social good (Kobayashi et al., 2013), and often within development studies that naturally take a broad view of the concept (Fine, 2007). This is consistent with the view of Coleman (1986; 1988) and Putnam (1995), both of whom position social capital as a collective asset with the actions of individuals benefiting the whole; and thus, do not consider inequity resulting from or causing power or status differentials. These dominant conceptualizations of social capital have been highly criticized for being reductionist and exclusionary (Winter, 2000). There are more individualized and socio-spatially contextualized accounts of social capital, like Bourdieu’s, that can be brought forward as a way to inform understanding of the experience of social capital for marginalized or excluded populations (Dekker & Uslander, 2001; Holt, 2008). By illuminating the day-to-day dealings of people and the contexts in which they occur (Schirato & Webb, 2010), Bourdieu’s theory encapsulates more complex forms of social capital in relation to the practices and performances of homelessness in everyday life. Moving from a societal or classed-based analysis to the level of individual allows for the exploration of issues of power and resistance in relation to social capital, an area where macro-level approaches theorizations have fallen short (Fine, 2007; Holt, 2008). As described in the next section, Bourdieu’s account of social capital and his components of power including habitus, fields, and 13 doxa provide a more nuanced, context-sensitive account of socialized subjectivity (Holt, 2008). Situating homeless social capital within a time-space edifice allows for the exploration of the role of space and time in shaping identity. The relationship between the temporal and spatial aspects of street homeless social capital and identity is an important area for further exploration because research has shown that homeless identity is directly linked to socio-spatial (Hodgetts, Radley, Chamberlain, & Hodgetts, 2007; Popay et al., 2003), spatio-temporal (Ursin, 2012; Williams & Sheehan, 2015), and socio-spatio-temporal factors (Weller, 2010). Although social capital is a multifaceted phenomenon that cannot be captured by any one single measure (Halman & Luijkx 2006), it is most often measured quantitatively (Baum & Ziersch, 2003). Lacking in social capital research are in-depth qualitative examinations of individual social capital that consider structural and qualitative aspects separately (Fine & Roncevic, 2003). Individualized accounts of social capital, like Bourdieu’s, highlight the multi-dimensional, highly context-sensitive nature of social capital and the fluidity of identity in relation to the space-time aspects of social capital. Bourdieu (1986) defines social capital as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition” (p. 248). From his definition it is clear that social capital is composed of two separate elements: the relationship itself – the “durable network,” as the means by which resources are generated, and - the amount or quality, as the “aggregate of the actual or potential resources” acquired via the association (Portes, 1998, p. 4). Social capital is, therefore, not merely the people or the social structure, but the potentiality that can be enacted via our relations with other people, which is predicated on sociability (Portes, 1998). 14 2.1.1 Bourdieu, Social Capital, & Cultural Capital For Bourdieu (1983/1986), social capital is one of four principal forms of capital. The others are: cultural capital, economic capital, and symbolic capital. Broadly speaking, he is concerned with understanding how capital, in its various forms, is accumulated and converted at any moment in time; a process that Bourdieu views as “the immanent structure of the social world” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 242). His primary interest in social capital is as a means of explaining how status or privilege is reproduced and how positions of dominance are maintained in society, which for Bourdieu, cannot be explained exclusively by economics (Gauntlett, 2011). There are two main components of Bourdieu theorization of capitals that have particular relevance in my research. These are: cultural capital, as the accumulation of capital based upon the embodiment of particularized cultural dispositions; and, the components of power, including habitus, fields, and doxa, as a way to tie social capital and cultural capital together. Although Bourdieu did not expressly discuss habitus in relation to social capital, only in terms of embodied cultural capital, it is important in this discussion for two reasons: 1) it directly connects people, practice (or performance), place, and time, and, 2) it explains how the objective world becomes subjectified through exposure to a particular environment (Holt, 2008). Habitus, fields, doxa and their relationship to homeless social capital are described in detail in the next section. Bourdieu (1983/1986) theorizes cultural capital as existing in three different states: 1) objectified – consisting of physical objects that are owned that have economic and symbolic cultural value; 2) institutionalized – existing through institutional forms of recognition primarily education; and 3) embodied – as both the consciously acquired and passively “inherited” ways of being, such as tastes, patterns of communication and behaviour, specific to the cultural context. Embodied cultural capital 15 is the focus in this research because it is the form of cultural capital most important in the acquisition of social capital for the street homeless. Embodied cultural capital exists in different forms based on social class, meaning that depending on culture and/or one’s status within culture, different types of embodied knowledge, skills, tastes, ways of being, etc., are valued. In this way, the acquisition of culture represents the fundamental source of human difference (Bourdieu, 1984). Within a given culture, the ability to influence social situations in ways that are personally beneficial depends on upon having embodied those forms of knowledge valued by that culture. The terms “street culture” (McManus & Thompson, 2008; Smith, 2008) and “homelessness culture” (Thompson, Jun, Bender, Ferguson, & Pollio, 2010) are used in the homelessness literature to describe the distinctness of the experience and general ethos of homeless versus housed existence. With its own set of rules, guiding principles, and even language or dialect, “the street” is a defined culture that is separate from mainstream, housed culture (Barry, Ensign, & Lipke, 2002). Consequently, two parallel systems of social capital exist in the same place and time, but operate completely (or almost completely) separately, and often in conflict (Garcia & McDowell, 2010). Street culture operates under a completely different set of guiding principles, standards of conduct, understanding and uses of urban space, and temporal rhythm than mainstream culture. In order to actualize social capital from available street networks, street homeless people need to embody street culture. 2.1.2 Habitus, Fields, & Doxa Bourdieu situates power within social and institutional structures (Lin, 1999). The potentiality of structures as sources of social capital is liberated through purposeful, sustained sociability. However, as mentioned, it has to be a precise form of engagement. In order for power to be transferred to members of a relational structure the rules of engagement must follow culturally 16 prescribed norms and values of behaviour. For Bourdieu (1986), the embodiment of culture is a social process that occurs via “habitus” - as “the mechanism by which the objective external world...becomes incorporated within the subjective internal, embodied, experience (p. 233).” Habitus is “the way society becomes deposited in persons in the form of lasting dispositions, or trained capacities and structured propensities to think, feel and act in determinant ways, which then guide them” (Wacquant, 2005, p. 316). Although cultural dispositions are both actively and passively acquired, habitus occurs naturally over time without conscious thought through the process of acquiring and performing culturally “meaningful practices” with “meaning-giving perceptions” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 170). There are two key points to be made here. The first is that in Bourdieu’s theory the acquisition and expression of cultural identity that occurs via habitus is pre-conscious, meaning it happens without conscious thought or awareness. This idea becomes increasingly important as the discussion of habitus unfolds through this Chapter. The second point central to the discussion here is how the term “performance” in used in this study. In its most general sense, the term “performance” denotes the act of demonstrating a knowledge or skill set to an audience (Carlson, 2004). As I am using it here, “performance” describes the reproduction of habitus as an action based on a common, but often not explicit, understanding of standards of conduct whose success is judged by an audience (Dirksmeier & Helbrecht, 2008). This means that based on how well the individual “performs” cultural customs and norms, determines whether or not others will accept them as a member of street culture. It is, therefore, the quality of the performance that determines social capital, in that not every performance will be recognized and rewarded. As discussed below, through the unconscious performance of recognized expressions of culture, habitus not only regulates power in a given social context, but also shapes identity. 17 Habitus exists within different “fields”, as the range of social and institutional structures to which one has access (Lin, 1999), and it is one’s positioning within fields that determines language, lifestyle, and tastes (Bourdieu, 1983, 1986). According to Bourdieu, fields are “historically constituted areas of activity with their own specific institutions and their own laws of functioning” (1990a, p. 87). Different fields have different associated “doxa” (Lin, 1999). Doxa is the “universe of possible discourses” and it defines what is “thinkable, sayable, and doable” within a particular field (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 167). Bourdieu believed doxa to be more than just a shared or common belief, but as the potential to give rise to common action (Lin, 1999). From this view we can anticipate what are typical or standard ways of being based upon people having access to the same fields and thus, being governed by the same doxa. As street homeless people’s fields straddle street and mainstream structures, street homeless habitus incorporates doxa from both street and mainstream cultures. By accessing different sources of social capital that cross over street and conventional culture, their reproductions of doxa are directly tied to the source of social capital and as such, are highly variable. Accepting the identity defined by doxa allows for the existence of multiple identities across a single self that are tied to sources of social capital. In this way, fields and doxa add specificity to identity construction that allows for a range of homeless identities to be reproduced for a single person. The sources of social capital street homeless people retain is important in determining what identities are being reproduced, and those recited with greater regularity, having the greatest impact on identity. By enacting a street homeless habitus, street homeless people are contributing to the likelihood of their own survival. However, by behaving or performing as part of the street homeless culture, their identity as a street homeless person becomes increasingly engrained. According to Holt (2008), identity should be understood as “embodied social capital,” as the “dynamic historical 18 materialization of the interconnections between individuals’ social networks and relationships and corporality” (p. 240). If habitus is the “subliminal script” (Dirksmeier & Helbrecht, 2008, p. 4) that gives rise to behaviour in everyday people-place encounters, then identity is the practice or performance of habitus in daily life. Through access to different fields and by replicating the doxa defined by each field, street homeless people reproduce multiple different homeless identities in their day-to-day lives. How well a street homeless person performs doxa or how closely they replicate the social script, is a function of habitus. As “an open system of dispositions that is constantly subjected to experiences, [habitus] is therefore, constantly affected by them in ways that either reinforces or modifies its structure” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, p.133). In other words, as access to fields change in relation to habitus, habitus is changed in relation to street homeless people’s evolving social capital, resulting in corresponding spatial changes and in the effects of time. By repeating time-sensitive, highly stylized patterns of movement into and out of different homeless spaces in the city, identity as homeless is further reinforced (Rowe & Wolch, 1990). Over time, through repeated recitations of homeless subjectivity with a particular space-time edifice, what is learned becomes implied, forming and congealing the street homeless identity. In relation to the trajectory of street homelessness, time, as the passage of each minute, hour, or day on the street, provides more opportunity for reproducing homeless identities. Through these performances street homeless habitus becomes increasingly embodied, which has the effect of further refining reproductions in relation to the narrowing of social capital. In this way, street homeless identity has a unique geography with a precise temporal rhythm related to the social and institutional structures of support to which one has access at any given time. It is thus, by understanding the spatial and temporal 19 aspects of street homeless people’s social capital, that their identity as a homeless person can be known. 2.2 The Structure & Functioning of Street Homeless Social Capital 2.2.1 Homeless People & Their Relationships Although social capital is generally not named in the literature on homelessness (Shier, Graham, & Jones, 2010), the broader research on homeless people’s social support reveals important insights about the impact of others. Street homeless people want meaningful, productive relationships with others for reasons that are both practical and emotional. According to Reitzes, Crimmins, Yarborough, and Parker (2011), homeless people’s day-to-day survival depends upon “the patchwork of non-kin, family and formal social service ties that they crafted to address their instrumental and social emotional needs” (p. 287). And when street homeless people lose key sources of support, often to death, they work hard to try to replace the support components that were lost (Hawkins & Abrams, 2007). Although the structure and functioning of visibly homeless women’s social networks is not well understood (Cloke, May, & Johnsen, 2008; Klodawsky, 2006; May, Cloke, & Johnsen, 2007; Tucker et al., 2009), a study of street homeless women’s social networks by Rowe and Wolch (1990) found that women invest significant time and energy in rebuilding their social networks that contain both homed and homeless sources, actively switching out people or services as circumstances and needs change. Street homeless people demonstrate clear intent and expend significant effort to both develop and redevelop their networks as individuals move into and out of their lives. Owing to the extreme needs of street homeless people (Reitzes et al., 2011), and the fact that supportive individuals are often overburdened by their own life circumstances (Hawkins & Abrams, 2007), there is evidence that the social networks of the street homeless do not have the capacity to 20 meet their needs. Studies of homeless mothers’ perceptions of their social support reveal that homeless women’s social networks contain few or no supportive individuals (Bassuk, Rubin, & Lauriate, 1986; Mitchell, 1987). Similarly, a study by Barman-Adhikari, Bowen, Bender, Brown, and Rice (2016) found that levels of social support for homeless youth was low irrespective of background. The reason for declining levels of social support among street homeless people despite their interest and effort to maintain their sources, is rooted in how social capital functions in a street homeless context. 2.2.2 How Social Capital Works in a Street Homeless Context Street homeless people need to be proficient in the ways of the street because their survival depends on reproducing recognized expressions of homelessness (Ensign & Bell, 2004). Beyond simply absorbing knowledge through time spent in homelessness and learning lessons the hard way, they develop a street homeless habitus directly through their relationships with street peers. Establishing a street habitus does not happen overnight. For Bourdieu (1986), habitus is a process that occurs over time through repeat exposure and “quite unconsciously” (p. 245). Establishing a street homeless habitus is how people become readied for street life, significantly enhancing their ability to survive as a street homeless person. According to Ryan and Thompson (2013), those new to street homelessness must develop specific street-based survival strategies in order to survive, and peers provide a good source of mentoring in this regard. Research has found evidence of “tutelage relationships” through which the homeless are instructed on various aspects of survival (Stablein, 2011), from the acquisition of criminal skills (McCarthy & Hagan, 1992) or skills needed to survive as a street hustler or sex worker (Lankenau, Clatts, Welle, Goldsamt, & Gwadz, 2005), to understanding rules regarding access to urban space (Cloke et al., 2008). 21 With more time spent in street homelessness, street homeless habitus becomes more established, which exerts greater influence on identity (Amato & Macdonald, 2011; Green, Tucker, Golinelli, & Wenzel, 2013; Rowe & Wolch, 1990). Viewed through the lens of Bourdieusian theory, it is not the passage time per se, but the increased opportunity to reproduce homeless identities afforded by time that determines homeless habitus and thus, identity as a street homeless person. Multiple studies on the survival strategies of homeless youth found that those who were away from home longer were more likely to engage in criminal behaviour (Ferguson et al., 2011; McCarthy & Hagan, 1992; Schwartz, Kissinger-Sorensen, Ammerman, & Bard, 2008). The longer these youth were away from mainstream sources and immersed in street culture, the more naturalized into standard ways of being or embodied criminality became as a recognized component of their street homeless habitus. The relationship between time, social capital, habitus, and entrenchment explains why homeless people who’ve developed a street homeless habitus through relationships with those in the street or homeless culture are stuck in homelessness longer (Tevendale, Comulada, & Lightfoot, 2011); and, why men considered the most chronically homeless have the most disconnected, socially fragmented relationships (Green et al., 2013). In this way, street homeless habitus contributes to the reproduction of social structures and relations as well as in minds and bodies, expectations and behaviour. 2.2.3 Working Social Capital Cross-Culturally Improving quality of life requires access to resources and the ability to benefit from them, which is effectuated through social relationships. According to de Souza Briggs (1997), people use social capital for at least two purposes: to get by and to get ahead. When street homeless people draw on social support to help them cope with day-to-day challenges, they are using it to get by. When they use their relationships as social leverage to “change or improve [their] life circumstances or 22 opportunity set” (de Souza Briggs, 1997, p. 2), they are enacting a get ahead philosophy. In an effort to enhance their own life situation, it is clear that the street homeless draw on different sources of social capital, including from street (friends, street family) and mainstream (family of origin, service providers) sources. As noted previously, they demonstrate significant intent in patching together different forms of support, both “non-kin, family and formal service ties” to design a network of support that meets their unique needs (Reitzes et al., 2011, p. 282). However, in order to get ahead, street homeless people need connections outside of street-based networks. Key outcomes related to their health and wellbeing are only achievable through relationships with dissimilar individuals. Included among these outcomes are reduced suicidal ideation (Fitzpatrick et al., 2007), accessing housing (Lee, Tyler, & Wright, 2010), and other forms of tangible support not accessible through peers (Townley et al., 2013), and exiting homeless (MacKnee & Mervyn, 2002; Thompson, Pollio, Eyrich, Bradbury, & North, 2004). Through their relationships with conventional sources of support, street homeless people are able to hold onto their mainstream or non-street identities. According to Johnstone, Jetten, Dingle, Parsell, and Walter (2016), membership within multiple groups spanning street and mainstream sources provides street homeless people with a range of identities attached to different groups that are important to wellbeing. By drawing from two parallel systems of social capital or cultures that exist in the same place and time but operate separately and often in conflict (Garcia & McDowell, 2010), street homeless people are in perpetual flux between street and mainstream cultures. Their mainstream ties provide important benefits not achievable otherwise, but perhaps more importantly, these relationships anchor them to mainstream society. In the same way that performing street homeless habitus reinforces homeless identity, performing mainstream habitus reinforces connection to mainstream culture, including aspiring to traditional goals and ideals. As an example, a study by MacKnee and 23 Meryn (2002) looked at the critical incidences that facilitated homeless youth’s transitions from the street. The researchers found that emulating mainstream role models was an important factor in youth’s ability to exit homelessness and achieve a stable lifestyle. Similarly, a study by Karabanow (2008) demonstrated that in order for someone to transition from homelessness, they have to shift from “identities of exclusion” to one of “fitting in” to the mainstream world (p. 786). 2.2.4 Forging Strong Ties Although structural aspects of networks matter in the production of social capital, there “are a growing number of scholars who view the value of social capital as affected by more than the structure of one’s ties” (Moran, 2005, p. 1131). Specifically, how embedded one is relationally within networks of support. Here we see the importance of the affective or imperceptible aspects of relationships, including trust, fairness, reciprocity and a sense of shared identity (Lee et al., 2010; Moran, 2005). From this perspective, the more relationally embedded in a network, the better the return on social capital as a result. If street homeless people do not forge strong, affective, embedded ties with available street networks, they will be shut out of the potential social capital arising out of these networks. As stated by Morrow (2001), “actors need to recognize their networks as a resource in order for these networks to constitute social capital” (p. 56). For Bourdieu, the viability of the network as source of social capital presupposes an unceasing and relentless sociability, and through each interaction, recognition of the group structure and one’s positioning within it, are continuously affirmed and reaffirmed (Lin, 1999). Constantly legitimizing one’s place within the group structure is necessary to counter high level of distrust among homeless populations that can easily fracture group cohesion and solidarity (Lee et al., 2010). In terms of membership in a particular street network, this means that people are either in or they are out - there is nothing in between. Consequently, two main things occur. The first, street homeless people tend to have closed, highly 24 embedded networks (Harper, Davidson, & Hosek, 2008; Lee et al., 2010), which has the effect of reducing risk and uncertainty in relational encounters. The second, they invest significant time and energy into forming street relationships, which reinforces street homeless habitus and fuels a growing distrust of those outside street culture (Morrow, 2001). The stronger the ties to the street, the less homeless people can trust and ultimately, will be trusted, by those outside of their street networks (Morrow, 2001). In the end, what is good for their survival, which is their ability to leverage social capital through available street sources, keeps them trapped in homelessness (MacKnee & Mervyn, 2002; Ryan & Thompson, 2013). This means that over time, despite their effort to walk a fine line between street and conventional cultures and remain connected to their mainstream self while enacting street homeless habitus, they are drawn increasingly into street culture. 2.2.5 The Space-Time Aspects of Street Homeless Social Capital For street homeless people, place/space is both highly relational and has great significance in terms of the quality and quantity of support and material aid that they can acquire. Being able to move about freely, connecting with people at will, is essential to “facilitate and sustain social advantage” (Forest & Kearns, 2001, p. 2139), particularly given that the street homeless are in such an extreme position of social disadvantage. Consequently, “place matters for material survival, in profound and direct ways” (Marr, DeVerteuil, & Snow, 2009, p. 308). It is through their day-to-day contacts with different sources of social capital and through the well-worn pathways between these relational spaces over time, that homeless people’s relationships are reproduced (Harvey, 2001; Rowe & Wolch, 1990). Underscoring the relevance of geography in the production of social capital, Massey (1991) argues that place should be envisioned as “articulated moments in networks of social relations and understanding” (p. 28). Within the range of social and institutional structures that 25 homeless people have access to, each structure has unique space-time aspects tied to their location and when they can be accessed. Repeating the same patterns of movement tracking back and forth between the same time-sensitive sources of social capital creates unique spatial patterns or geographies of homeless social capital defined by their fields. A useful way of conceptualizing the space-time aspects of street homeless people’s social capital in the urban environment is through the concept of “locale” (Rowe & Wolch, 1990). The notion of locale is similar to “activity space” that is also used in homelessness research to conceptualize spatial range (Townley, Kloos, & Wright, 2009), but locale is a better fit here because it encapsulates the social context of homelessness in relation to movement, space, and time. Locales are composed of both the daily paths in a person’s life and the social context, including affiliations and networks of support (Rowe & Wolch, 1990). Locales situate social capital within a particular space-time context, as a direct function of one’s ability to move about and access different place-based sources of support. By repeatedly visiting the same locations at the same times through the same pathways, which is important in establishing space-time continuity in the absence of a homed location (Rowe & Wolch, 1990) and in accessing social capital, homeless locale is established. Each locale represents a unique geography of street homeless social capital fixed in space and time. Because a street homeless person’s locale changes over time in response to changes in their social capital, knowing a street homeless person’s locale is revealing of the spatio-temporal aspects of their social capital at a given time. Given that the social networks a street homeless person can draw upon for assistance are a function of habitus, as street homeless habitus becomes more established through repeated recitations of homeless identity defined via doxa, their sources of social capital change in corresponding ways in response to a hardening of their homeless identity. As street homeless habitus 26 changes in relation to alterations in available sources of social capital and vice versa, street homeless people’s presence in the urban environment and temporal patterns shift in corresponding ways. Thus, the construction of the homeless identity is not merely relational, but a function of the interaction between space, time, and social capital through the trajectory of homelessness. If identity is tied to place (Saar & Palang, 2007) and is further constructed through movement from place to place (Kwan, 2007; Van Blerk, 2005), then through homeless people’s socio-spatio-temporal footprint in the urban environment, identity as a homeless person can be known. By then comparing locales or their unique geographies of homeless social capital, as different representations of the homeless identity, the trajectory of homelessness, or at least elements of the broader trajectory, are rendered visible. 2.3 Keys Areas of Further Inquiry 2.3.1 Challenging the Pre-Conscious Nature of Habitus For Bourdieu, “primary” and “secondary” habitus are the mains forms of socialization (Bonnewitz, 2002). “Primary habitus” or “class habitus” consists of the learning acquired through childhood based on family of origin (Bourdieu, 1977). Ultimately, what is acquired or transferred through primary habitus in terms of specific tastes, attitudes, and ways of feeling and being is a function of parental social status. In this way, people are already predisposed to street homelessness through class habitus and the social standing into which they are born. “Secondary habitus” is derived from the education, training, and general life experiences accrued over time, which are added or layered onto base-knowledge provided through primary habitus. In this study, the trajectory of street homelessness is theorized as a process unfolding across two defined cultures, street and mainstream, each with its own distinct habitus. The street habitus developed through exposure to the street homeless culture is dominant (versus primary) and mainstream habitus is non- 27 dominant (versus secondary). While street habitus is informed by the residual mainstream habitus carried over from housed existence, it also fundamentally alters the structure of mainstream habitus. This occurs because in a street homeless context, all knowledge, skills, and abilities, are mobilized towards immediate survival. To that end, what is known gets re-filtered through a street homeless lens. So, while I am using Bourdieu’s conceptualization of primary and secondary habitus in a similar way, with one habitus being dominant in relation the other, I am simply re-defining which habitus is dominant in the street homeless culture. Whereas Bourdieu would position street homeless habitus as secondary to mainstream or primary habitus, for people on the street, street homeless habitus is dominant. Knowing which habitus is dominant is highly beneficial to street homeless people’s survival. As previously discussed, Bourdieu’s conceptualization of habitus, including the embodiment and reproduction of culture, operates “below the level of consciousness” (1990b, p. 73). Within a social capital frame, the naturalized, pre-conscious nature of habitus makes sense because we need to act naturally and fluently to be accepted as a legitimate member of a social field (King, 2000). However, without conscious awareness of what we are taking in and how we are reproducing it, there can be “no conscious mastery” over social strategies (Bourdieu, 1977, p. 79). In other words, without conscious awareness, there is no ability for homeless people to perform different identities at will in order to get their social capital needs met. Although an important component of street habitus is learning to play to separate audiences to get different needs met (Hwang et al., 2009; Morrow, 2001), which can and mostly certainly does happen unconsciously via embodied habitus, as research reveals, the dynamics between knowing what is culturally accepted and embodying it are more nuanced when working across street and mainstream cultures. 28 Research demonstrates that homeless people consciously perform non-dominant, mainstream culture in order to activate available sources of institutionalized social capital. They do this by aligning their performances with the associated doxa of the service agency or institution from which social capital is being sought. As an example, in a recent study in Winnipeg (Woolford & Nelund, 2013), researchers found that in response to upstream pressure in an increasingly neoliberalized funding environment, homeless people are performing as neoliberal citizens representing mainstream ideals of capitalism and productivity, to enact identities viewed as being worthy of care within the current bureaucratic climate. In other words, the image of street homeless identity they’re trying to project is that of a hard-working, down on their luck individual who is just wanting to get back to work and contribute to society again. In another study exploring the material, spatial, and relational dimensions of health inequalities of homelessness, homeless participants acknowledged the importance of reproducing socially “detectable” expressions of homelessness in order to get their needs met (Hodgetts et al., 2007, p. 717). In both of these studies, homeless people not only recognize what are socially accepted, mainstream representations of homelessness, and adapt their performance to reflect these indicators, they are extremely cognizant they are doing it and why. In other words, they are aware of “the performative nature of their presence” (Hodgetts et al., 2007, p. 717), which challenges the expression of street habitus as a wholly embodied or pre-conscious act. In order to clarify this obvious tension, research needs to engage questions of the conscious and unconscious nature of the performance of habitus by focusing critical attention on the space between knowing and embodying cultural schema across street and mainstream culture. 29 2.3.2 Conceptualizing Street Homeless Social Capital in Space & Time Social capital is situated in space and time (Massey, 2005). However, little is known about context sensitive accounts of homelessness that consider the combined relevance of social capital, geography, and time (Rowe & Wolch, 1990; Weller, 2010; Williams & Sheehan, 2015). Given that the interaction between socio-spatial and temporal factors determines who becomes entrenched in homelessness (Williams & Sheehan, 2015) and how quickly this occurs, research on the space-time aspects of homeless social capital is an important area for further research. In research that has examined relational, spatial, or temporal aspects of homelessness, the scope of inquiry includes one or two of these components, but with rare exception, all three. For example, research has examined the social and spatial dimensions of homeless inequality (Hodgetts et al., 2007) or homeless youth’s patterns based on socio-geographic range (Witkin, Milburn, Batternham, May, & Brooks, 2005). The importance of homeless people’s socio-geographic connection to the urban environment and their survival is evident in studies on homeless people’s sustaining habitats (Duneier, 1999), the place-survival nexus of the homeless (Marr, et al., 2009), and geographies of homeless survival (Mitchell & Heynen, 2009). Few studies have however, examined the effects of time in relation to the socio-spatial aspects of homelessness. Needed are context-sensitive accounts that interrogate the interaction between space, time, and homeless social capital, and the relationship to homeless subjectification (Popay et al., 2003; Williams & Sheehan, 2015). In a rare example of such a study, Weller (2010) examined the space-time aspects of homeless youths’ social capital and the relationship to their complex identities. Findings offer significant insight into how the spaces homeless youth occupy at different times provide access to different sources of social capital, inclusive of institutional structures and more “covert social networks” (p. 883). According to Weller 30 (2010), “time and space are both implicated in shaping the nature of identities and networks, and it is through a predominantly qualitative approach that the nuances and subtleties emerge” (p. 885). 2.3.3 Considering the Personal & Structural Context Social capital is integral to street homeless people’s survival. In order to activate available sources of social capital, street homeless people perform recognized expressions of homelessness based on the doxa of the social and institutional structures to which they have access. Through these recitations of historically situated cultural norms, expectations, and rules related to conduct, street homeless habitus is embodied and identity as a street homeless person is preserved. In keeping with Bourdieusian logic, it follows that anything that increases reproductions of street homeless doxa or the performance of street habitus is important in the space-time aspects of homeless social capital and the construction of the street homeless identity. Of particular importance in this regard are those factors that increase individual vulnerability and/or produce inequities in social capital between groups of street homeless people. Understanding the space-time aspects of homeless social capital requires examining the root causes of homelessness, including both individual and broader structural factors. However, most homelessness research limits examination to either individual or structural factors and not the interaction between them (Clapham, 2003; Piat et al., 2015). According to Clapham (2003), “understanding of the interaction between these two groups is vital if the nature of homelessness is to be comprehended” (p. 119). It is important to take a context sensitive approach to understanding homeless social capital that considers the interaction between different axes of oppression and structural factors that worsen individual risk and create barriers to exiting homelessness (Clapham, 2003). Focusing on individual factors and their impact on experiences of homelessness removed 31 from the influence of structural factors can have the effect of shifting responsibility for homelessness onto homeless people (Rowe & Wolch, 1990). 2.3.3.1 Individual & Structural Factors Within the broader, highly heterogeneous street homeless population, there is inequality in social capital between different groups of people due to the interaction between individual factors, like mental health and addiction challenges, and broader social and economic forces. In this way, individual factors, inclusive of identity categories people are born into, largely determine their networks of social capital and the benefits they are able to acquire through them. Namely, research by and large confirms that women and minority groups are subject to greater disparity in social capital than their white, male counterparts (Lin, 2000; Kwon & Adler, 2014). As stated by Lin (2000), “social groups have different access to social capital because of their advantaged or disadvantaged structural positions and associated social networks” (p. 793). A further reason individual factors, like mental health and/or substance abuse problems are important, is that they are directly linked to level vulnerability as a homeless person and overall ability to survive on the street. These factors, in turn, determine what sources of social capital are viewed as most important, how reliant someone is on them, and consequently, the degree to which they are required to perform as homeless in different ways. A key individual factor in this regard is biological sex and the socially constructed gender roles and expectations related to being perceived as biologically female or male. The concept of gender is distinct from sex, the biological category of influences that impact how we are perceived and treated by others in the world around us (Johnson, Greaves, & Repta, 2009); the two are however, inter-related in ways important to understanding the space-time aspects of homeless social capital. Gender is the social constructed roles, expectations, and expressions of identity defined by 32 biological sex (Johnson et al., 2009; Krieger, 2003; Prosser-Loose, n.d.; Tannenbaum, Greaves, & Graham, 2016). This means that based on biological sex, people are subject to different historically-situated, social, and cultural influences (Johnson et al., 2009, p. 3). In the context of my research, all aspects and/or components of street homeless people’s social capital, including their homeless or street habitus, all of their social capital interactions and relations, and the corresponding effects of space and time, are gendered. As gender does not operate in isolation, but in relation to other aspects of identity, such race, age, and disability status, in this study it was important for me to take an intersectional approach that weighed multiple aspects of identity concurrently (Tannenbaum et al., 2016). Through critical attention to the effects of gender on the space-time aspects of homeless social capital, my study also contributes to the literature on gendered homelessness, an area that is lacking in homelessness research, even amongst feminist scholars (Klodawsky, 2006; Rionach, Rosalind, & Reeve, 2008). As street homeless people are differentially impacted by social policy responses to homelessness based largely on individual factors, in understanding the interaction between individual and structural factors, it is important to consider the social policy context of street homelessness. 2.3.3.2 Social Policy Responses to Homelessness For street homeless people, enacting doxa of a given social structure is not just simply about managing street and mainstream homeless identities, but how different relational settings within cultures have their own doxa. Particularly important in this regard is institutional structures and the system of homeless services upon which many homeless people depend for survival. For Clapham (2003), “discourses influence the shape of the interventions designed to deal with the problem of homelessness and… consuming the service can mean accepting the implicit discourse” (p. 125). Beyond simply accepting the implied doxa tied to services, in the context of homeless social capital, 33 it means reproducing them. For this reason, it is integral to look at prevailing social policy responses to homelessness, their impact on the presence of homeless people in sanctioned homeless spaces in the city, and the effects on the forms of homelessness considered worthy of care. In the current social policy context in Canada, there is evidence that there are two policy responses at play. The first is what Wolch & DeVerteuil (2001) describe as the new strategy of poverty management, and the second is Housing First and the reframing of homelessness around the chronically homeless subject (Del Casino & Jacoy, 2008). In reaction to what has been described as the collapse of public space (Mitchell, 1997), DeVerteuil, May and von Mahs (2009) argue that despite being increasingly shut out of public space, the homeless are being taken up and re-entrenched in institutional spaces across the city. This is a result of what Wolch and DeVerteuil (2001) refer to as a new strategy of poverty management and the uneven or inconsistent response to homelessness it produces through the use of varied techniques ranging from the supportive (i.e. supportive housing) to highly punitive (i.e. anti-vagrancy laws). Whether they are found in shelters, supportive housing, soup kitchens, or city cells, it is into these and other institutional spaces that the homeless are receding (DeVerteuil, 2006). Ultimately, this translates into a homeless population that is “increasingly hyper-mobile and profoundly (re)-institutionalized” (DeVerteuil, 2003). This approach to caring for the homeless while containing them (DeVerteuil et al., 2009) is important in this research for two mains reasons. The first is the way this strategy exercises significant regulatory power over street homeless people’s movement and visibility in public space, profoundly shaping their locales (Cloke et al., 2008), which get structured around different service nodes (Wolch, Rahimien & Koegel, 1993). Through access to time-sensitive sources of institutionalized social capital, not only are street homeless people’s patterns highly temporalized, 34 meaning they are in and out of different institutional spaces at precise times on a continuous basis (attending appoints and meetings, accessing food or financial support), when they are not in one of these spaces, they are on the move between them. This results in extremely defined patterns of movement or locales that are tethered to institutional sources of support. By retracing the same well-worn space-time paths on a ongoing basis, their identity as “self-as-homeless” is reinforced (Rowe & Wolch, 1990), but they are also increasingly identifiably homeless. The second reason is because it further increases homeless people’s reliance on service providers and brings them into increased contact with others involved in street life. Research has demonstrated that by providing the opportunity and context for the development of problematic relationships, the use of homelessness services can undermine efforts to escape homelessness (Snow & Andersen, 1993), and compound problems that contribute to homelessness like drug use and criminal behaviour (Chamberlain & Johnson, 2013). Other related research has cautioned against romanticizing spaces of care, noting that within individual service organizations homeless people have both positive and negative experiences (Johnstone et al., 2016), and across different organizations, what is a caring and supportive environment for one individual, is fear provoking for another (Johnsen, Cloke, & May, 2005). Given the link between the space-time aspects of homeless social capital, habitus, and construction of the homeless identity, social policies that directly or indirectly channel homeless people into spaces of care have a profound impact on the trajectory of homelessness. On the opposite end of the spectrum, homeless people are being made into chronically homeless subjects through the discourse underpinning the other main homelessness policy response being employed in North America – Housing First. As its name implies, Housing First endorses a housing before services approach and it targets those “whose welfare has become more of a concern for society at large” (Macnaughton, Nelson, & Goering, 2013, p 106) – “the male, itinerant, mentally 35 ill hobo” (Del Casino & Jacoy, 2008, p. 192). Whereas the strategy in the new poverty management is less strategic than an outcome of a combination of reactionary, uneven policies to visible homelessness, Housing First is a decisive policy position. As the name implies, under the Housing First model those in need of shelter are provided with immediate access to permanent, independent housing without first being required to meet a level of “housing readiness” and services are delinked from housing (Fang, 2009). Although viewed as progressive policy (Stanhope & Dunn, 2011), “the nuanced presentation of [this] policy strategy...bridge[s] interests of the right with those of the center and left” (Macnaughton et al., 2013, p.106). The implementation of Housing First as a policy response in Canada relies on the use of scatter-site, market-based housing (Polvere et al., 2014). Relying on market-based housing disperses street homeless people into broader spaces of the city by moving them out of traditional homeless spaces, like emergency shelters, and into normalized spaces of the domiciled (Fang, 2009; von Mahs, 2013). As a result, as opposed to adding to homeless peoples’ entrenchment in institutional spaces of care and containment, Housing First has the effect of obliterating traditional spaces of homelessness (Klodawsky, 2009). These two conflicting policy responses have the opposite effect on homeless people’s presence in the urban environment – one pushes homeless people into and around recognized homeless spaces and the other seeks to eradicate these spaces from the urban environment. The discourses that surround prevailing policy responses to homelessness shape what reproductions of homeless subjectivity are deemed to be worthy of care (Woolford & Nelund, 2013). The tensions between these competing policy responses and their effects on the space-time aspects of homeless social capital need to be more thoroughly examined. 36 2.4 The Research Approach This study is an exploratory, qualitative examination of the space-time aspects of homeless social capital. In it, I use Bourdieu’s theorizations as a way to advance scholarly and practical knowledge through a blending of theory and practice. Through social capital theory, street homeless people’s highly adaptive and rational yet extremely misunderstood behaviours are reframed in strength-based terms, which allows for the capabilities and resources of homeless people to be better understood (Lancione, 2013). In this way, my interest in using social capital theory is as tool to expose the reality of homeless people’s descent through the trajectory homelessness, as subjects aware of and engaged with the mechanism of their own subjectification. In my research I use two overarching approaches to understanding the space-time aspects of street homeless social capital: participatory mapping and a typology approach. In the section below, I outline each approach in the order they’re presented here. 2.4.1 Participatory Mapping Maps are powerful things that have powerful effects in the world (Harley, 1989; Kitchin, Dodge, & Perkins, 2011). As rhetorical graphic images that function as a form of basic communication (Dodge, Kitchin & Perkins, 2011), maps shape how we understand and interact with the world around us. The power of maps has traditionally been used by the state or other controlling interests to extend dominance over space (Wood, 2010) and further subjugate marginalized populations (Crampton, 2001). Despite their long history as tools of oppression, maps are increasingly being (re)claimed as instruments for transformation and social justice (Harley, 1989), which has led to the development of new mapping practices that challenge the status quo (Kitchin et al., 2011) and use the force behind maps to effect social change (Wood, 2010). 37 The term “participatory mapping” broadly reflects a variety of ways that human beings come together to share spatial knowledge and experience through the building of maps (Brown & Kytta, 2018). Participatory mapping initiatives seek to make visible physical and socio-cultural phenomena and relationships that would not be represented otherwise (Bird, 1995; Tobias, 2000). Although participatory mapping has most commonly been used to address issues of environmental and natural resource management, conservation, and conflict/risk reduction (Brown, Montag, & Lyon, 2012; Karimi & Brown, 2017), increasingly it is being taken up as a way to understand and engage experiences of people within complex urban environments, an area important for urban/regional mapping (Brown & Kytta, 2018; Brown, Sanders, & Reed, 2018). However, to date, very few studies have used participatory mapping and related approaches to explore the spatial dimensions of homelessness in urban contexts. Within the program of research using participatory mapping approaches to examine homelessness, which consists of only a handful of studies on urban homelessness, participatory mapping is used as a tool to examine the relationship between space and variables important to wellbeing. As an example, accessibility patterns and community integration (Chan, Gopal, & Helfrich, 2014a; Chan, Helfrich, Hursh, Rogers, & Gopal, 2014b), access to care and health (Ensign & Gittelsohn, 1998), and spatial dislocation and increased risk (McNeil, Cooper, Small, & Kerr, 2015). By promoting improved understanding of the meaning of space in the day-to-day lives of homeless people, a main benefit of these studies and of using participatory mapping approaches with homeless people more broadly, is as a means to generate practical recommendations that have a positive impact on homeless people’s health and wellbeing (Townley, Pearson, Lehrwyn, Prophet, & Trauernicht, 2016). There are two key features about the uses of participatory mapping in these studies most relevant in the current research. The first is the pronounced shift away from a group 38 natural resource/environmental application to a clinical or pedagogical tool for assessing and understanding individual need. Most notable in this regard are the activity space studies that use participatory mapping and other spatial metrics to measure community integration (Chan et. al., 2014b; Townley et al., 2016). The second is as a process for understanding and making explicit geographies of homeless social capital that illuminate the spatial and temporal aspects of the experience for street homeless people. In this study, participatory mapping is used to construct context and gender-sensitive alternative cartographic representations of homeless social capital that render the trajectory of homelessness visible. Consistent with Kwan (2004, 2007) and others (Del Casino & Hanna, 2006), I advance a post-structural view of maps and mapmaking that is both representation and beyond representation. In this study the process of mapping is less about the map and more about the power of mapping to “stimulate and support story-telling” (Caquard & Cartwright, 2014, p. 104) about the hidden, embodied meanings of place that make visible critical hidden geographies of homelessness in everyday life (Caquard, 2011). The process of mapping helps ground recall in space and time, which allows for richer, more context-dependent and time-sensitive stories to be told. Participants’ maps and highly contextualized stories of homeless social capital informed the development of typologies of the space-time aspects of homeless people’s social capital, each representing unique geographies of homeless social capital. 2.4.2 Typologizing Street Homeless Social Capital Within homelessness research, a typology approach involves grouping homeless people together based on individual and/or structural, spatial, or temporal factors, usually in combination, as a way to promote understanding of their specific needs, challenges, resiliencies, and opportunities for systemic change (Aubry, Klodawsky, & Coulombe, 2012). As a result, it is particularly useful in 39 informing policy and service recommendations that address a range of needs within the homeless street population (Aubry et al., 2012). With the growing diversity of people counted among the street homeless - from women, children, and youth (Gaetz, Donaldson, Richter, & Gulliver, 2013), to the elderly (Grenier, Barken, Sussman, Rothwell, & Bourgeois-Guerin, 2016), and families (Peressini, 2007), it is important for research efforts to focus on informing the development of policies and interventions that address a multiplicity of needs for different groups of people living in states of homelessness (Aubry et al., 2012). Ultimately, policy initiatives need to be sensitive to both context and complexity to better understand which aspects of identity matter in the production of social capital at different times and in different spaces (Cote, 2007). Using a typology approach allows for the integration of multiple intersecting variables into overarching types or groupings based on shared characteristics, including social, spatial, temporal, individual, and structural factors. Spatial and temporal typologies have been developed to foster understanding of the different ways that space and time interact and structure homeless people’s day-to-day lives. For instance, typology approaches have been used to understand the spatial needs of homeless drug users in shelters (Neale & Stevenson, 2013), homeless young people’s daily routines (Mallet, Rosenthal, Myers, Milburn, & Rotheram-Borus, 2004), time-patterns for homeless individuals with mental health problems (Brown, Chodzen, Mihelicova, & Collins, 2017), and shelter use patterns of street homeless people based on length of stay (Aubry, Farrell, Hwang & Calhoun, 2013; Benjaminsen & Andrade, 2014; Kuhn and Culhane, 1998; McAllister, Kuang & Lennon, 2010). An interesting finding in the context of the current research is how through these studies, most specifically those utilizing a cluster analysis to identify types across broad groups of street homeless people, the researchers positioned types on a continuum of worsening need or chronicity (Aubry et al., 2012). In context of research on entrenchment and the trajectory of 40 homelessness, this finding lends support for the notion that among broad segments of the street homeless population, there exist different degrees of homeless subjectification or embodiment of street homeless habitus. By working to identify emergent classifications of space-time aspects of street homeless social capital based upon who is actually on the streets versus pre-defined categories, and by incorporating a range of social, spatial, temporal, and individual and structural factors, my study advances broader research on the use of typology approaches to better understand homelessness (Aubry et al., 2012; Brown et al., 2017). It also advances knowledge of the cumulative impact of different factors on street homeless people’s social capital experiences, including structural factors - an area that could be more fully understood (Clapham, 2003; Piat et al., 2015). Homeless people choose not to access shelters for many reasons, including for reasons related to where a shelter is located (Yoonsook, Narendorf, Santa Maria, & Bezette-Flores, 2015). With shelters in Canada operating near capacity (ESDC, 2014a) many potential shelter-goers, resort to sleeping on the streets or in other spaces of the city not intended for habitation. In this study I prioritize spaces of homelessness within the broader public realm, inclusive of shelters and urban space more generally. Taking this approach provides a more fulsome picture of street homelessness. As a way to summarize and further contextualize theory within the relevant literature, I restate my research questions and the related sub-questions: 1) What is the relationship between homeless social capital, space, and time? a) From whom do homeless people get support, what types of support do they receive from what sources, and where are sources located? What is the scope of their social network(s) and how do they function? b) How does time act on the socio-spatial aspects of homelessness? c) Are street homeless people consciously aware of performing doxa? Does this change for them over time (e.g., are they less aware over time)? 41 2) How/in what ways do locales vary for different types of homeless people? How is it related to the trajectory of homelessness? a) How does social capital, space, and time interact to shape homeless people’s locales? b) How are locales related to homeless identity and the trajectory of homelessness? c) What intersecting variables (individual and structural) are most important in determining the space-time aspects of homeless social capital? d) How does gender shape the space-time aspects of homeless social capital? e) How do locales vary between types? How/in what ways are locales shaped by prevailing policy responses to homelessness? In Chapter 3, Methodology, I operationalize my methodological approach for addressing these research questions. 42 Chapter 3. METHODOLOGY In this Chapter, I summarize my research methodology separated into four sections. In the first section, I situate myself in the research through a discussion of my paradigmatic positioning. In the second section, I provide an overview of my methodological framework and research design. In the third, I summarize my research methods and the techniques I used to ensure research was conducted in a rigourous and ethical manner, including my use of reflexive approaches. In order to illustrate flow and integration of research components, the methods and techniques for ensuring rigour and ethics in research, and the specifics regarding participants/participant groups (e.g., sampling, recruitment, roles, etc.), are discussed as process through a detailing of my research activities. The discussion of research activities occurs in the fourth and largest section of the Chapter. This section is further separated into three sub-sections that reflect different stages of research, each with its own methods and associated activities. The first sub-section outlines the preparatory stage of fieldwork (“Assessing the Homeless Landscape”). Representing the bulk of time spent in fieldwork, the second sub-section (“Mapping the Temporal and Spatial Aspects of Homeless Social Capital”) documents the participatory mapping activities (individual and group) with street homeless women and men. In the third and final sub-section (“Leveraging Research Findings”), I detail the process for analyzing and integrating data sources and the use of focus groups to leverage research findings. 3.1 Paradigmatic Positioning For Harding (1988), it is knowing the researcher’s place that makes research understandable. My identity as a practitioner forms an essential part of who I am as a researcher and what I bring to the research endeavour. My doctoral dissertation is not simply an outcome of my scholarly pursuits - it is rooted in my years of professional practice working with marginalized youth and adults in 43 community-based and institutional settings. As a consequence of my dual-status as practitioner and researcher, I have specific biases that orient me to a particular research ideology. Although my paradigmatic positioning is most aligned with social constructivism, as deeply informing my epistemological, ontological, and axiological positioning, I also draw from elements of pragmatism in how I conceptualize research. Constructivism and pragmatism are discussed below in the order of their relevance and importance in research. According to Schwandt (2000), “constructivism means that human beings do not find or discover knowledge so much as we construct or make it” (p. 197). From an epistemological perspective, this means that the relationship between the researcher and participant(s) is transactional and subjectivist, and the resulting reality is a co-creation (Lincoln, Lynham, & Guba, 2011). As a form of naturalistic inquiry, by necessity research fieldwork was conducted on city streets, in dialogue with the community of people most affected by the outcome of my research efforts. Ontologically, as there is no singular truth to be found, but multiple valid realities (Schwandt, 1994), my goal was to elucidate experience of the temporal and spatial aspects of homeless social capital by broadly contextualizing homeless experience socially and culturally. If all knowledge is situated and relative, and the knower cannot be separated from the known, the problem then becomes what if anything can be known? In order to reconcile the tension between the relativism of the constructivist position and the idea that some truth, however partial or incomplete, can be extracted from the research encounter, I advance a weak or moderate interpretation of constructivism (Schwandt, 2000). For Schwandt (2000), those taking a weak interpretation of constructivism reframe notions of objectivity and truth through an epistemological framework that “preserve[s] some way of distinguishing better or worse interpretations” (p. 198). For me, as a researcher and a practitioner, “better interpretations” are those 44 that come through reflexive, self-aware research praxis that interrogates the researcher as self in action and in reflection on action throughout the research process. As stated by Creswell (2014), in social constructivism “the goal of the research is to rely as much as possible on the participants’ views of the situation being studied” (p. 8), not the researchers. Reflexivity is a way to lessen or mitigate the potential corrupting effects of the researcher, thus helping to ensure a more rigourous and ethical approach to research. Even if one takes a strong interpretation of constructivism, it can still be argued that knowledge is still knowledge, however contextualized and subjective. For Richardson (1994), “having a partial, local, historical knowledge is still knowing” (p. 928). The many applications of reflexivity are in detail discussed below. Although my research orientation is fundamentally constructivist, it is also influenced by the underpinnings of pragmatism. Pragmatism is a problem-centered, get it done style of research that values practical theory and the real-world application of knowledge (Creswell, 2014; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). It endorses an eclectic and pluralistic approach to research through the use of multiple different methods and sources of knowledge in ways that are consistent with the values of the researcher and that help achieve research goals (Creswell, 2014; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). As a practitioner-researcher, my purpose in conducting homelessness research is to advocate for improvements to the human condition and society as a whole. In my efforts, I believe if the application of methods makes sense practically, and they are used in the spirit of inductive inquiry to understand and tease apart complex social phenomenon for the benefit of those we engage through our research, they ought to be utilized. In this way, I am not using pragmatism as a method for sidestepping the theoretical tension between constructivist or positivist paradigms, or to negate my responsibility as a researcher to pay attention to “the role that social factors play in what constitutes legitimate, warranted, or true interpretation…” (Schwandt, 2000, p. 198). By invoking 45 principles of pragmatism, my intent is to put the emphasis squarely on the process of inquiry and the use of tools that work best to illuminate the subject of scholarly interest. 3.2 Methodological Framework & Research Design 3.2.1 Community-Based Participatory Research Described as more of an orientation to research than a method (D’Alonzo, 2010; Michalak et al., 2012), Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) is the overarching methodological framework for my research. CBPR is increasingly used as an umbrella term to encompass a variety of research approaches structured around the elements of participation, research, and action (Minkler, 2005). CBPR aims to be an empowering approach through which the researcher actively shares power and knowledge, utilizes community resources and builds individual and community capacity, promotes a co-learning experience sensitive to social inequalities, and works to achieve a balance between research and action (Israel, Schulz, Parker, & Becker, 1998; Minkler, 2004). As a research strategy, CBPR is often used with marginalized and disadvantaged populations (Stacciarini, 2009). Participation and power sharing are central tenets in CBPR (Israel et al., 1998; Michalak et al., 2012), which means that how researchers actualize participation through research is of primary importance. Consistent with the view of CBPR as a “cyclical and iterative process” (Israel et al., 1998), in this study, participation is conceptualized as process. Three separate groups participated in this research: homelessness stakeholders with expert knowledge of homelessness locally, people who were formerly homeless (within the past year) who formed the advisory committee for the project, and people who self-identified as street homeless (sleeping rough or accessing emergency shelter). Embracing the notion of participation as process meant that opportunities to participate in important ways were built into all aspects of research - it wasn’t enough to frame participation as a 46 one-off occurrence (Tritter & McCallum, 2006). Different participants/participant groups were involved in multiple aspects and stages of the research from design and method selection, to issues of sampling and recruitment of street homeless participants, to anticipating and resolving ethical concerns, and finally, to data analysis and generating recommendations based on findings. By treating participation as process, I was able to take advantage of every opportunity to meaningfully engage with street homeless people and other participants through research. 3.2.2 Multi-Methods Design CBPR takes a practical approach to methods selection advocating for the use of any number or type of methods necessary to achieve research goals (Michalak et al., 2012). Supported by CBPR as my methodological framework, in my research I utilize a “multi-method” or a “multiple methods” design that advances an inclusive or pluralistic discourse on methods (Chamberlain, Cain, Sheridan, & Dupuis, 2011; Johnson et al., 2017; Morse, 2003, 2009). In contrast to “mixed methods” approaches where separate qualitative and quantitative procedures are incorporated into a distinct design (Creswell, 2014; Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2003), in this study I used exploratory, inductive methods under the umbrella of critical qualitative research. Although the individual methods were distinct, in that each was stand-alone and implemented separately, it was through the integration of the different methods and data sources that a more nuanced, context sensitive account of homeless social capital took shape. The use of different methods was therefore not about the additive effects or benefits of different types and sources of information, or what Denzin (1978, 2012) refers to as “triangulation.” The value of using multiple methods in this study is what the integration of these methods enabled. In this way, the application of methods is more attuned with Richardson’s (2000) theorization of “crystallization” and the “crystal” as a metaphor for the multi-dimensional, multi-vocal, and often, contradictory nature of 47 qualitative inquiry. In this study “crystallization” (Richardson, 2000) is used to denote the interconnectedness of research processes that prioritize inquiry, reflection, interpretation, and representation (Lincoln et al., 2011). As a highly participatory, forward-driven process, it was through the act of doing or engaging in research that individual methods became integrated into a unified whole (Chamberlain, et al., 2011). Among the many ways that reflexivity was applied in this research, I used it here to aid in maintaining awareness of the boundaries and limitations placed on knowledge based on my choice of methods, an essential area of awareness for researchers when using multi-methods (Chamberlain et al., 2011). 3.3 Summary of Methods & Techniques 3.3.1 Methods According to Chamberlain et al., (2011), pluralism in methods selection works well if data sources can be thoroughly integrated through the use of a congruent research design. In this study, I incorporated different spatially orientated qualitative methods into an overarching design that informed a uniform, yet multi-dimensional view of the space-time aspects of homeless social capital. I used different methods with different participants/participant groups on an individual and/or group-basis. The timing of methods was important in the research design in that they built upon each other, with earlier methods informing the application of successive procedures, and in many instances, the research strategy more broadly. In this way, research methods were highly integrated and are thus, are best conceptualized holistically and as a process. It is for this reason that methods are only touched on briefly here, before being described in detail as process in the “Research Activities” section of this Chapter. The main method data was derived from in this study was “participatory mapping.” In order to facilitate mapping as an innate or natural ability (Blaut, 1991), it was important to develop a 48 naturalized, exploratory approach to mapmaking that was inspired by, and would itself inspire, the thoughts and feelings of everyday life. In this study I used “sketch mapping” with street homeless people (adult women and men), which amounted to conducting in-depth interviews centered around street homeless people identifying and mapping their social capital or the locations of their place-based sources of support. Sketch mapping prioritizes individual experience by having people draw their own maps as opposed to relying on a pre-formed topographic rendering (Corbett, 2009; The International Fund for Agricultural Development, 2010). I used sketch mapping on a one-to-one basis with street homeless adults to explore individual experiences of the space-time aspects of homeless social capital, and on a group basis with separate groups of homeless women and men (using a female/male binary) to examine the effects of gender. Through the power of maps to “stimulate and support story-telling” (Caquard & Cartwright, 2014, p.104) about the hidden, embodied meanings of place (Caquard, 2011), mapping their social capital helped to ground participants’ recall in space and time, which allowed for richer, more context sensitive stories to be told. Additional methods I used in this research included: participant observation (Clark, Holland, Katz, & Peace, 2009) of homeless clusters and street-level activity; multiple interviews (Murray, 2009) with key stakeholders (before and during fieldwork), such as homeless service providers, outreach workers, and downtown enforcement (RCMP and Downtown on Call); geocoding narrative data by transforming place names and addresses into locations onto the earth’s surface (Arc GIS Pro, n.d.) using the Google Earth platform and layering (Corner, 1999) maps to create a heterogeneous surface; and, as a way to leverage research findings, focus groups with key stakeholders (as noted above) and people with lived experience (advisory committee members) that capitalized on the group structure and interaction between participants as a means to generate data 49 (Kitzinger, 1994). Table 3.1 summarizes my research methods by type, the level each method was applied (micro/individual or macro/group level), and participant group(s) involved. Table 3.1 Summary of research methods As previously noted, methods are discussed as an integrated, cohesive process in the “Research Activities” section in this Chapter. Individual Level Participant Group/ Source Method(s) Type(s) of Data Street Homeless People Individual Sketch Mapping Demographic/historical data Social capital (list of sources & forms) Sketch maps Notes & transcripts Key Homelessness Stakeholders Multiple Interviews List of homeless hotspots/clusters Notes & transcripts Group Level Participant Group/Source Method(s) Type(s) of Data Homeless/street-level activity Participant Observation Notes & transcripts Street Homeless People Group Sketch Mapping Sketch maps List of receptive & non-receptive locations Notes & transcripts Advisory Committee Members Advisory Committee Meetings Group Sketch Mapping Sketch maps List of receptive & non-receptive locations Notes & digital audio-recordings/ transcripts Key Homelessness Stakeholders & Advisory Committee Members Focus Groups Notes & digital audio-recording/ transcripts Street Homeless People, Key Homelessness Stakeholders, & Advisory Committee Members Geocoding & Layering Geo-coded locale types, hot-spots/clusters, and receptive & non-receptive spaces/ input into different layers in Google Earth 50 3.3.2 Reflexivity Within qualitative research, reflexivity plays an essential role in ensuring the quality and rigour of inquiry (Darawsheh, 2014; Finlay, 2002a, Finlay, 2000b; McCabe & Holmes, 2009; Wren, 2004). As a critical analytic device, reflexivity is fundamental to working through personal and epistemological tensions that can negatively impact research outcomes (Dowling, 2006), including ethical challenges (Bowtell, Sawyer, Aroni, Green, & Duncan, 2013). Reflexivity denotes the practice of reflecting on one’s own subjectivities in action through the process of conducting research, which is continuous throughout research, informing all activities in all stages (Creswell, 2014; Fusch & Ness, 2015; Hand, 2003; Richards & Morse, 2013). Learning to reflect on one’s own subjective positioning and simultaneously attending to the world around us is tantamount to engaging in a process of continuous self-development (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992; Ryan, 2005). For Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992), this involves “the systematic exploration of the unthought categories of thought that delimit the thinkable and predetermine the thought” (p. 40). In this study, I use reflexivity as more than just a strategy or technique for bolstering rigour or ethics – it was a guiding philosophy that underpinned every aspect of my research. As a gold standard of practice carried over from my work as a practitioner, reflexivity is hardwired into my understanding of how to work respectfully with marginalized groups in ways that don’t cause further harm or perpetuate marginality. If not for the awareness brought about through reflexivity, the interventionist, be it a clinician/practitioner or researcher, is at risk of recreating the same injustices the intervention seeks to ameliorate (Finlay, 2002b). As a bridge or point of convergence between my professional practice and my research, reflexivity provided an immediate link between my work with vulnerable, marginalized groups and my understanding of how-to-do-good research with them. This was important because as a practitioner-researcher, I had a dual status in research that was 51 fraught with potential threats to research quality. If, as Lather (1993) has suggested, reflexivity is not a process of “looking harder or more closely, but of seeing what frames our seeing” (p. 675), as a former practitioner conducting social change research, what frames my seeing is my experience of practice. Owing to this, I had a responsibility to not only know how my experience of being a practitioner had the potential to shape research, but to disclose how my subjectivity was altered through the process of research (Cho & Trent, 2006). A detailing of my reflexive process and the related techniques I used in this research is contexualized in the discussion of “Rigour” in the next section (“Reflexive Bracketing & Member Checking”). 3.3.3 Rigour Consistent with the theoretical underpinnings of constructivism, I used interpretive, critical qualitative research principles and criteria to ensure my research was conducted in a rigourous manner. My overarching approach to validation was informed by Cho and Trent (2006), who advocate for an open, pluralistic approach to the selection of validation strategies in social change research unique to the needs of the study. In thinking about issues of congruence and other potential threats to rigour, I identified three primary criteria and four secondary criteria. For primary criteria I used credibility, dependability, and transferability (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), and for secondary criteria I used explicitness, sensitivity, vividness, and congruence (Whittemore, Chase, & Mandle, 2001). Although not tracking directly with primary criteria, I used secondary criteria in complementary ways with primary criteria. As a broad, overlapping framework, these criteria provided a way of thinking about my research approach that balanced the need for structure against the importance of being attentive, flexible, and creative. “Credibility” or the “truth-value” in qualitative research is similar to internal validity in quantitative research and it requires that the phenomenon of interest be represented accurately 52 (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Maxwell, 1992; Whittemore et al., 2001). Assuring credibility refers to the conscious effort to establish confidence in an accurate interpretation of the meaning of the data (Carboni, 1995). Do the results of the research reflect the experience of participants or the context in a believable way (Lincoln & Guba, 1985)? Does the explanation fit the description (Janesick, 1994)? In my study credibility was also about ensuring research was conducted in dialogue with participants. In critical, participatory, community-based research, the researcher is engaged in the creation of knowledge both with and on behalf of marginalized groups, who are seen as co-researchers in the research endeavour (Cho & Trent, 2006); thus, credibility is largely demonstrated by the degree to which research is a collaborative effort. “Dependability” is demonstrated in qualitative inquiry through the transparency of the research process, in that another researcher can know and follow the decision trail of the researcher (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Thomas & Magilvy, 2011). I used number of strategies to enhance dependability, with the main approach being the use of an “audit trail.” According to Thomas and Magilvy (2011), an audit trail consists of a detailed, thorough accounting of research, including the research purpose, participant and method selection, data collection and analysis, and the criteria used to establish rigour. Developing an audit trail was also important in ensuring explicitness (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), a secondary research criterion. “Explicitness” required that I also provide a thorough record of my judgments and rationale behind research decisions, including methodological decisions, interpretations, and my research biases (Sandelowski, 1986). In a similar way, by explicating how ethical and other related problems were dealt with through research, developing an audit trail also helped in demonstrating “sensitivity” (Thomas & Magilvy, 2011), as a deep and abiding respect for the human condition and the wellbeing of participants demonstrated through research (Lincoln, 1995). The advisory committee members were the arbitrator of research decisions; therefore, the 53 minutes of advisory committee meetings provide a running summary of all research decisions and the associated rationale. In order to ensure my interpretations were logical and thus, replicable, advisory committee members and key stakeholders worked with me through data analysis and in the interpretation of findings (Thomas & Magilvy, 2011). “Transferability” in qualitative research is about how well research methods and findings translate to other people/groups (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). In establishing transferability, I drew from different methods and data sources to ensure a multiplicity of approaches and perspectives (Creswell, 2014; Fusch & Ness, 2015). I played with different modes for presenting findings that illuminated unique dimensions of homeless social capital. In this way, transferability was also important in ensuring “vividness”, through the development of rich, vivid descriptions that drew in a range of different perspectives (Geertz, 1973); and “sensitivity”, through the integration of multiple perspectives and details (Altheide & Johnson, 1994). I used purposive sampling strategies to select participants and principles of saturation to know when to stop collecting data (Creswell, 2014; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). This meant that I sampled with the explicit intention of obtaining “information-rich cases that can illuminate the use and meaning of particular concepts within particular settings” (Patton, 2015, p. 291), and only stopped data collection when no new themes or categories were apparent or “informational redundancy” occurred (Sandelowski, 2008, p. 875). Through these combined transferability strategies, my intent was not just to be highly descriptive, but to begin to reveal what is shared or universal about the experience of homeless social capital. Although generalizability is problematic in qualitative research, my intent in doing so was to not only make findings more sensitive, vivid, and explicit, but more valid and relevant beyond the context of my research. In the words of Bourdieu (1984), “the universe of life-styles which is put forward here...seems to be to be valid beyond [this] particular case” (p. xi). Having a “congruent” 54 research approach, as the final secondary criteria I used in my research, helped in establishing transferability and the relevance of findings to situations outside of my own research context (Sandelowski, 1986). “Congruence” is demonstrated when there is a synergy or logical flow between all component parts of research, including research questions, paradigmatic positioning, research design and use of methods, and the criteria for establishing quality (Thomas & Magilvy, 2011). If findings follow process, in that the research approach ultimately determines how closely representations reflect what is fundamental about experience, having a congruent research approach also promotes transferability, and the broader theoretical and practical value of findings. 3.3.3.1 Reflexive Bracketing & Reflexive Member Checking In this study I used two reflexive validation approaches - reflexive bracketing and reflexive member checking. The first validation approach, reflexive bracketing, is a method used to mitigate the potential deleterious effects of the researcher’s subjectivities on the research process, including vested interests, assumptions, expectations, and experiences (Fischer, 2009; Tufford & Newman, 2010). According to Fischer (2009), bracketing is a “mindfulness that one brings to bear regularly, asking about assumptions that have gone into what one saw and into how one has ‘languaged’ what was apprehended” (p. 584). The application of bracketing in qualitative research rests on the assumption that as researchers, we are not able to suspend or set aside those things of which we are not consciously aware (Ahern, 1999). As total objectivity in research is not humanly possible (Crotty, 1996; Fischer, 2009), bracketing provides the researcher with a method for suspending preconceived ideas through a persistent effort to separate out personal beliefs and assumptions that can unwittingly bring findings closer in-line with the researcher’s perceptions versus the reality of participants. 55 Bracketing has obvious relevance for clinicians or practitioners with established beliefs and assumptions about the research subject based on years of professional practice, of which I am one. Bracketing was used in this study to enhance rigour by lessening the effects of my insider-outsider status on the research endeavour, with the goal of bringing representations closer to the actual experiences of participants. As a practitioner with years of training and work experience, I also had relevant skills and abilities that benefitted my own research efforts (Colbourne & Sque, 2004). Through bracketing I identified my skills most relevant to research and reflected upon and strategized how best to apply these skills to the benefit of my research efforts, while avoiding pitfalls such as falling into a practitioner role versus that of researcher. While there is some disagreement as to what stages the use of research bracketing is most beneficial (Tufford & Newman, 2010), being explicit about how and why bracketing was used in my research allowed “others [to] observe and understand the rules of the game” (Beech, 1999, p. 44). Although bracketing was an integral component of my reflexive process throughout research, there are three main ways that the use of bracketing stood out. The first way was in identifying and recording my assumptions before fieldwork began (Glaser, 1992) through the use of reflexive journaling (Ahern, 1999; Fischer, 1999). Through this approach, I was able to establish a baseline awareness of my beliefs and attitudes regarding the research subject in advance of fieldwork, which made it easier to recognize potentially corrupting attitudes when they surfaced through in my interactions with participants. The second way was through questioning my interactions with participants, and specifically, having a critical reflexive awareness of my subjectivities in action and in reflection on action. In action, this involved a constant turning back of critical attention to my subject positioning through my interactions with participants; and in reflection on action, monitoring and tracking how my beliefs, opinions, suppositions about the subject changed through 56 the research process. This application of reflexive bracketing underscores the importance of the researcher maintaining an awareness of both internal and external processes at once, as well as the interaction between the two, both in the moment and in reflection on the experience of research praxis. As bracketing is a “multilayered process that is meant to access various levels of consciousness” (Tufford & Newman, 2009; p. 84), I used reflexive journaling as a way to record my reflections and spur deeper insights through these reflections. Bracketing was used in a similar way during data collection and analysis; in particular, memoing during the coding process as a way to understand and reflect upon my engagement with data (Cutcliffe, 2003), the third and final main way that bracketing was used in this research. According to Tufford and Newman (2009), “memos can take the form of theoretical notes which explicate the cognitive process of conducting research, methodological notes that explicate the procedural aspects of research, and observational comments that allow the researcher to explore feelings about the research endeavour” (p. 86). In this research, I primarily used memoing as a way to examine and reflect upon my engagement with data. As data analysis occurred concurrently with data collection, I was able to check my assumptions and interpretations against the experiences of participants on a continuous basis by moving back and forth between the data and my interpretations of data to validating findings with participants. The second validation approach, reflexive member checking, is an inductive, analytically robust approach to validation that put the emphasis of analysis simultaneously on the researcher, the data, the participant(s), and the relationship between them. According to Cho and Trent (2006), “‘member checks as reflexive refers to the constant backward and forward confirmation between the researcher and the participants under study in regard to re/constructions of constructions of the participants” (p. 332). By using an advisory committee of formerly homeless people to guide all aspects of research (D’Alonzo, 2010; Michalak et al., 2012; Minkler, 2004), I had a built-in mechanism for 57 checking my interpretations and analysis, particularly during coding. In this way, my role as researcher was to continuously share emerging findings with advisory committee members throughout data collection and analysis and use their feedback to inform the ongoing analysis and interpretation of findings. I did this until data collection was complete (saturation achieved) and no further validation was needed because all the findings had been substantiated. Reflexive member checking through the advisory committee was also important in establishing vividness. “Vividness” requires faithfulness to the experience under investigation (Geertz, 1973), while taking care not to overwhelm the reader with too much detail that can blur what is essential about experience (Sandelowski, 1986). The advisory committee was integral in helping me narrow down the large amount of information flowing from the fieldwork, and to increasingly focus on the most important emergent themes and issues while not losing sight of important details. The advisory committee also helped to ensure research was conducted with sensitivity by minimizing the potential for harm and maximizing benefits to the participants and the broader community (Lincoln, 1995). Furthermore, they help to ensure that my own actions, including interactions with participants and how I represented findings, were done in the most respectful way. As the primary mechanism by which participation was actualized in this research, using an advisory committee was also foundational to ensuring research was an authentic collaboration with marginalized groups, which as noted, was also important in establishing credibility. 3.3.4 Ethics Elwood (2007) distinguishes between two types of ethics in qualitative research: “institutional ethics,” those established a priori by different governing bodies including universities and professional associations, and “participatory ethics,” what happens during research that cannot be determined in advance of the doing because of the situational, context dependent nature of ethical 58 challenges. In planning on how to mitigate potential intersecting ethical issues, it was useful for me to think about ethics separately as procedural and practice-based. Elwood’s (2007) concept of participatory ethics aligned well with my participatory, community-based approach to research, and in conceptualizing ethics as process. 3.3.4.1 Institutional Ethics Institutional ethics began by ensuring consent was informed and in how I demonstrated respect for the confidentiality of all those involved in the study (Richards & Schwartz, 2002). All those participating in the study were adults (over the age of 19 years), and no one was pressured in any way to participate (Ramcharan & Cutcliffe, 2001), including offering a financial incentive that would unduly compel people living in poverty to participate, thus negating free consent (Goodman et al., 2004). My background as a practitioner and my experience working with complex-needs individuals proved useful in determining people’s ability to provide informed consent. If there was a question regarding a potential participant’s ability to provide informed consent for whatever reason (e.g., impaired by drugs and/or alcohol), they were not allowed to participate. Taking the view of ethics as process (Richards & Schwartz, 2001) meant that for those who did participate, I needed to revisit the issue of consent on an ongoing basis. At all times, participants “rights as autonomous persons to voluntarily accept or refuse to participate in the study” (Orb, Eisenhauer, & Wynaden, 2001, p. 95) were respected, and they were aware that they could refuse to participate or withdraw at any point. To safe guard the privacy of participants I used pseudonyms and “foolproof strategies for the secure storage of tapes and transcripts” (Richards & Schwartz, 2002, p. 138), including encrypting electronic files and ensuring hardcopies of participant information were secured at all times (in keeping with UBC policy). In addition, I also altered or obscured identifying participant details. I 59 did this in two related ways: first, by not sharing individual sketch maps from mapping sessions with street homeless people; and second, by collapsing individual participants’ locales into overarching types and geocoding the narrative data for the main sources of social capital for each locale type. This was important because many of the street homeless people in Kelowna are well known to service providers and others, including their unique patterns of movement and preferred locations. As a result, individual sketch mapping participants were easily identifiable with minimal detail. By geocoding the broader locale types of street homelessness versus tying findings to each participant’s personal map, individual spatial patterns were obscured without sacrificing any of the theoretical or practical value of the information. A final safeguard involved only geocoding general areas or landmarks when private, personal residences were mentioned (Chan et al., 2014b). 3.3.4.2 Participatory Ethics The concept of participatory ethics invites the practitioner-researcher to enter into a reflexive or collaborative dialogue with participants to resolve ethical dilemmas and other related problems when they arise through research. As an approach, participatory ethics reveals the essential social nature of reflexivity (Probst & Berenson, 2014) and how when in dialogue with disadvantaged populations, researchers are better able to anticipate and address ethical challenges. Participatory ethics was in large in part realized through the use of an advisory committee of formerly homeless people through which people lived experience took a lead role in all aspects of research. Wherever possible, advisory committee members led decision-making, including establishing research outcomes, addressing ethical dilemmas, and signaling potential harms or safety risks to mapping participants or the researcher. In order to promote an atmosphere of respect from the outset of the research project, a Clarity of Purpose (COF) (Rambaldi & McCall, 2010) was developed with advisory committee members and 60 reviewed at every meeting. The specific areas the COF addressed included: levels of privacy for advisory committee members and how (over and above institutional ethics) to respect their confidentiality (Richards & Schwartz, 2002); their levels of involvement; the communication strategy between the researcher and advisory committee members; research objectives and related timelines; and, if/how to compensate participants including if/how advisory committee participants should be compensated (Head, 2009). Once established, it was important that I respect the COF including ensuring the identified communication strategy was implemented as planned. 3.4 Research Activities 3.4.1 Assessing the Street Homeless Landscape 3.4.1.1 Key Stakeholders As noted above, through this research I engaged with three separate participant groups: key stakeholders with expert knowledge of street homelessness locally, people who were formerly street homeless (within the past year) to form the advisory committee for the project, and people who self-identified as being street homeless (sleeping rough or accessing emergency shelter). Beginning with key stakeholders, the specifics related to each participant group, including issues of sampling and recruitment and the role each played in the research project, are discussed below in the order they are presented here. Having access to key sources of knowledge regarding the street homeless landscape was integral to timeliness and relevance of research. In accessing key stakeholders with expertise on homelessness in Kelowna, I relied on my knowledge of local services to navigate groups and narrow down those closest to street-level homelessness. Key stakeholders with expertise on homelessness were recruited through a local committee (“Partners in a Healthy Community” or “PHC”) whose membership is composed of representatives from street level homelessness services (e.g., 61 charities/non-profits, churches, and government services), enforcement (e.g., community policing, downtown enforcement unit, municipal by-law enforcement, and the parks department), and other homelessness stakeholders. As such, PHC members have the most current knowledge of street-level homelessness locally. A complete list of the PHC members who participated in this study (“List of Key Stakeholders”) can be found in Appendix A. Initial contact with individual PHC members was by email (this was possible because contact information publicly available), at which time I introduced the project and arranged for an in-person meeting to discuss the research in detail. The “Letter of Initial Contact & Recruitment of Key Stakeholders” is in Appendix B and the “Letter of Consent” is located in Appendix C. I contacted and met with a broad range of PHC members focusing on those who interacted with street homeless people on a daily basis. In total, I interviewed twenty-five individual key stakeholders from thirteen different organizations. Most were interviewed on multiple occasions, including in lead up to fieldwork, during fieldwork, and post-field work to assist with data analysis and leveraging research findings. 3.4.1.2 Identifying Street Homeless Clusters Within Kelowna city limits are multiple clusters or spatially distinct groups of street homeless people who differ based on where they locate themselves. Many of the key homelessness stakeholders, particularly those involved in enforcement, refer to these clusters as “homeless hotspots.” Although moving into and out of different urban spaces, there is a noticeable spatial pattern that marks how different groups of street homeless people come together and inhabit the city. The same clusters of people can be found in different locations in the urban environment, but people generally do not overlap clusters. This means that while they move around to different locations in the city, they maintain the same groupings. This has the effect of making different groups of street homeless people discernable through their precise and highly predictable 62 geography. As the epicenter of tensions of public space, many of these clusters are found in the downtown core. As a starting point for research, I consulted at length with key homelessness stakeholders to identify homeless clusters, but also to learn about trends and spatial patterns in homelessness and street level activity. This process involved developing a preliminary list of locations in dialogue with key homelessness stakeholders and then working back and forth between them to narrow down and refine the list. Care was taken to identify only those locations where people known to be the street homeless gathered versus locations more likely to be populated by transient people moving through the area. This was important because there is a high level of transiency in Kelowna throughout the year, particularly during summer months, which can conflate street homelessness. In total, thirty-eight distinct clusters were identified, with many of the clusters overlapping the same groups of people. Of these thirty-eight clusters, ten were categorized as main clusters by key homelessness stakeholders. They were classified as “main clusters” for two reasons: 1) they had the most consistent representation by the same/similar people, and, 2) each appeared to be distinct from other main clusters, in that they represented different groups of street homeless people. Of the main clusters, all but two were downtown or in the immediate vicinity of the city core, with one outlier being in a broader wooded area on the outskirts of the most populous area of the city, and the other centrally located in a main urban center fairly close to downtown. Participants for one-to-one participatory mapping activity were drawn from these ten clusters that ended up having some overlap between them. Prior to commencing participatory mapping, I spent a significant time on the streets familiarizing myself with the clusters and learning about how time and space interacted to both facilitate and restrict homeless people’s access to preferred locations. I accompanied a local outreach worker from 63 the main downtown shelter twice a week for a month, and then twice monthly for the length of fieldwork to observe during early morning outings. These outings were used to rouse and connect with those sleeping rough before by-law enforcement or private security hired by downtown businesses displaced them. I also visited clusters outside of downtown, including in city parks and other commercial centers within the city. I continued this practice on an ongoing basis throughout fieldwork. 3.4.1.3 The Advisory Committee In order to promote power sharing and participation, I established an advisory committee composed of formerly street homeless individuals (adult women and men) to inform all aspects of research, including the recruitment of street homeless participants. Having an advisory committee is an important first step in building partnership with community (D’Alonzo, 2010; Minkler, 2004). Key logistical and ethical issues were dealt with through this committee including how findings would be shared and to verify potential social action outcomes (D’Alonzo, 2010; Michalak et al., 2012; Minkler, 2004). The advisory committee for the project was composed of five adults who were formerly street homeless (street homeless within past year) - two women and three men. In order to allow time for the advisory committee to meet before fieldwork began and provide input into the research design, including confirming the list of ten main clusters identified by key homelessness stakeholders, meetings commenced three months prior to fieldwork. Advisory committee meetings continued on a monthly basis (second Tuesday of each month) for eighteen months, until three months after all the components of fieldwork were complete (July 2016 – January 2018). Additionally, when advisory committee members were unable to attending meetings or had further thoughts they wanted 64 to express outside of the group, I met with them individually at a time/location (usually a coffee shop or restaurant downtown) convenient for them. Members for the advisory committee were recruited through a street-level homelessness resource in Kelowna (Partners in Employment Resources or PIERS). At the time, PIERS was contracted by the provincial government to support/secure housing for individuals who had been homeless for at least one year. To begin, I contacted the organization by email (see attached “Letter of Initial Contact & Recruitment for Advisory Committee Members” in Appendix D), organized a time to meet with key managers/staff, and during the meeting, outlined the project and any expectations of advisory committee members. The organization (managers and staff) agreed to assist in recruiting individuals for the advisory committee using the recruitment poster I provided (see Appendix E). Since their mandate for services extended beyond the point when people were housed, the agency naturally worked with individuals who were recently homeless but were now housed. This was important in accessing potential members who had recent first-hand knowledge and experience of homelessness in Kelowna, but who were not currently homelessness. Given the precariousness and all-consuming nature of street homeless, having members who were not homeless made the required responsibility for the advisory committee more reasonable and manageable, as well as making and maintaining contact with individual members easier. It also provided a bit of emotional distance for committee members, all of whom had been housed for about one year when they were recommended for participation. In identifying prospective members, it was important to ensure they didn’t have a history of negative contact with each other that could result in problems from the street being brought into committee meetings. The “Letter of Informed Consent” for advisory committee members is located in Appendix F. Inclusion criteria included: being a minimum of 19 years of age; able to speak/understand English; willingness to attend monthly committee meetings; and, have 65 lived in Kelowna for minimum of two years. Potential members were excluded if they did not meet these criteria, if they were unable to commit to attending monthly advisory committee meetings, and/or to not do so under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. Five prospective members for the advisory committee were identified by the PIERS resource. With the assistance of the associated workers, I contacted each person (by phone or email) and set up an individual meeting to review the requirements of participation, to review/sign confidentiality agreements, and to confirm the schedule of meetings. Meetings were held in public locations (e.g., the main branch of the Okanagan Regional Library, coffee shop) within the downtown core in spaces (e.g., backrooms, closed meeting spaces) that allowed for private conversations. I provided food and beverages during meetings, covered transportation costs through the provision of bus tickets, and gave committee members a small token of appreciation ($10 gift card from local coffee shop, restaurant, or grocery store) at every meeting they attended. With the permission of advisory committee members, meetings were audio-recorded, and I also took extensive notes. 3.4.2 Mapping Temporal & Spatial Aspects of Street Homeless Social Capital 3.4.2.1 Street Homeless Participants I recruited street homeless participants using purposive sampling from each of the ten main clusters identified by key homelessness stakeholders and validated through the advisory committee. In order to capture seasonal fluctuations in homelessness and street level activity, I conducted twelve months of fieldwork (October 2016 - October 2017). Potential participants were included if they self-defined as being currently “unsheltered” and/or “emergency sheltered”, had some form of disabling condition (e.g., drug or alcohol addiction, physical impairment, serious mental illness), and if they had experienced three or more previous homeless episodes within the last year. As noted 66 in the introduction, this is consistent with the government of Canada’s definition of episodic homelessness - as being currently homeless, experiencing “three or more episodes of homelessness in the last year,” and having some form of disabling condition (EDSC, 2014b). As chronic homelessness is more severe than episodic homelessness, requiring a person to be homeless six months of the last year to be consider “chronically homeless,” by using the definition of episodic homelessness to screen in participants I naturally captured those considered chronically homeless as well. Additional inclusion criteria included: being 19 years of age, able to speak/understand English, living in Kelowna for at least a year, and expressing a willingness to participate. Potential mapping participants were excluded if they did not meet these criteria, or if they were unable to provide informed consent. Once contact was made with members of the individual clusters, snowball sampling occurred. As people learned about the research, they in turn suggested other individuals and/or groups that I should consult. At the point when additional potential participants were suggested, I would inquire about how best to connect with them. This usually involved looking for them at a particular location and time. Outside of the members of the advisory committee, I did not have specific contact information for street homeless participants. Establishing and maintaining contact with them was possible through knowing their specific temporal and spatial patterns. 3.4.2.2 Participatory Mapping I conducted both individual and group participatory mapping activities with street homeless people, although the bulk of time was spent working with individuals on a one-to-one basis. In connecting with potential participants for individual participatory mapping sessions, I went out during different times of the day (morning, afternoon, evening) and during different days of the week to accurately capture the people who were actually out there. I either directly approached 67 individuals on the street or when able, I set up a small table and two chairs in the direct vicinity of one or more of the clusters and waited for potential participants to approach me. When contact was made, I introduced myself, explained what I was doing and why, and inquired about their willingness to participate. If people expressed an interest in being involved and were unable to meet immediately, we set a time and place to meet. If they were able meet right away, sketch mapping was conducted immediately on the spot. I began individual mapping sessions by verbally reviewing consent with potential participants, addressing any questions or concerns they had about their involvement, and ensuring that their consent to participate was received. The script for my “Initial Contact & Informed Consent” interaction with potential mapping participants is in Appendix G. Although I had a script I could reference during fieldwork, it was important to me not to overwhelm or turn potential participants off in a street homeless context by appearing too bureaucratic through the use of multiple forms they had to review/sign or overly intrusive by asking too many screening questions. As result, all my interactions with street homeless mapping participants were done orally, including consent. In addition, I tried to be more conversational in my interactions, which meant that I never read scripts verbatim and only used them as a guide to ensure that important information was not missed. Individual mapping sessions were not audio-recorded because the advisory committee felt that recording these sessions was too intrusive, especially given the likelihood that highly personal information would be shared. In order to capture the content of sessions, I used a notebook and took notes during session, while still being present and responsive to participants. Immediately after the session ended, I wrote up the remainder of my notes. I typed my handwritten notes from individual mapping sessions (word documents) so that they were in a format that could be analyzed using NVivo. In consultation with advisory committee members, we determined that a $10 gift card (for 68 a local restaurant or grocery store) would be appropriate compensation for individual mapping participants (one per session). We decided on this amount because advisory committee members felt it was not enough to compel someone to participate who didn’t want to (Goodman et al., 2004), but was enough to demonstrate respect and provide some measure of compensation for those who did, while not putting a person at increased risk of robbery or assault. Participants were given the gift certificate at the beginning of the session and I made it clear it was for them to keep whether or not the session continued. The demographic information I gathered on each mapping participant included: age, sex (female/male), race or ethnicity (self-identify), health status (physical health, mental health status, presence of addiction/type of addiction), and information on length of homelessness (number of homeless episodes, length of current episode, and length of average episode). In keeping with Bourdieu’s definition of social capital, I broke out social capital into two components using Bates and Torro’s (1999) typology of social support (tangible, advice, belonging, self-esteem) and Molina’s (2000) delineation of networks of social support on which homeless people rely (non-kin, family or kin, formal service networks). Participants were first asked to identify the most important people in their lives, and then one at a time, relevant information was gathered on each person. Two main sets of related questions were asked of each identified relationship. Firstly, Molina’s (2000) delineation of homeless people’s networks of support and Bates and Torro’s (1999) typology of social support was used as the framework for inquiry regarding the nature of each relationship (who they are in relation to participant) and the sources of support received through each relationship (what forms of support do they provide). For each identified source of support, participants were also asked if they considered this person to be a primary source of support. In assessing space-time dimensions of homeless social capital, 69 participants were asked about frequency of contact - when, where, and how they are in contact with the person, the length of time known, and if they knew them before becoming homeless. See Appendix H for a summary of the information gathered through individual participatory mapping sessions. Once their inventory of social capital was fully developed, meaning that the participant had exhausted their list of social support, they drew each of their identified relationships on a map. The probing questions I used to assist them in this task included: Where do you see them? Where are they located? Where do you connect with them? Where did you last connect? Participants were given a large sized blank sheet of paper on which to map their place-based relationships, as well as the pathways between sources of social capital. They were provided with different coloured markers and pens to assist them in drawing their maps. Although challenges related to the outdoor location of fieldwork made it difficult to do sketch mapping on occasion, particularly when it was raining or snowing, the level of spatial detail I was able to gather through interviews (verbally) with individual mapping participants was sufficient to geocode narrative data in the absence of completed sketch maps. I used group participatory mapping as a way to illuminate gender differences in the spatio-temporal aspects of homeless social capital for street homeless participants. Over the course of fieldwork, I conducted four group participatory mapping sessions total, two with groups of street homeless women and two with groups of street homeless men. Group mapping participants were recruited through one of the two main local shelters - one that exclusively served women and the other that was almost exclusively accessed by men. This approach allowed participants to be separated into groupings based on sex using a female-male binary - a task that would have been extremely difficult on the street. In accessing participants for the group mapping activity, I 70 immediately differentiated them (in terms of sex) based on where they accessed shelter services. By this I mean that users of “female-only shelters” were assumed to be female, and users of “men’s shelter” were assumed to be male. Once I convened group mapping sessions, I was able to confirm participants’ sex, thus validating their assumed status. It is important to note that no participants identified as gender diverse or something other than either biologically female or male for either individual or group mapping activities. Although I acknowledge that sex/gender are far more nuanced and complex than a female/male dichotomy suggests (Johnson et al, 2009), this division was necessary to do a gender analysis of the space-time aspects of homeless social capital. The shortcomings of this approach are discussed further in the “Limitations & Future Research” section of Chapter 5 - Discussion. To set-up group mapping activities, I began by contacting each of the shelter managers (by phone), briefly explaining the project, and asking if I could come to the facility to speak to residents and conduct a group mapping with those interested and willing to participate. For both shelters, a time was scheduled for me to attend the shelter and meet with interested residents. As the turnover of residents could be significant from day-to-day, using a poster to advertise in advance of these sessions and scheduling them days or weeks ahead of time was not an effective strategy. Therefore, I could not recruit participants in advance of group mapping activities and had do it on the spot, once I arrived at the shelter. For all the group mapping activities (four total), my approach was the same. I attended the shelter at the scheduled time, set up my supplies in one of the main rooms (dining room or living room) and waited for people to approach me. Once I identified a number of interested participants (seven or eight per session), I briefly met with each individually to collect their demographic information. The demographic information gathered for each group mapping participant was the same 71 information I collected from participants in individual mapping sessions (age, sex, race or ethnicity, health status, and information on length of homelessness). On a group-basis, I reviewed confidentiality and consent and addressed any questions or concerns. Only after consent was provided (orally) by each participant (see Appendix I for the script for groups mapping sessions) did the mapping activities commence. Participants were provided with large blank sheets of paper on which to construct their group map(s), as well coloured pens and markers. In thinking about the people and relationships most important in their day-to-day lives, I instructed participants to draw those places in Kelowna they viewed as being receptive or welcoming of them, those they felt were not, and whenever possible, to clarify their rationale for the difference between the two. Similar to the individual sessions, I did not audio-record group sessions, but instead took extensive and detailed notes throughout group mapping sessions and wrote up any additional notes immediately after each session concluded. 3.4.3 Leveraging Research Findings The integration and analysis of data occurred throughout research, as data was gathered through different sources. Four main sources of data were collected and integrated through the research process: 1) interviews with key homelessness stakeholders (street homeless clusters/location and notes/transcripts), 2) individual sketch mapping sessions with street homeless women and men (demographic information, inventory of homeless social capital, sketch maps of locale, note/transcripts), 3) group sketch mapping sessions with separate groups of street homeless women and men (inventory of receptive and negative spaces, sketch maps, and notes/transcripts), 4) advisory committee meetings (notes/transcripts of meetings). As previously noted, individual mapping participants were drawn from the ten main clusters identified through interviews with key stakeholders and validated by the advisory committee. I used 72 NVivo and Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six step coding process to code the transcripts of interviews with key stakeholders and sketch mapping sessions. Through these combined methods, overarching locale types of the space-time aspects of street homeless social capital began to emerge. I used reflexive member checking (Creswell, 2014) to confirm the accuracy and fit of emerging types by continuously taking them back to advisory committee and key homelessness stakeholders as they took shape. This continued until the advisory committee members and key stakeholders felt the types were fully developed because there was nothing further to add based on the data. I used principles of saturation to know when to stop individual participatory mapping sessions (Creswell, 2014; Fusch & Ness, 2015) - once no new themes emerged and key stakeholders and advisory committee members indicated that types were fully developed (after approximately one year of fieldwork). As a way to integrate methods and transform data so that it could be represented cartographically, I geocoded narrative data. This included the locations of homeless hot spots or clusters from interviews with key stakeholders and the locations of main sources of social capital for the types identified through individual mapping sessions. Based on feedback from the advisory committee who expressed concern about the privacy of mapping participants and their sources of social capital if individual maps were shared publicly, the maps from individual mappings sessions with street homeless people were not shared in the focus group with key stakeholders. For this same reason, they are also not presented in this dissertation. Although this was done to protect street homeless participants’ privacy, in the analysis of data it was the transcripts of the notes from individual mapping sessions and not the maps themselves that were richest in detail and most contributed to research findings. Mapping was simply a conduit for having a highly contextualized discussion regarding their social capital and the maps street homeless participants produced often did not reflect 73 the depth of the discussion that was inspired through them. Because group maps were a collective effort and did not identify any personal information (all public places/spaces identified), the advisory committee did not object to the maps from group sessions being shared. Over and above sharing the four maps produced in group mapping sessions with street homeless women and men with key stakeholders, the locations of receptive and non-receptive places/spaces, including spaces of care and risk were geocoded and input into Google Earth. NVivo was used to code the notes from group mapping using the same six-step coding process noted earlier (Braun & Clarke, 2006). My analysis was ongoing and continued throughout data collection, allowing me to confirm the themes from group mapping sessions with the advisory committee and key stakeholders as they emerged. Apart from simply validating emergent themes, the advisory committee in particular, was instrumental in deepening my thinking related to each theme. In total, there were eighteen advisory committee meetings through the course of research. Audio-recordings of meetings were transcribed and coded using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) coding process. Again, because analysis was conducted through the course of the research, I was able to member check (Creswell, 2014) key themes from meetings with the members themselves. As the focus of meetings was on what the results and analysis of what was occurring through fieldwork, including the themes emanating from individual and group mapping sessions, the themes from advisory committee meetings mirrored those of fieldwork. Input from the advisory committee greatly enriched understanding of these themes through examples, further context, additional considerations, etc. Through the use of geocoding, I transformed narrative data into defined spatial “layers” in Google Earth that represented a combination of social and territorial information (Miquel Verd & Porcel, 2012). Layering is the “super imposition of various independent layers, one upon the other, 74 to produce a heterogeneous and ‘thickened surface’” (Corner, 1999, p. 95). I used this approach because it allowed me to spatially make visible qualitative data through a cartographic interface. Through this interface, data could then be compared and contrasted in different ways by simply turning some layers on and other layers off. In this way, my approach greatly enhanced my analysis of the qualitative data. I worked with the advisory committee to determine the best way to represent maps thematically through the various layers. In particular, when and where to best use colour coding. The different mapping layers, along with the findings from the thematic analysis of notes/transcripts of interviews, individual and group mapping sessions, and advisory committee meetings, were used in focus groups with key stakeholders (one) and with the advisory committee (one) to leverage research findings. The script for the focus groups can be found in Appendix J. The combined use of geocoded narrative data with the findings from the thematic analysis significantly enhanced understanding of the spatial aspects of homeless social capital, as well as increasing the likelihood that practical recommendations would result from them. 75 4. FINDINGS In the Findings Chapter, I summarize my research findings from the multiple methods and participant sources I used in this study. There are three main sections in this Chapter that correspond with the three main categories of findings identified through this research. Findings range from macro-level, community-wide trends in homelessness, though at times moving into increasing levels of specificity, focusing exclusively on the experiences and voices of street homeless participants. In the first section, I provide an overview of the state of street homelessness in Kelowna highlighting issues of prevalence, composition, need level, and spatial trends. In this section I also summarize the demographics and the health-related needs of participants. In the second section, I outline the six types or categories of homeless capital identified through this research, each reflecting distinct geographies of homeless social capital. Through this discussion I highlight the specific markers or the factors that collectively define individual types. I also review the mitigating factors that mediate street homeless people’s access to place-based sources of social capital. In the third and final section, I focus exclusively on the experiences of street homeless people through a summary of the themes that emerged from participatory mapping sessions (one-on-one and group) that cut across different locale types. In this section the inter-related dimensions of social capital, place/space, and time are discussed separately to draw attention to their unique and shared or intersecting elements. 4.1 The State of Homelessness – Kelowna, BC When reflecting on the current state of homelessness in Kelowna, participants, most notably key stakeholders with expertise in homelessness locally and advisory committee members, tended to conceptualize homelessness chronologically, by comparing the current situation to how things were 76 in the past. Among key homelessness stakeholders in particular, there were differing views regarding the changing prevalence of street homelessness over the last fifteen years - they either thought it was comparable or slightly better now or that it was demonstrably worse now than ever before, with the majority believing the latter. The nature of this discrepancy is drawn across geographic lines with those working in the downtown core identifying the situation as improved, though approaching numbers seen in the mid-2000s during a sharp rise in homelessness and street-level drug use, and those working beyond the downtown area perceiving it as worse than ever before. In comparing people’s perceptions, downtown is a more precise geographic gauge of street level homelessness, with the opinions of stakeholders with specialized knowledge of homelessness in the core of the city being the most accurate in terms of actual numbers. This is because over the last fifteen years, homelessness has consistently existed downtown, which has not been the case for more peripheral areas. As a result, it is a better geographical area through which to read variations in homelessness over time. A report prepared for the Regional District of the Central Okanagan Governance & Services Committee (Walsh, 2011), noted there were 269 street homeless people counted in 2007 through the federally-funded Homelessness Partnering Strategy (HPS). People were counted as “street homeless” if they self-identified as being homeless and were sleeping in emergency housing including shelters, were sleeping rough on the street, or were found in a location not intended for human habitation (Walsh, 2011). In 2016, using the same methodology as the 2007 count, the Point in Time (PIT) Count (also under HPS) identified 233 homeless people (Sharp, 2016). Assuming all things being equal between these two counts, this is a 15% decrease in street level homelessness between 2007 and 2016. Although the most recent PIT Count for 2018 (McKenzie, 2018) indicated that numbers of street homeless have risen beyond previous highs seen in the 2000’s, 286 homeless 77 people (a 6% increase from 2007), this result is outside of the timeframe of fieldwork. The fact remains, that in terms of absolute numbers, street homelessness was worse in the 2000’s than during my fieldwork period, yet most participants believed that during this period it was improved. While this raises questions about the value of counting people as an effective measure of the severity of street homelessness, particularly in the minds of those most connected and generally knowledgable about the issue, these questions are beyond the scope of this research. The point here is that prevalence is only one measure of street homelessness, and there are multiple other factors that contribute to people’s perceptions of its severity. In this research, there were four main factors that influenced participants’ perceptions of the state of homelessness in Kelowna. The first is the growing diversity of those counted among the homeless, an observation echoed by all participants. Key stakeholders, in particular, talked about how they “used to know all the faces of people on the street,” but now routinely encounter people they have never seen before. One of the policing representatives referred to “the new wave of street homeless” as “all the people passing through the area and getting stuck here.” Across the board, homelessness is on the rise for all groups of people, including “moms with babies, the working poor, youth, and elders” as stated by one service provider. Key stakeholders identified a pronounced trend in the extremeness of the ages of people living on the street. As a street outreach worker put it, “We are encountering more older and really young people,” which is something not seen previously. This finding is consistent with trends identified nationally; specifically, a growing incidence of street homelessness among women and children, (Gaetz et al., 2013), as well as both younger and older populations (Gaetz, Dej, Richter, & Redman, 2016). Underscoring the observations of participants, during fieldwork a story appeared on the local news about an entire family, including a grandmother, parents and five young children 78 living in their vehicles off a secluded access road outside of Kelowna (Global News, August 23rd, 2017). The growing diversity within the broader street homeless population is reflected in the wide range of reasons people cited for being homeless. The reasons outlined below are primarily based on the experiences of the mapping participants, but in the description, I also capture some experiences of homeless people who did not participate in mapping sessions. This is because I interacted with so many homeless people on a daily basis who knew I was conducting research on homelessness and wanted to share certain thoughts and experiences with me. The reasons given for being homeless varied from a multitude of bureaucratic (e.g., problems with accessing pension or disability funds, missing appointments, getting name wrong on documents) and labour market challenges (e.g., “I came to Kelowna to find work and I can’t find a job”, “I get shut out of work opportunities because I don’t have certifications”), to systemic issues, most commonly, coming to Kelowna for treatment and/or medical care and ending up on the street because they fell through the cracks within and between systems. The most common reason participants cited for being homeless was related to their relationships with others. To instance, one young woman who came to Kelowna with her boyfriend, when “he got locked up” she lived in car until it was towed away. Without the funds to get her car out of impound, she was left to fend for herself on the streets of Kelowna. Several people talked about staying in Kelowna even though they had better options for housing elsewhere. This was done in order to stay close to family members (e.g., adult children, grandchildren, or parents), even if they didn’t often see them. Many spoke about the loss of an important relationship - a parent, partner/spouse, or friend, as the turning point in their trajectory of homelessness. One man commented how he had originally moved to Kelowna to be close to family and even though they are all deceased now, he stays because he has nowhere else to go. 79 Underscoring the cultural divide between street and mainstream cultures, on the opposite end of the spectrum others indicated they stay precisely because they aren’t from Kelowna and want to keep their homeless existence separate from their housed or mainstream lives. By staying in Kelowna and far away from family members who live in other areas of the province or country, they’re protecting their loved ones from the inevitable pain and shame of their situation. As put by one woman with several adult children, “I can’t go home. At least I know if I am here, I am not a burden or an embarrassment to my family.” The second factor influencing perceptions of street homelessness is the extreme level of need evident among current street homeless populations. As a whole, homeless people in Kelowna are more in crisis with more overlapping and complex health and social issues than seen previously. Again, this finding is consistent with research on homelessness nationally (Gaetz et al., 2016). As described by a key stakeholder, “The problem is on steroids. People are so messed up, so far gone. We don’t even know how they got here.” Chief among multiple compounding health issues are Serious Mental Illness and/or concurrent or co-occurring mental health and substance abuse problems. For service providers facing an onslaught of new people on a daily basis each with numerous, compounding problems - “trauma, addiction, severe poverty, and abuse” - the experience can be overwhelming. As stated by an outreach worker within the shelter system, “We are experiencing a level of need we have not seen before. It is hard to know where to even start when trying to help people.” The escalating need and resulting dependency on services among street homeless people in Kelowna is consistent with the findings from a comprehensive review of the emergency shelter system in Canada (ESDC, 2014a). As noted in the report, while there has been a decline in shelter use since the 2000’s in terms of absolute numbers of people accessing shelter beds, the Canadian shelter system is more overburdened than ever. This is occurring for two related 80 reasons: 1) homeless people are using shelters as more permanent housing versus their intended use as a short-term “emergency” housing (ESDC, 2014a), and 2) federal and provincial governments are increasingly opting to invest in less crisis-based responses to homelessness in an effort to actually reduce the number of homeless people versus simply manage them (Gaetz et al., 2016). In other words, the demand for existing shelter beds has increased significantly, yet the investment in the number of shelter beds has remained virtually unchanged. As a result, Canada’s shelter system is operating at 92% of capacity, and likely more now than in 2014. So, while fewer people are using shelters, those who access shelters are doing so more frequently and they are staying longer. As one key stakeholder put it, “Once people get in the shelter rut, they just can’t get out.” Many street homeless people talked about being “terrified” or having a “big fear” of being kicked out of shelter services because, as one homeless man with severe mental health problems living at the downtown shelter put it, “I got nowhere else to go.” The overdose crisis currently occurring in Canada is greatly complicating the issue of chronicity and overall mortality within street homeless populations in Kelowna, with the most significant effects to-date being felt in BC. In 2016, after a significant increase in overdose deaths in 2015 (474 deaths or a 30% increase over 2014), the Provincial Health Officer declared the overdose crisis a public health emergency in BC. Since that time, the number of overdose deaths spiked during research fieldwork to what was at the time, a record number with 1420 deaths in BC in 2017, a 43% increase from 2016 (BC Coroners Service, 2018). In Kelowna, there were 75 overdose deaths in 2017, 28 more than in 2016 (BC Coroners Service, 2018); and, per population, Kelowna had the highest rate of hospitalizations due to opioid poisoning in 2016-2017 in Canada (Canadian Institute for Health Information, 2018). Although the overdose crisis is much broader than homeless populations and impacts all walks of life, with the greatest percentage of overdose deaths still 81 consistently occurring in private residences with around 60% of total deaths (BC Coroners Service, 2018), since 2016, there has been steady increase in the number of overdose deaths occurring in locations primarily occupied by homeless people - namely, “other residences” (e.g., shelters, rooming houses, motels) and “outside” (e.g., streets, sidewalks, and alleyways; city parks; wooded areas). According to a report prepared by the BC Coroners Service (2018), as a percentage of the overall drug overdose deaths, there was a 3% increase in the number occurring “outside” and in “other residences” between 2016 and 2017, while the deaths in private residences decreased by almost the same percentage. This trend has continued throughout 2018. During fieldwork there wasn’t a single conversation, interview, mapping session, or other interaction, that in some way, did not touch on fentanyl or the broader overdose crisis. Overdose rates are also linked to the timing of the distribution of social assistance benefits, with a significant increase in overdose deaths immediately after monthly income assistance distribution dates (BC Coroners Service, 2018). This is an indicator of the high degree of risk of overdose death among the most poverty stricken in society, of which street homeless people are the most extreme example. Within a few short months after fieldwork, at least seven street homeless people who participated in this study died of different causes, primarily drug overdoses and/or suspected suicides by overdose. A third factor is the changing geography homelessness driven by the increasing dispersal of street homeless people into areas outside of the downtown core, especially business improvement areas and forested regions within and on the boundaries of the municipality. As a result of being displaced from key sources of social capital, homeless people, if/when they’re physically able, are forced to move between the places/spaces where they’re allowed to occupy and where they are able to access their sources of social capital. As it has been for years, visible street homelessness is more commonplace downtown which remains a hub of homeless and street level activity irrespective of 82 where people camp and/or sleep at night. This is why downtown is, or at least has been, a better barometer of the prevalence of street homelessness; but that too, appears to be changing. For many reasons including social control (e.g., bylaw enforcement, private security, being banned from downtown) and an effort to avoid police or similar others, homeless people are increasingly moving to spaces outside of the city core, most notably within urban parks. According to a Regional Park Manager who finds indicators of homelessness, like sleeping bags or extinguished camp fires, on a daily basis, “The problem is ten times worse than it’s ever been.” As a form of spatial leveraging and in an effort to create some stability in the likelihood that the parks department finds and makes them dismantle one of their camps, street homeless people often have two or more camps that they frequent that are located in different wooded areas. An interesting trend identified through discussions with key stakeholders working downtown and in local parks is that transient or new people in the city tend to stay downtown “close to the action,” whereas and locals, most specifically longer-term vulnerable homeless people and groups, are increasingly moving into wooded areas away from the downtown. The final reason why street homelessness presents as more severe is that the homeless or street culture is more defined. By that I mean, there is more industry and structure established around homelessness. Namely, a more established or well developed system of service delivery, as well as policies and associated social control tactics aimed at regulating homeless people’s presence in urban space; increased “social organization” among street homeless into “couples,” “street families,” “camps,” or other forms of so-called “ride or die relationships” mainly for protection; and, a rise in exploitation and victimization by predatory groups targeting vulnerable populations. As noted by several key stakeholders, there also seems to be more local media coverage, more related social media posts, and more discussion generally about homelessness. As both a cause and 83 a symptom of the growing street culture in Kelowna, all participants talked about the level of volatility and violence increasing dramatically, including as an example, “bikers preying on little tiny kids.” One key stakeholder described it as “an anything goes attitude” and a “culture of absolute disregard” where victimization of the most vulnerable among those on the street is commonplace. All of this has the effect of deepening the divide between street and mainstream culture In understanding the severity of street homelessness, clearly numbers only tell part of the story. Considering the changing diversity, chronicity, geography, and culture of street homelessness paints a more accurate picture of the state of homelessness than prevalence alone. The many and varied practical implications of these findings are detailed in the Discussion Chapter. 4.1.1 Description of Street Homeless Mapping Participants A total of twenty-nine (29) street homeless people participated in one-to-one participatory mapping sessions: eleven (11) women and eighteen (18) men. Men ranged in age from 23 – 66 years old with the average age being 41.5 years. The ages of women ranged from 29 – 55 years, with the average age of women participants being approximately 46 years, slightly older than that of men. An additional sixteen (16) women and fourteen (14) men participated in group participatory mapping sessions (separated into groupings based on sex), with the average age of participants in the women’s group being 45 years old and 44 years for men. Although the most recent homelessness count (McKenzie, 2018) indicated that one percent of the homeless population in Kelowna identifies as transgendered, no participants in my research identified as having diverse gender identities. On average, men who participated in my research were homeless significantly longer than women: men were homeless between 4 months – 5 years, averaging approximately 2 years; women were homeless between 3 months –1 year, averaging around 6 months. Women were more likely to have 84 multiple homeless episodes in the previous year, while men were more likely to have been consistently throughout most if not all of the preceding year. Participants identified as Indigenous, Caucasian, or French Canadian, with the majority of both women and men identifying as Caucasian (67% of men and 73% for women). The second most prevalent race category was Indigenous, with 27% of men and 20% of women identifying as First Nations/Indigenous. In terms of substance abuse/addictions, more women identified as having an addiction to alcohol (45%) versus drugs/poly drug addiction (18%) which means that they use multiple substances including potentially opioids, stimulants, and alcohol. For men, 44% identified as having a drug addiction (opioids and stimulants), 11% indicating poly drug addiction (opioid, stimulants, and alcohol), and 33% noted the presence of an addiction to alcohol. There was only one woman and one man among participants who indicated they did not have an alcohol and/or drug addiction, that had at some point contributed to their homelessness. Although trauma was common among all participants, severe and longstanding mental health issues were indicated among at least 20% of the total sample study. This number is high relative to the most recent PIT count for Kelowna (McKenzie, 2018), where only 8% of respondents indicated they lost their housing due to an illness or medical condition and 5% said mental health was a barrier to housing. However, it is revealing that 27% of homeless respondents in the 2017 PIT count said they were on disability assistance (McKenzie, 2018), which suggests a higher incidence of disabilities including potentially mental health problems than reported. 85 4.2 Geographies of Street Homeless Social Capital 4.2.1 Typologizing Street Homeless Locales As outlined in the Methodology Chapter, the basis of my research approach involved identifying known clusters of homeless people occupying different identified “homeless hot spots” and sampling from within these groupings as a way to inform understanding of the space-time aspect of homeless social capital for different groups of street homeless people. In preparing for fieldwork and throughout fieldwork, I spent a significant amount of time talking to participants about the nature of the clusters. Through these discussions and other methods that I used in this research, two things stood out most. The first is the strength of homeless people’s socio-spatial ties to the urban environment. As aptly put by a female mapping participant in reference to street homeless people’s ardent connection to place, “Spatially, we are creatures of habit.” Despite routinely being dispersed from their preferred locations in the urban environment for a host of reasons, most frequently social control tactics, time and time again, people are drawn back to the same locations. As stated by an outreach worker, “When the police clean out an area, it may take a few days, but people re-group again in the same locations.” Complaints emanating from the business community provide further evidence of this occurrence. According to one key stakeholder with direct ties to downtown businesses, “Business owners are seeing the same people all the time. It’s the same ones who are always there.” While homeless people’s strong connection to place is well documented in the homelessness literature (Hodgetts et al., 2007; Malins, Fitzgerald & Threadgood, 2006), street homeless people in this study demonstrated an almost magnetic connection to place that kept the same people coming back to the same places at the same times, and this connection endured despite external efforts to disrupt it. 86 The second is the specificity of individual clusters or groups of street homeless people and the degree to which they are differentiated from each other, in most cases right down to age, sex, length of homelessness, and the drug of choice of constituents. The specific markers that define those within clusters were common knowledge among research participants. In fact, these markers were often used as a way to identify different locations within the urban environment. For instance, “That’s the place where the older drunks who like to socialize hang out”; “That is where the guys who hang out all day and smoke pot are”; or, “Only the old-time Kelowna homeless know to go there”. In this way, over time different groups of street homeless people and street people in general, become synonymous with different locations in the urban environment. I worked with the advisory committee members to analyze and interpret the notes and coded transcripts from the mapping sessions I conducted with street homeless participants and my interviews with key homelessness stakeholders. An obvious and very natural thing we began to do was look for and identify the indicators or markers of different clusters. If key homelessness stakeholders and street homeless people themselves were defining groups of street homeless people based on different factors or qualities, it was important for us to make these factors explicit. As an example, key homelessness stakeholders defined a cluster of older men who would hang out near the bus loop and drink all day, who also spend time outside of the main downtown shelter. Why was this group of street homeless people different from another? What were those things most important in defining their differences? How do others know what makes them different from another group? What brings members of this cluster together? In this way, we developed our understanding of the locales types and how they were structured through the process of identifying the markers that defined them. 87 As we worked through this process, there was another set of factors or variables at play that was also central in determining the socio-spatiality of street homelessness, and where street homeless participants were at any given time and how they moved through urban space. This involved a broader or more overarching category of factors that while related to markers and in fact, overlapping with them in couple cases, are different. More than simply defining locales, these variables which we referred to as “mediators”, mediated or regulated participants’ access to participants’ sources social capital. Mediators of place-based homeless social capital are the limiters and expanders of street homeless people’s socio-spatial footprint, keeping them tethered to certain pockets of urban space, while barring them from access to others. They include not just the obvious mediators, like social control or police and by-law enforcement, but the subtle or hidden influencers that act on street homeless people’s spatial presence in the urban realm. The markers that define locale types and the broader mediating factors are each summarized separately below. 4.2.1.1 Locale Types & Categories of Markers Table 4.1 outlines the types of street homeless locales according to the markers that collectively define them. As discussed below, it is the interaction between different markers that determines the space-time aspects of homeless social capital that results in alternative locales with unique temporal and spatial dimensions. The summary of locale types provided is not intended to be an inclusive accounting of all possible groupings, but to outline the most pronounced locales evident through fieldwork. As noted in Table 4.1, I identified six locale types defined by eight categories of markers. The markers are: 1) whether they are emergency sheltered or sleeping rough, 2) whether they spend the majority of time (including where they sleep) inside or outside of the downtown core, 3) sex, 4) level 88 of visibility as a homeless person, 5) locale size (clustered or broad), 6) age, 7) chronicity, inclusive of length of current homeless episode (months or years), service dependency (low, medium, high), the likelihood of a Serious Mental Illness (SMI) (low, medium, high) and/or addiction/drug of choice (e.g., alcohol, stimulants, and/or opioids, or poly drug use), and 8) if they were alone or with others. The locale types are presented numerically (1 through 6) as a way to organize them. Before moving into a discussion of locale types and categories of markers, it is important to clarify how I used/defined chronicity as one of the markers of locales. As noted in the Introduction Chapter, in standard definitions of “chronic homelessness,” chronicity is defined by the amount of time spent in homelessness only (e.g., number of shelter bed days or homeless episodes in a year). Although time spent in homelessness is critical role in determining participants’ chronicity, framing chronicity as a purely temporal construct did not capture certain factors central in determining severity of homelessness for participants. Over and above time spent in street homelessness, the presence of a Serious Mental Illness (SMI) and/or an alcohol and/or drug addiction significantly heightened participants’ chronicity. These and other related issues are discussed more fully in the section on “Mediating Factors,” as well as in the Discussion Chapter. Table 4.1 Types of street homeless locales by marker Emergency Sheltered Locale Type 1 Markers Inside or outside downtown Downtown Sex Men and women Visibility Highly visible Locale size Tightly clustered (stay close to shelter/may work during day) Age 45yrs+ Chronicity: 1) Length of Homelessness 2) Likelihood of SMI 3) Addiction/Drug of Choice 1) Years 2) High 3) Alcohol Alone or with Others Both (around people more due to reliance on services) 89 Table 4.1 Types of street homeless locales by marker Locale Type 2 Markers Inside or outside downtown Downtown Sex Men and women Visibility Highly visible Locale size Tightly clustered (stay close to shelter) Age 30s and 40s (can be younger) Chronicity: 1) Length of Homelessness 2) Likelihood of SMI 3) Addiction/Drug of Choice 1) Months or Years 2) High 3) Stimulants and opioids Alone or with Others Alone (struggle in social situations) Locale Type 3 Markers Inside or outside downtown Outside of downtown Sex Women Visibility Hidden Locale size Broad Age 30s-50s Chronicity: 1) Length of Homelessness 2) Likelihood of SMI 3) Addiction/Drug of Choice 1) Months 2) Medium-High 3) Primarily alcohol Alone or with Others Alone (highly social; doing their own thing) Unsheltered (Sleeping Rough) Locale Type 4 Markers Inside or outside downtown Downtown Sex Men and women Visibility Visible Locale size Tightly clustered (primarily stay downtown) Age Can be older (45 yrs. +) or younger (20s and 30s) Chronicity: 1) Length of Homelessness 2) Likelihood of SMI 3) Addiction/Drug of Choice 1) Months 2) Medium 3) Alcohol (if older); stimulants + opioids (if younger) Alone or with Others Groups (separated out by age) Locale Type 5 Markers Inside or outside downtown Outside of downtown Sex Men and women Visibility Day (visible)/night (hidden) Locale size Tightly clustered Age 45yrs + Chronicity: 1) Length of Homelessness 2) Likelihood of SMI 3) Addiction/Drug of Choice 1) Years 2) Low 3) Alcohol Alone or with Others Couples or groups Locale Type 6 Markers Inside or outside of downtown Outside of downtown Sex Men Visibility Hidden Locale size Broad Age 35yrs + Chronicity: 1) Length of Homelessness 2) Likelihood of SMI 3) Addiction/Drug of Choice 1) Years 2) Low 3) Low level alcohol and/or poly drug use Alone or with Others Alone (highly antisocial) 90 4.2.1.2 Overview of Locale Types Locale 1 consists of an older demographic (40yrs +) who are heavy users of alcohol, are highly service dependent, and are highly visible in the urban environment. They most often cluster close to essential services (shelters) and/or liquor distribution outlets, although some within this locale type work during the day (e.g., paid income through temporary day labour and/or bottle collection). By staying close to the main downtown shelter, they are also close to sources of alcohol and potential sources of income because the main temporary employment agency is downtown as is a bottle depot. Women represent a minority of this group and tend not to participate in day labour but are aligned with men in all other respects. Locale 2 represents a younger demographic that is highly service dependent and are users of illicit drugs (stimulants and/or opioids) over alcohol. More than any other locale type, these individuals have a high likelihood of having a serious mental illness. They have extreme social challenges and are often the target of abuse and exploitation by others. They are also the group most likely to be banned from homelessness services for behavioural issues. Consequently, they are highly socially isolated despite being surrounded by people much of the time. Locale 3 is composed of women who access “female only” shelter services outside of the downtown area. By retreating into female-centred spaces of care, they have a low level of visibility as marked homeless people. The women in this locale type have a history of trauma and abuse, mental health and/or addiction problems, and they are at high risk of sex trade involvement. As a group they are more focused on their recovery than other locales and are in less absolute crisis. If but for the support of specialized shelter services for women, they would be absorbed into one of the other locale types. Locale 4 represents men and women sleeping rough on downtown streets (e.g., alcoves, parks, alleyways, etc.). Both older and younger groups are reflected in this locale type. If they’re older (over 40 years), they’re more likely to use alcohol over drugs and to access 91 homelessness services, including emergency shelters. If they’re younger (under 40 years), they tend to use stimulants and/or opioids or practice poly drug use and though they may access homelessness services, they do so to a lesser degree than the older individuals in this locale type. Locale 5 is the fourth and locale type in which women and men are represented, although women are greatly outnumbered by men. They sleep rough (most often as a group) outside of the downtown area in wooded areas not visible to the general public, yet in close proximity to their key source of income (e.g., bottle depot). Although conflicts arise, including disputes over ownership of the bottles they have collected mainly through “binning” and donations from the public, they generally work together as a collective to generate income and share in the proceeds of their efforts. Alcohol use is prevalent among this locale type. Locale 6 is the most geographically distinct and of all the locale types with the broadest spatial range. It is singularly composed of men who camp alone in hidden wooded areas that are often at great distances from the core of the city, sometimes as much as ten or more kilometres away. These men are highly mobile in large part because they have chosen their “camps” based on their isolation and the solitude they afford. Although highly antisocial and the least likely to access services of any kind, they are highly capable in relation to the other locale types. They generally have two or more camps in different areas and often have amassed a large quantity of belongings at each of their camps. Because their survival depends solely on their ability to fend for themselves, they have to be physically and mentally capable of sustaining what is a highly energetic and physically demanding geography of homeless social capital. As a result, they are less likely to be impacted by levels of drug/alcohol addiction and/or mental health problems that significantly impair functioning. 92 4.2.1.3 Interaction Between Markers There are multiple ways markers interact and collectively shape the space-time aspects of homeless social capital. The basic tenet in how markers operate is that they differentially impact the space-time aspects of homeless social capital based on their weighting or importance, with those being more important ultimately having more influence over behaviour. That is why homeless people who are service dependent stay close to important, life-sustaining sources of support and align their schedules with these essential services. It is also why homeless people with drug addictions stay downtown and close to the sources of their supply. Owing to the presence of certain markers, some locale types are obviously more at risk of assault, overdose, or other potential harms. Despite the importance and obvious relevance of individual markers, it is the combination of markers and interaction between them that determines the space-time aspects of street homeless social capital for the locale types, and ultimately, which are more likely to succumb to the street. Street homeless people sleep rough on public streets and in local parks out of necessity. Owing to problems with accessing shelter services as a result of being banned from services, because operating shelters are over capacity, and/or a desire to stay with others who sleep rough, street homeless people sleep on the streets instead of in shelters. For those who do access emergency shelters, location is a key motivator in the shelter people chose to access. There are more inherent risks in the downtown shelter system and downtown area more generally, particularly for women, but also for other vulnerable groups (e.g., older people, those physical disability and/or Serious Mental Illness). Although there is a greater risk of assault and other forms of violence downtown, the trade-off is it is easier to access alcohol and other drugs, as well vital services and supports for those who need to access these. There is also a more tolerant and accepting attitude towards homelessness in the downtown. This point is particularly important for street homeless people with 93 drug addictions and/or those with high service dependency, who are more likely to be in the downtown area as a result. Locale size is strongly linked to sources of social capital but not to number of sources. All street homeless participants indicated they have low levels of social capital, noting one or two sources at most, sometimes none at all. This in turn, did not translate into all participants having small locales, as one might expect. As a result of their low levels of social capital, they either stayed extremely close to a key source(s) of social capital, which means they have a small or tightly clustered locale or they travel relatively long distances, in some cases on a daily basis, to access their scant supply of social capital, resulting into a broad locale. It is in this way that size of locale depends on the interaction between the different markers. Specifically, whether they can physically walk or move across longer distances and how important a source of social capital is to their survival. The size of locale, conceptualized here as tightly clustered (small) or broad (large), is inversely related to service dependency. This means that the more service dependent a street homeless person is, the tighter or more clustered their locale because the closer they stay to services. The tendency for homeless people to cluster close to essential services results in what Dear and Wolch (1990) refer to as “zones of dependence.” Less service dependent street homeless people venture further away from services (outside of downtown) and thus tend to have broader locales. They represent the groups of homeless people living in hidden camps in wooded areas within and on edge of urban areas. Age also moderates locale size, with older people (50 yrs.+) generally having smaller locales, as well as those with pronounced mental health challenges. This is mainly because these individuals are more compromised and vulnerable in one way or the other, including physically, and/or are more reliant on institutionalized social capital. Source of income 94 and the presence and type of addiction impacts the space-time aspects of homeless social capital because people stay close to the source of their drug/alcohol supply and/or their income, which limits locale area. Women are represented in five of the six locale types - four that overlap with men and one comprised only of women. Women’s gendered geographies of homeless social capital identified in this study are consistent with the findings from a study by May et al. (2007) that examined the geographies of homelessness for visibly homeless women. In both May et al.’s (2007) study and this research, homeless women’s geographies were both distinct and the same as those of men. Some women resisted typical male representations of street homelessness by retreating into female spaces of care outside of downtown, while others were more embracing of male representations of homelessness and their identity as a visibly marked homeless person existing in public space. As a final comment here regarding locale types and categories of markers, in my analysis I recognize the value of using descriptors for locale types, in part, to avoid numbering them or something equally positivistic. I resisted this because doing so would put the emphasis of importance on the locales types themselves, and not the nature of the difference or interaction between them and their defining markers. It is not the locales types themselves that are of central importance, which as discussed, are subject to immense social, spatial, and temporal pressures through the trajectory of street homelessness. What is of paramount importance is that different locale types exist based on categories of markers across groups of street homeless people, and locales can be determined by understanding and identifying the different markers for street homeless people. 95 4.2.2 Mediating Factors Table 4.2 outlines mediating factors by category. Although they are presented as discrete items, as with the markers of locale types, different mediating factors overlap and interact to exacerbate the dislocation of street homeless people from sources of social capital. As indicated in Table 4.2, there are three categories of factors that mediate access to placed-based social capital: time, individual factors, representing different aspects of homeless identity, and social-structural factors. The interplay between these factors not only shapes what sources of social capital are available to street homeless people, but also their ability to access them and what sources they will ultimately value and rely more heavily upon. The more these factors intersect, for example, being a physically disabled elderly woman with an alcohol addiction in the middle of winter, the fewer socio-spatial options available and the more challenges the individual will experience in accessing what options are available. Table 4.2 Mediating factors by category. Mediating Factors Category Factors Time Timing of services Day/night Month Day/time of year Individual Habitus (including knowledge of area) Sex Race Source(s) of income Physical ability Age Chronicity • Length of homelessness • Mental health status • Addiction & drug of choice (alcohol; stimulants; opioids; poly-drug use) Alone, couple, or group Social Structural Social control Access to homelessness services 96 Temporal factors that mediate access to social capital are timing of homeless services (regulating when they can be accessed), whether it is day or night, time of month, and the season or time of year. The timing of homeless services greatly affects when and where street homeless people gather. In accessing recognized homeless services at different locations, the timing of services also determines when and where their presence in urban space is legitimatized. The temporal rhythm of the street changes markedly between day and night. Night presents different risks that some people avoid – like older street homeless people who leave the downtown core as soon as it gets dark – as well as opportunities that others embrace, including a more active and unencumbered street life. Time of month is directly tied to access to income and the distribution of social assistance, which has a profound impact on homeless people’s presence in spaces of care and in the urban environment more generally. Among service providers it is common knowledge that people will disappear for a days or weeks following cheque issue, only to resurface after the money is gone. For reasons I discuss below, there are greater risks to safety in certain homeless spaces depending on the time of month, especially for women. As a tourist town with a spike in tourism during the summer months, seasonality or time of year in Kelowna significantly impacts street homeless people’s access to place-based social capital. The influx of people to the area during the warmer months, including a marked increase in transiency, displaces the local street homeless population pushing them further out into the broader city and surrounding areas. In the winter, the colder weather draws homeless people into shelters and other services more than other times of the year. There are nine main individual factors or strands of identity that mediate access to placed-based social capital for street homeless participants. The first is habitus and specifically, the degree to which a street or homeless habitus has been developed. As previously discussed, enacting a homeless habitus reinforces identity as a street homeless person, and thus, profoundly shapes all 97 aspects of behaviour. Homeless habitus is reflected in people’s degree of streets smarts, not only in terms of who and what they know, and consequently where they spend time, but also their knowledge of local services and the broader geographic area. The second is sex, which is tied to the increased vulnerability of women in male dominated homeless spaces, including specifically, spaces of care (Duff, Deering, Gibson, Tyndall, & Shannon, 2011; May et al., 2007). The awareness of the risk to their safety in different homeless spaces greatly informs women’s choices about where they spend time, including when and where they seek support. The third is race, most specifically being an indigenous or non-indigenous Canadian. Race dictates options for homelessness services and other resources based on indigenous status, which has the effect of opening up some options and closing off others. The fourth is source of income. Whether street homeless people make money through bottle collection, panhandling, day employment through temp agencies, or some other activity, they tend to stay close to their source of income. The fifth is physical ability, which is important in street homeless people’s mobility and their ability to physically access different locations. This includes gaining access to more secure sleeping areas (e.g., on rooftops or in caves on the mountain side and/or walking long distances to camps located in the forest well outside of populated areas) versus sleeping downtown in more visible locations. The sixth aspect of identity that interacts with access to social capital is age. Older groups are often highly vulnerable, which has a direct impact on who they know and thus, where they locate themselves in the urban realm. Although youth can also be highly vulnerable and their vulnerability also shapes their socio-geographic profile, in this study I focused on places frequented by homeless adults and not youth. Older street homeless people stay closer to services, stick together in specific locations, and/or simply avoid known homeless locations as much as possible. The seventh is chronicity. As noted in the previous section, the definition of chronicity includes length of homelessness, the presence of 98 Serious Mental Ilness, and/or the presence of addiction to substances/drug of choice. The presence of serious mental illness and/or addiction to substances/drug of choice are added to what is a more traditional definition of chronicity because they are the factors most consequential to participants’ entrenchment in homelessness. This is because they reflect areas of increased vulnerability that massively ratchet-up the likelihood of problematic contacts with street affiliates and/or reliance on institutional sources of support. For instance, street homeless people with alcohol and/or drug addiction tend to stay close to the source of their supply. Although mental and substance use disorders are often co-occurring (Khan, 2017), mental health status and/or substance addiction/drug of choice are separated here to reflect the varied needs of participants. The eighth and final individual factor is whether they are alone or with others (in a couple or a group), with street homeless people being more likely to stay in certain locations if they are with others versus being alone (e.g., more public or exposed locations). There are two main social structural factors that impact access to place-based homeless social capital. The first is social control and the second is access to services. For obvious reasons, the push and pull factors of social control, including intermittent sweeps of homeless camps and other homeless hot spots and the use of bylaw ticketing to restrict homeless people presence in certain locations within the urban realm, significantly impacts access to sources of social capital. Access to services, the second and final social structural factor, is about where street homeless receive services and issues of access, which can change hourly. The most significant problem with access noted by participants in this study is being banned from services or not being able to access needed services because of capacity issues and waitlists. 99 4.3 Thematic Analysis 4.3.1 Street Homeless Social Capital 4.3.1.1 Bridging the Cultural Divide Although participants want to remain connected to their housed existence, the divide between street and mainstream cultures increasingly distances them from their mainstream relationships. One young man with severe opioid addiction talked about how he got “ditched by his friends” when he became homeless, including being “unfriended on Facebook.” The loss of these relationships is often a significant source of pain. As stated by a man staying at the downtown shelter for the last several months, “I know I can’t trust people on the street. The real pain in my life has been caused by those I thought I could trust. When they turn their back on you, what can you do?” Many participants expressed a sense inevitability or acceptance regarding the loss of mainstream relations when they became homeless. As a male participant with a severe heroin addiction said of his former mainstream relations, “They can’t be friends with people who are homeless. They would be guilty by association.” Embracing an ethos of separation or division between street and mainstream culture is used as a way to help protect people they care about from the reality of their current situation. According to a woman in her 30s with a history of drug addiction, “You get stuck in your secrets. I hid a lot of stuff I didn’t want my family to know. By staying away from them I am able to protect them.” As a consequence of their desire to shield friends and family the harshness of their existence, they are increasingly drawn into street culture and further away from mainstream culture. Although the majority of participants indicated they had little or no contact with family members or friends, street homeless participants fostered connections with mainstream culture in a number of key ways. The main way was by cultivating linkages with the homeless services system, including 100 income assistance, health services, case management, and housing, as well as through employment (e.g., temporary jobs). To lesser, but still significant degree many participants also talked about finding ways to be of assistance in the community. In particular, by providing a meaningful contribution that helped to foster a sense of their own worth as a contributing person within society. For instance, participants discussed “...help[ing] by providing directions for people when they come off the bus”, by “shoveling sidewalks and drive-ways for people, especially for older folks”, and “helping people push their car out of the snow” when they get stuck on city streets. This desire to give back in constructive ways was most noted in Locale Type 1 - the older, longer-term homeless, primarily male demographic who are regular users of downtown shelters. Another way the participants fostered their connection to mainstream ties was by not appearing “too homeless” and by avoiding certain indicators of street homeless existence. As stated by one young man who made his income through panhandling downtown, “You can appear too homeless. Pushing a shopping cart is too homeless. You can’t look like a bum.” By managing his presentation and not appearing “too homeless,” he was more accepted as a member of mainstream culture who has “fallen on hard times” or “had some bad luck” versus personally being at fault for their plight. Finding a way to balance street and mainstream culture is made more challenging by the fact that the street culture is a closed community, where according to multiple participant sources, “everybody knows each other.” For one man living at the downtown shelter on and off for close to a year, “When you are new in town you look for the identifiers of your people. You follow the people with the backpacks. That is how you find out where you need to be.” Although most participants described themselves as “trustworthy” or as “the person other people come to for help,” there is little expressed trust between homeless people on the street. This might account for why street homeless participants perceived level of social capital from street peers is so 101 low. According to a young man with a long-term drug addiction who sleeps on city streets, “Even if you have a history with someone, they will still screw you over.” Participants were slightly more trusting of people unlike themselves, such as service providers, but they generally lacked trust in people and society as a whole. In this way, street homeless participants’ reliance on institutional sources of social capital was less about trust and more about dire need and simply having nowhere else to turn for help. As stated by a man who was homeless for over two years, in lieu of having trusting relationships with others, “The number one thing trusted by people on the street is their own senses.” The street hierarchy is in part tied to an individual’s perceived trustworthiness as a street homeless person. Those with drug addictions are deemed the least trust worthy among those on the street; thus, they are the lowest in the street hierarchy. As evidenced in the comments of participants, this perception is mirrored in the way that society as a whole vilifies those with addictions. As stated by one woman with a long history of drug addiction, “Users are seen as the bottom of the barrel by everyone, even the people who are supposed to help you.” The marginalized status of drug users within the street homeless population described by one participant as “the lowest form of street life,” was reflected in the comments of those who struggled with addiction (“If you’re an addict, you are the bottom of the list”) and those who did not (“I have zero trust for those with addictions”). Although rarer on the street, participants generally agree that those without addiction issues are immediately deemed more trustworthy than those with addiction problems. All participants noted an increase in street level drug use with more homeless people using drugs now than had been in the past. Two reasons were cited for this occurrence. The first is the all-consuming power of addiction where risk of death due to overdose is preferable to being “dope-sick” from withdrawal. As stated by a man with a long history of drug use who stayed at the main 102 downtown shelter, people are “under the issue of addiction, not just drugs. They are so sick from withdrawal, there really is no decision being made.” As he put it, people play a daily game of “Russian Roulette” where “the line between high and die is so thin” that seasoned users with high drug tolerances actually seek out “OD dope in order to get high.” Another participant, a man in his 30s with longstanding problems with drug addiction, indicated he overdosed multiple times in the last month. On the last occasion, he stated “It took five hits of Narcan just to bring me back.” The second reason is the availability of drugs on the street, a sentiment echoed by all participants with or without problems with drug addiction. As stated by one woman trying to remain clean and sober, “It is so hard to stop because it is everywhere in your face all the time. It is so hard to avoid.” A common tactic for dealers, who are often heavy drug users themselves and sell drugs as a way to support their own addiction, is to “give people one free hit” in order to “get them hooked.” Once addicted, the need to stave off dope sickness drives their consumption. For participants, those with active addictions who have easier access to drugs downtown (primary located downtown) as well as those in recovery trying to avoid drugs and drug dealers (primarily located outside of downtown), drugs and where they are most likely to be accessed/encountered dramatically shapes where and when participants travel, and by what routes. 4.3.1.2 Seeking Sources of Human Kindness Whilst being marginalized from mainstream culture and branded as “druggies” and “street people,” in a myriad of ways all street homeless research participants talked about the need to seek out sources of human kindness in a world bent on rejecting them. As stated by a man who lived at the main downtown shelter, “Humans are not built to be alone. People are meant to help each other.” Participants discussed needing to “read the situation” and look for signs of kindness and decency in the people around them, and to avoid risk. 103 Many of the participants talked about the importance of even the smallest gesture – “a smile” or “someone buying [them] a coffee” - as fostering a sense of hope at a point in their life when optimism of any kind is lacking. As stated by an older homeless man who is highly dependent on shelter services for his survival, even a small act of kindness is proof that the “world won’t make you cry.” Another male participant talked about how an older man at a local gas station used to buy him a sandwich every morning. By being in the same place at the same time, he was able have a morning meal; more importantly, this act of kindness helped him to feel “less hopeless” and “like someone out there actually cared.” This example underscores the importance of small gestures helping homeless people feel less dispirited about existence, but also as essential sources of material aid important in their day-to-day survival (Bender, Thompson, McManus, Lantry, & Flyne, 2007). As stated by a woman disconnected from family and friends because of addiction to alcohol, “People take your hope away, but in other ways they also help you muster the will to carry on.” Highlighting the intersection between homelessness and the criminal justice system, many participants, particularly some of the most vulnerable participants with co-occurring mental health and drug problems, indicated the head of the local Downtown Enforcement Unit (DEU) of the RCMP was their main source of support. For one younger man with a serious mental illness, who is someone I watched during my research fieldwork get repeatedly shunned by his homeless peers, the head of the DEU is the “only one looking out for [him] on the streets.” As he put it, “When I ask for help, he helps me. He always does. He gets my stuff back for me.” Although spaces of care, such as shelters and meal programs, are essential sources of life sustaining support, by being drawn into these locations out of need, street homeless people also are exposed to innumerable risks that change depending on the service provider. The reality of spaces of care as those of risk and benefit is well documented in the literature (Hutson, 1999; Johnsen et 104 al., 2005). What became apparent is how participants knew the risks inherent at each shelter or service agency and weighed them, choosing those supports with the risks they could best manage. For example, fears related to sexual assault, the possibility of “being jumped” for their belongings, and/or “being bugged by too many junkies” shaped participants’ choices regarding institutional support. Although many expressed extreme gratitude for these services (e.g., “Yeah, I wouldn’t be here right now without them”) they also recognized these interactions increased their vulnerability by exposing them further to street culture. As state by one woman staying at the main downtown shelter, “I guess am better off in some ways, but it has made things a whole lot worse in others. I am more vulnerable to the street now.” One man trying to limit his drug use opted to sleep outside whenever possible because for him, the chaos of shelters makes him want to use. As he put it, “It is hard to function there straight.” 4.3.1.3 Performing as Homeless 4.3.1.3.1 Leveraging Social Capital Participants use whatever assets they have, be it their age, their ability to blend into mainstream culture, and/or their personality to maximize social capital while simultaneously minimizing risks. Even a sense of humour or the ability to make people laugh, can help keep someone safe on the street. As stated by a younger male participant, “You’ve got to work what you’ve got. If you can make people laugh, that’s good. Whatever you’ve got to use to get people behind you.” For him, “looking young” is something he is able to leverage in different ways depending on the situation. For instance, he is able to “double up on certain meals” by accessing both youth and adult meal programs, and he is able to shower at a local seniors’ homes because he pretends to be a grandchild visiting a grandparent. As he describes it, “I am able to skate between different groups…youth and adults…homeless and housed...but I am not part of anyone of them.” In leveraging social capital 105 across street and mainstream cultures, it is an obvious asset to be able to blend into both cultures. An older male participant who sleeps rough downtown referred to this ability as “rough sleepers who can sleep in plain sight.” As an example, by wearing a dress shirt and holding a book, a younger male participant is able to sleep undisturbed in the park because people assume that he is a student and “not some homeless bum.” In this context, something as simple as “being able to shave and look more like a proper person” greatly affects whether or not a homeless person’s presence is viewed as legitimate in different urban spaces. As he put it, “You get kicked out of public space if you look like a bum.” 4.3.1.3.2 The Performance As a practitioner with over twenty years of experience working with disadvantaged populations, I have long been aware that those I serve often tell me what they assume I want to hear. What most struck me during the participatory mapping sessions was how top of mind the need to perform is for street homeless participants and how it shapes almost every aspect of their day-to-day life. The need to perform or play up different aspects of homeless identity is something street homeless people quickly learn as a foundational part of homeless or street habitus. Not only do participants play to the audience based on their understanding of expectations or doxa, more importantly here, they know they’re continuously performing in these ways. Although street homeless people perform to groups other than service providers, most obvious being street peers, in this study the focus of participants’ comments about performing were almost exclusively centered on their relationships with the system of homelessness services. This reflects the importance of homeless service agencies as sources of social capital for street homeless people whether or not they access shelters at night or not. The basis of the performance for participants involves presenting the appropriate level of need/neediness as a street homeless person depending 106 on the audience. Acting to the audience was referred to by one participant as a “swipe card” or a “homeless punch card” that opens up access to different sources of support. Accordingly, when dealing with the general public, particularly if panhandling, it is better to look less homeless or “less like a bum” and with service providers, “the more pathetic you look, the better.” In a system where many street homeless participants indicated “honesty is not rewarded,” they learn to “play the game” to get their social capital needs met. In reference to receiving income assistance, a female participant talked about the risks of being honest with government ministry workers. As she stated, “If I am honest with them, I don’t get the money. If I pretend to not know anything and just tell them what they want to hear, I get the money.” Their performances involve the whole body. As stated by one participant, “If you are missing a tooth or two, that’s even better.” In referencing his experience of first becoming homeless, one man recalled how he could not get a hygiene pack because he “didn’t look homeless enough”. For this man, he had to be homeless for an entire year for essential services to open up to him because only then was he considered chronically homeless. It is this context that a man who has slept rough on the streets for over two years used the analogy of “playing with monopoly money” to describe the performance he enacts with service providers. As he put it, “You know you’re pretending...you’re not being real. It is like playing with monopoly money. It’s fake...but it is still money...and it gets you the stuff you need, so it’s good.” 4.3.1.4 Gendered Street Homeless Social Capital The gendering of street homeless social capital was evident through certain differences between female and male participants. Two key themes regarding gender and street homeless women’s experiences of homeless social capital emerged through my research. The first, and one of the most common themes, is the prevalence of “coupling” for female participants who slept on downtown streets and parks, an occurrence well documented in the 107 homelessness literature (Duff et al., 2011; Rowe & Wolch, 1990). “Coupling” involves women entering into intimate relationships with men primarily for protection when they’re in states of absolute homelessness (Duff et al., 2011). As a theme, both male and female street homeless participants, as well as key stakeholders and advisory committee members, talked about the occurrence of coupling. All participants view it as a way for women to protect themselves when they’re homeless and they see it as being directly associated to the rise in violence and volatility on the street. According to an indigenous man who had been homeless on and off for decades, women, although a rarer entity on the street, particularly in the past, were more likely to be alone than they are now. As he put it, “If they are alone now like they were then, they are scared and carrying a knife.” Many street homeless participants talked about the immediate “expectation” women will couple, and it happens quickly once they are on the street. As is discussed in Chapter 5 – the Discussion Chapter, coupling is also a strategy that women use to leverage social capital through their relationships with men when locale types overlap. The second theme is the palpable sense of shame and judgment expressed by female participants about their experiences of street homelessness: as one woman put it, “My ‘failures’ as a ‘mother, a wife, and as a woman’.” Although both women and men talked about lack of dignity and feelings of dehumanization, women comments were more heavily focused on feelings of “shame,” “discrimination,” and “judgment,” that for them, is more readily levied at women in society than men. Women participants talked about feeling “singularly defined by their failures,” often addictions, in ways that men are not. As stated by a woman with long history of alcoholism, “I feel like I am not a good person because I still drink. It is like the worst sin.” Another woman in a similar situation expressed it as, “It is ok for a man to be an alcoholic and still be a good person. Whatever else I do, whatever sacrifices I make, I am still just an alcoholic...a failure.” These feelings of shame 108 were evident in female participants’ comments irrespective of whether she accessed shelter services and where or if she slept rough on the street. 4.3.2 Street Homeless Social Capital in Space 4.3.2.1 Receptive Versus Non-Receptive Spaces As stated by multiple street homeless participants, “relationships are everything on the street.” Place offers a guarantee of social connections where people are able to locate and connect with each other in the absence of a stable home-base. Without these relational spaces that facilitate homeless people’s connections with others, their relationships become more tenuous and difficult to maintain (Rowe & Wolch, 1990). On a continuous basis, street homeless participants actively assess the receptivity of urban space or how welcoming it is of them, including if their presence is viewed as legitimate within these spaces. For example, a street homeless man in his 30s with a long history of using emergency shelter services talked about how he weighs the receptivity of different environments. As he put it, “Well, Safeway is good. They don’t give me a hard time when I go there. So is the Chevron on the corner...they’re good with me too, but just that Chevron, not the others. The library is also pretty good. I can go there and hang out, but no sleeping there.” There is a clear tendency for people to stay close to spaces they are familiar with, which as discussed previously, underlies homeless people’s powerful connection to specific spaces in the urban environment. The more desperate their circumstances, the greater the likelihood they will remain close to places they know and are familiar with in the urban environment. As stated by a female participant who came to Kelowna for treatment and got kicked out of supportive housing post-treatment for drinking, “In times of desperation, you stay close to what you know.” Until she was coaxed into the shelter by the staff and other concerned individuals because out of fear she would freeze to death during the bitter cold of winter; she slept 109 in a parking lot under a shrub one block up from the supportive housing project she was evicted from. Many participants discussed how their perceptions and understanding of space have changed through the course of homelessness. As an older male participant articulated, “The meaning of spaces changes when you are homeless. You see things like that differently.” Male participants in particular talked about starting to see “shadows and dark alleys” as “safe places” where he could go and “not be seen” versus places that they avoided before they were homeless. In this way, over time they began to actively seek out places/spaces other people would naturally avoid. As one male participant in his late 20s put it, “When you see a fence or barbed wire, it is a good sign to go there. It’s a good spot.” Their choices are not just about seeking safe and receptive spaces, but avoiding negative spaces that pose risks, cause them shame, and/or are rejecting of their presence. Examples participants cited included health services and the experience of “having to tell my mental health story over and over again because they keep losing my file,” the main downtown shelter, “barbed wire and fences on rooftops,” “Leon Avenue,” and/or “downtown Kelowna” as a whole. Several participants talked about the experience of having positive spaces, in particular spaces where they were once housed or received services, transformed into negative spaces. For them, the main way this happened was when spaces of care rejected them for rule infractions. As described by one woman who was “kicked out” of supportive housing for drinking, “It fucks me up every time. I thought they cared about me? They know I am an alcoholic when I moved in, yet they are surprised when I drink?” An older man who had been evicted from two supportive housing buildings and now sleeps at the shelter, put it this way, “It really hurts. I have no place to go. I don’t understand why they stopped wanting to help me.” Another way that positive spaces become unwelcoming or negative is when there is the “expectation of trouble” from homeless people, in that pre-emptive 110 security measures are put in places frequented by homeless people. For instance, the use of increased “security guards,” “gates and fences outside the building,” and “glass walls in offices that keep people back.” Two areas of note included grocery stores and outreach urban health services. A final way that participants indicated that positive spaces become negative is when trees and/or shrubs are removed from public parks or wooded areas in order to “flush homeless people out of the bush.” 4.3.2.2 Claiming Status Through Space For street homeless participants, “Everything is territory on the street.” Knowing the rules that govern space, “what is and is not ok to do” and where, is an essential component of a street homeless habitus or “street smarts.” An area mentioned by many participants as the most highly contested is the territoriality related to garbage bins. This is because retrieving bottles or other objects of material value from dumpsters or “binning” was a main source of income for homeless people in my research, especially males. As stated by a long time local homeless man, “You will get into big trouble if you go to the wrong bin.” Territoriality extends into the shelter services. Among street homeless participants, there are strong allegiances to certain shelters, as “the only place that gives you what you need.” These allegiances are often based on how palatable the rules governing the shelter are to different people. Reasons participants stated for accessing one shelter over another included: “They let me and my girlfriend stay there,” “They take pets,” and, “They let couples be together.” The main reasons stated for not accessing a shelter were: “they let drunk people in,” “drug use,” and, “fear of sexual assault.” Of note, several street homeless participants indicated they met their current or a previous partner while accessing homelessness services. Even if they did not access shelter services for the most part, the majority of participants were regular users of the broader system of homelessness services. In particular, meal programs, clothing banks, and harm reduction services (e.g., supervised injection 111 sites and/or harm reduction supplies) were the most commonly cited services being used by those not accessing shelters. As reflected through the different locale types, participants’ involvement with homelessness services ranged from being heavy service users to more intermittent and context dependent users. Public space is often a significant source of shame and often the site of rejection for homeless people who are routinely ushered out of public space. One male participant described it as, “It’s like being punished for not…for not having any place to go.” For some participants, their connection to urban space reflects their daily struggle to hold onto the remaining scraps of dignity and self-worth. For them, there is evidence of efforts to remake or elevate their marginalized status by claiming homeless spaces as their own. The most notable example is a group of street homeless people who spend most of their time on Leon Avenue selling and using drugs. These individuals refer to themselves as the “Kings of Leon.” During my interview with a self-professed “founder” of the “Kings of Leon,” he pointed to Leon Avenue and said, “You see that. We own that.” His comments reflect a sense of ownership over certain urban spaces through which his presence in these spaces is not only legitimized but presumed or expected. 4.3.2.3 Gendered Geographies of Street Homeless Social Capital There are marked differences in the geographies of homeless social capital for women and men. Even when seemingly similar in terms of basic geography, women’s experience of the space-time aspects of homeless social capital is fundamentally dissimilar. This means there are different risks that space and time present for women, risks they must navigate in the day-to-day survival. For the female participants, the choice of where they locate themselves as a homeless person and where they access social capital, particularly in terms of shelter services, is often an effort to maintain or reclaim their sexual independence. Sexual intercourse is an expectation of women 112 “coupling” with men. Therefore, by being in male dominated spaces, including spaces of care like large mixed shelters, women lose their sexual independence. As noted earlier, it is “expected” that women will couple when on the street. Outside of female only spaces of care, camaraderie between women is made more difficult. Many participants talked about how women are “pitted against each other” in male dominated homeless spaces, including “men hiring a woman to beat up other woman to settle a beef they have with her.” In interviews through the mapping activities, women participants talked about space in more emotional terms, both positively and negatively, and they tend to use more emotionally charged language to describe locations. For example, “nice people there,” “good memories and happy times,” “makes me feel at peace when I’m there,” and “warm feelings.” Again, shame surfaced as a central theme in women’s narratives about the social aspects of street homelessness in relation to space. Spaces of care are often the site of significant judgement for the street homeless women participants. As a woman framed it, “I am being judged based on not looking like I need mental health services. Like, I am sorry I don’t look messed up enough for you.” Women noted feeling particularly resentful of judgment from services they needed to access because they are mothers and have children to feed and care for, such as foodbanks, income assistance and Ministry of Children and Families offices. In reference to her experience at a local church run food bank one woman commented, “You feel like doing something wrong if you don’t have money. They look at me like I am a bad person. It is so embarrassing.” Figure 4.1 – 4.4 are samples of maps produced through group mapping sessions with street homeless participants. As indicated, the difference in female and male participants’ gendered experiences of social capital extends to and is reflected in how they conceptualized it cartographically through participatory mapping activities. Men were more reluctant to create their 113 own maps, with several male participants inquiring about the possibility of using printed topographical maps instead of drawing their own maps. In keeping with the precision of topographical maps, men demonstrated more concern with the accuracy of locations they placed on maps, often asking me to confirm the exactness of their placement. As illustrated in Figure 4.1 and 4.2, men’s group maps were generally an accounting of homeless services and other more hidden community supports, such as where to hangout or get a free coffee in the morning. Women were consistently more open to creating their own spatial renderings of their social capital. As indicated by women participants’ group maps in Figure 4.3 – 4.4, women participants’ maps were often creative and colourful, with the scale of buildings and other landmarks based more on the importance of these spaces in terms of their emotional weighting versus any reasonable representation of size or real accuracy regarding location. Their maps provided a detailing of spaces of care offering a range of services for women, as well as spaces that are threats to the normalcy and dignity of women participants (e.g., income assistance and probation office). Figure 4.1 Map from men’s group mapping session 114 Figure 4.2 Map from men’s group mapping session Figure 4.3 Map from women’s group mapping session 115 Figure 4.4 Map from women’s group mapping session 4.3.3 Street Homeless Social Capital in Time 4.3.3.1 Temporal Fluctuations in the Socio-Spatial Aspects of Homelessness The nature of homeless social capital is fundamentally temporal. Many socio-spatial trends in street homelessness are predictable, meaning that the temporal forces driving behaviour are known or can be known. This includes anticipated fluctuations between who is out on the streets during the day versus at night, particularly in the downtown core, where according to one older male participant, “things get rowdy after dark”; interruptions in routine socio-spatial patterns after cheque issue day, usually lasting a week or more; and seasonal migration between available rental housing and the city, including at ski hills in the area. Other socio-spatial trends are seemingly more random, with forces at play beyond what is known. In this study the best example of the unpredictability of the socio-spatial aspects of street homelessness is the daily fluctuations in the number of homeless people found on city streets and in broader public spaces, that can vary by a significant amount with 116 no clear reason why. According to the primary outreach for the downtown area, in a two-day period within the exact same geographical area, the number of street homeless people found during morning outreach can range from “just a few people one day to dozens and dozens the next. I really can’t explain why...it just changes every day.” 4.3.3.2 Temporal Distortions Through the course of street homelessness, participants’ experience temporal distortions that manifest in different and similar ways across individuals. Several participants, particularly regular users of shelter services, talked about how they “lose their sense of time” and “one day can be like five days.” A woman staying at the downtown shelter talked about how her “sense of time vanished” when she began accessing shelter services. As she put it, “I just can’t keep my days straight. The shelter is such an unnatural environment...it’s like a time warp.” A man in his late 40s who slept in the shelter downtown describes the experience as, “Every minute...every second is longer. One day is like a week and a week is a month.” Juxtaposed against the drag of time that street homeless participants identified, they also talked about “thinking in the here and now” and how “long-term thinking doesn’t apply when you’re homeless.” As stated by a young homeless man in his 20s, “The need to survive keeps me present and in the moment.” Participants also discussed the need to be hyper vigilant about time because of pressure to be in and out of different spaces in the city within a precise window of time, for example, when accessing homeless services or spending time in local coffee shops, gas stations, and even the downtown casino. To illustrate, one male participant talked about his arrangement with a local coffee shop he visits every morning: “They are cool with me being there. I even get free refills as long I leave before 8 am when the real customers start coming in.” In this way, street homeless people’s social capital is highly temporally prescriptive. 117 4.3.3.3 Gendered Temporal Aspects of Street Homeless Social Capital Gender and time interact with street homeless people’s social capital to produce different risks in the urban environment that participants have to navigate depending on whether it is day or night, and if they’re female or male. It even affects how they feel about risk. A male participant broke down the risks to men on the street temporally: “police and bylaw enforcement” during the day and “drunk mobs” or “gangs of kids” at night. Other male participants talked about how their “comfort with risk,” evidenced by their general willingness to engage in risky behaviour, increased significantly through the course of homelessness. As one of the youngest male participants in the study stated, “If you think you will likely die soon, you think about risks differently. My life is already about as risky as it gets.” As previously noted, women mitigate risk when they are street homeless by entering into “coupling relationships” with men. As sources of social capital, these relations are important, but time-limited and specific to the street context. During fieldwork I spoke to a couple several times who slept rough together in downtown parks. She spoke about how she “felt unsafe” when she was on the street alone but now feels “safer and less a target for bad people” because a male friend stays with her at all times. Because he was staying with her on the street, he eventually lost his unit in a supportive building because he wasn’t using his room/bed. After several months, she found market housing and ended her relationship with him as soon as she did. The next time I saw him, still sleeping in an urban park in the same location where they used to sleep together, he told me that his girlfriend broke up with him because “she didn’t need protection anymore.” As male participants’ comfort with risk changes over time, women’s vulnerability to certain risks and harmful influences changes based on time. One particularly revealing example from fieldwork involves street homeless women’s vulnerability to exploitation by men based on temporal factors. 118 In particular, how close it is to cheque issue day, or more to the point, how long it’s been since the last cheque issue day. I was informed by several participants, both women and men, that without money, women’s situation can become increasingly desperate the farther it is from when income was last received. The dates when social assistance cheques are issued are established well in advance and are common knowledge among those on the street. In this way, it is easy for men with predatory intent to anticipate when women are more likely to be desperate and thus, are more susceptible to manipulation. Knowing women are more desperate for money the closer it gets to cheque issue day, they will wait to the end of the month in order to lure women in different ways, for example, into the sex trade, selling drugs and/or some other form of criminal activity. Women with addictions and/or mental health issues are more vulnerable and are the most probable targets of this type of exploitation. 119 5. DISCUSSION As a framework for further contemplating the findings outlined in Chapter 4, in the Discussion Chapter I return to the three areas from the Literature Review I identified as requiring further exploration. Specifically, these areas are: “challenging the preconscious nature of habitus,” “space-time aspects of homeless social capital,” and “individual and structural factors.” For each of these three areas, I examine both theoretical and practical implications of findings in separate sections. As a way to orient the reader to the different topics examined in the three main areas of discussion, at the beginning of each section I provide a brief overview of the topics discussed in that section. 5.1 Challenging the Pre-conscious Nature of Habitus In this section I interrogate the scope and functioning of street homeless social capital, as well as the conscious/pre-conscious nature of habitus. I explore the theoretical implications of two key findings – the use and meaning of the monopoly money analogy and performance as resistance and highlight the practical implications of these findings. 5.1.1 Theoretical Implications 5.1.1.1 Playing with Monopoly Money Participants identified many benefits they acquire through their relationships with others. Chief among these benefits is the material assistance they receive through the homeless serving system. What is particularly noteworthy in this regard, is how few trusting, supportive relationships participants indicated they have outside of their connections with service providers, whom they rely upon out of dire need. With the exception of those in Locale Type 6, representing the loners who camp in wooded areas away from others, participants spend a significant amount of time with other 120 street homeless people within shelters and other homelessness resources and/or in public space within their shared locales. Often, they are interacting and, in some cases, working together for most, if not all of the day and sometimes night. With rare exception though, participants did not talk about these relationships as having much importance to them, even if they were seemingly necessary to their survival. Their relations with similar others were talked about in more temporary or fleeting terms, like women coupling with men for safety reasons and then ending the relationship once housing is secured. More so than anything else, I presuppose that their street relationships appear to be about homophily and the tendency for ‘like’ people to naturally group together through shared interests and other commonalities, as they do in defining the six locale types. For example, as “drinking buddies,” or to work together to collect bottles to generate income, including to be used to purchase alcohol that can then be shared, and/or for mutual protection. Their interactions with similar others do not appear to be about emotional support per se, although that is likely still some component of these relationships. Fundamentally, they are about the practical reality of living and surviving on the street and doing what is necessary to survive with the sources of social capital that are available. In a study by Reitzes et al. (2011) that examined the support networks and social ties among street homeless adults, researchers found that over time, their support became increasingly stratified between street and mainstream sources, with emotional needs being met through street friends/family and material needs (e.g., food, clothing, income, shelter) through institutional sources. The findings from my study suggest less a stratification of support and more an absolute increase in reliance on homelessness services. For participants, these resources are not part of a broader network of support but are often the only sources of tangible support they have to rely upon. As highlighted in the Findings Chapter, participants that still retain supportive relationships with 121 family members when they become homeless will often cut off contact and distance themselves as a way to protect their loved ones from their current situation Other participants indicated they lost key sources of support to death, like a parent(s), and this loss contributed to their descent into street homelessness in the first place. In whatever way it occurs, the lack of available social capital through relationships with trusted sources of support, heightens their dependency on institutions and the services that they provide. This in turn, creates additional pressure to ensure they obtain their social capital needs through these sources because they have no other options. In an effort to ensure they receive the benefits sought through their social capital interactions with the homelessness serving system, street homeless participants are required to strike a delicate balance regarding the homeless identity they enact through each interaction. The balance is about achieving the right measure of looking and acting the part of a street homeless person, while still being relatable, sufficiently deserving, and sympathetic enough to warrant assistance. In other words, as a male participant put it, it is about “looking homeless, but not too homeless.” Striking this balance requires them to anticipate and present at an appropriate level of neediness depending on the audience so their legitimacy as a homeless person and service recipient is not questioned. For example, one participant described it as looking “appropriately homeless and needy.” For participants, their performances of homeless identity naturally engage the whole body, so “missing teeth” or appearing “extra messed up” are assets that participants leverage. Hodgett’s et al. (2007) used the term “embodied deprivation” to describe the way social inequalities manifest through physical and health related issues that mark people as street homeless. In this way, participants’ efforts are about embodying and reflecting back the appropriate level of deprivation and desperation based on their read of the situation. 122 Participants described the need to reproduce expressions of homelessness prized by individual services as “playing a role” or “playing a game.” They view it as a dishonest enterprise they are forced to engage in because for them, “honesty is not rewarded.” As one female participant stated, “I don’t make the rules of the game. I just gotta follow them.” This goes to the heart of the Playing with Monopoly Money analogy used to describe the acting or performing as homeless that street homeless people do for the sake of social capital. The performance represents a form of social currency that results in real benefits, but it is an act because it is not an authentic reflection of embodied culture. Hence, it is “monopoly” or fake money, in that they are simply reproducing these identities because that’s what they need to do. If, as homelessness research has demonstrated, authentic interactions between homeless people with broader members of society erodes stereotypes about the homeless (Knecht & Martinez, 2009), inauthentic contact with institutions and service providers of the variety identified here, reinforces stereotypes. This is a problematic dynamic that as is discussed further below, has significant implications with respect to street homeless people’s locales. 5.1.1.2 Performance as Resistance Through their reproductions of homeless identity, participants demonstrate a high level of conscious awareness of their performance, or what Hodgett’s et al. (2007) refers to as the “performative nature” of the production. In fact, as previously mentioned, one of first things discussed by the street homeless mapping participants in this research was the need to behave in ways that align with expectations of service providers regarding the homeless and who among them is viewed as being worthy of care. Fundamentally, this denotes the existence of a pre-discursive subject of the type Bourdieu and his theorization of habitus would deny exists. As a way to accommodate the mutability of social life, Bourdieu acknowledges that habitus changes in relation 123 to alterations within the broader cultural landscape through what he refers to as “hysteresis effect” (1977). Hysteresis is a gap in time between the “exertion of social force and the deployment of its effects” (Wacquant, 2004, p. 392). In other words, he acknowledges the existence of a developmental stage for habitus before what is acquired via culture is routinized into behaviour through repetition, and, during which time, there is conscious awareness of acting out of culture. However, his theory of hysteresis does not account for the degree or consistency of conscious awareness exhibited by street homeless participants that extends well beyond a learning or adoption period. Many of the participants were street homeless for months or even years and were still acutely aware of performing as a homeless person for service providers and how their performances changed based on context. As opposed to being one or the other - conscious or unconscious - based on my research findings, a more accurate way to conceptualize the performance of street homeless habitus is as a combination of conscious and unconscious processes that blends Bourdieu’s theorizations with elements of Goffman (1956/1959) and the theatricality of the performance of identity. As discussed below, it may be that the performance of habitus begins as a more conscious process similar to Goffman’s theorizations, and becomes increasingly embodied over time through recitations of homeless identity and processes more consistent with Bourdieu’s conceptualization of habitus. For Goffman (1956/1959), identity is an outcome of the tensions or contrasts between the self and the many roles that we portray in everyday life (Elliot, 2014, p. 44). In this way, he likens identity to an actor playing a role for an audience. Central in his theory, is the idea that as actors we engage in “impression management” between our “back stage” selves, who we are when we are not performing for others, and our “front stage” personae geared towards the specific audience at hand. The negotiation that happens between the front and back stage amounts to “role distance” 124 between the actor and the part that they’re playing. This distance allows for the ability to reflect on and linger in awareness of the performance that is naturally highly situational or context specific. As stated by Goffman (1959): The self, then, as a performed character, is not an organic thing that has a specific location, whose fundamental fate is to be born, to mature, and to die; it is a dramatic effect arising diffusely from a scene that is presented, and the characteristic issues, the crucial concern is whether it will be credited or discredited (p. 245). This means that identity is not and cannot be beyond the conscious grasp or control of the actor. Nor, as is the case with street homeless participants in this study, is the awareness of the need to perform, which is itself, a way for street homeless people to resist or pushback against the embodiment of a street homeless identity. For the street homeless women and men in this study, recognizing the need/how to perform for gatekeepers of services is a way for them to reclaim power in a situation where they are doubly dispossessed - first by being homeless, and second, by being dependent on these services. Their efforts take the form of two primary types of resistance. The first is refusing to enact representations of homelessness based on the expectations of service providers/organizations, which means rejecting them as potential sources of support. As we know, sociability is required to activate available sources of social capital. By avoiding homelessness services of any kind, community-based or government sources, they avoid recitations of homeless identity. In Goffman’s terms, this amounts to refusing to engage in the front stage performance. This is why, despite being street homeless and in need of even the most basic forms of support, people will refuse to perform in ways that mark them as homeless, like occupying shelters or rooming houses (Krusi, Fast, Small, Wood, 125 & Kerr, 2010). One participant, a younger street homeless man, indicated he refused services for the first five month he was homeless because “[he] didn’t want to play the part of the homeless guy.” Another male participant indicated that he refused shelter services because, “Shelters are where homeless people stay.” As he put it, “I thought that if I stayed there, it was like accepting that I am homeless too.” In this way, it was commonplace for participants to see themselves as different than other homeless people despite being in the same circumstances. For instance, as “more trustworthy” or just generally less like other homeless people. This aligns with findings from homelessness research that suggests that homeless people don’t identify with each other or as part of a larger group (e.g., Parsell, 2010; Walter, Jetten, Parsell, & Dingle, 2015). The second form of resistance involves enacting or attempting to enact the performance of homeless identity without embodying it: in other words, reproducing representations of homeless identity, but not internalizing them. For participants, this is where having conscious awareness of the performance provides a way to externalize the experience of being homeless, keeping it separate from their sense of self. In this way, heightened awareness or consciousness provides a psychological barrier that helps prevent the homeless subject from being taken or absorbed into identity. There is also evidence that by embracing the performance as a mark of skill, getting the performance right can be a source of pride for participants, particularly in the absence of other ways of fostering self-worth. The immediacy with which participants brought up the need to perform in their interactions with the homelessness serving system as one of, if not the first thing that they talked about in relation to their social capital, reflects how integral it is to the functioning of their social capital. In this situation, having the proficiency to meet their needs can be a source of pride for street homeless people (Rowe & Wolch, 1990). According to Dunn (2000), one of the benefits 126 of having access to social capital through social networks is that individuals become aware others will be there to assist them in times of need, thereby elevating their self-esteem and sense of control. Although they invest significant effort to keep their homeless identity at a distance, the more they act as homeless, the harder it becomes to keep their homeless identity from penetrating their sense of self. Eventually, through these performances that reinforce self as supplicant or service recipient (Rowe & Wolch, 1990), the homeless subject is embodied. At some point in the construction of the street homeless identity, there is a line that is crossed and what is a conscious, front-stage performance of street homeless identity, becomes subjectified. This means that the role distance between the actor and the performance narrows over time and eventually will cease to exist when the homeless identity becomes wholly internalized. Consistent with Althusser’s (1972) theorizations of Interpellation, by recognizing and reproducing social narratives or ideologies about homelessness, street homeless participants were signalling their subject positioning. And, their subject positioning remains irrespective of whatever internal processes they are using to cognitively distance themselves from the act. So, whilst taking steps to externalize their representations of street homeless identity, participants also acknowledge that what they act like, they eventually become. They used phrases like “losing myself,” “getting lost in acting for too long,” and “becoming discombobulated,” to describe the feeling of being consumed by the performance such that they appear to recognize their own subjectification. Metaphorically speaking, in this situation they walk up as close to the line of identity as possible and navigate alongside of it and try not to cross over. However, participants recognize they don’t know where the line is, what amounts to the threshold of the homeless identity, or even, when they may have in fact crossed it. A male participant described the experience as, “I just know that with every character that I play, I become more lost.” A couple participants talked about escaping the performance and moving their interactions with 127 service providers beyond this problematic dynamic. In response the question of whether this shift is possible, an older street homeless man who has lived at the shelter for almost year said, “[Homeless] people are so honest about this acting thing. You know, the need to act a particular way? But no one ever asks us about it.” 5.1.2 Practical Implications 5.1.2.1 Developing Authentic Relationships Through the implicit discourse surrounding what constitutes the homeless subject most deserving of care, the homelessness serving system has contributed to a situation where the homeless are caught between meeting their basic needs and becoming increasingly subjectified as a homeless person. Accessing homeless services comes at a definite cost (Rowe & Wolch, 1990). Service providers need to understand the nature of these costs for homeless people and learn what they can from homeless people about the downside of accessing services developed specifically for them. To this end, it is essential to recognize the representations of homelessness being promoted, and ultimately perpetuated through homelessness policies and in the delivery of services. The underlying intent is not good enough. It is important to anticipate unintended impacts of policy responses and service systems that may be far more damaging than they are beneficial. It is essential to be aware and honest about what is the good, the bad, and the ugly underlying policy and practice. This includes having an appreciation of why homeless people reject homeless services in the first place, and how the ways we intervene in homelessness may have unintended negative consequences. The street homeless women and men in this study perform based on what they believe that service providers expect of them, and consequently, there is marked variability in their performances based on contexts. Depending on the overarching philosophy or doxa of the service agency or specific program, which seems to have a lot to do with how it is funded, participants perform either 128 above or below their level of functioning. Their experiences are generally consistent with the two prevailing policy responses to homelessness highlighted in Literature Review in Chapter 2. The first is DeVerteuil’s (2003) strategy of “new poverty management” wherein street homeless people are being funnelled into homeless spaces, primarily spaces of care. The second is Housing First that nullifies the need for homeless spaces and shifts homeless people from being clients to service consumers. When accessing more traditional homeless resources or those more aligned with the “new poverty management,” including faith-based agencies, charities, and most non-profits, participants talked about performing down or “acting like the typical broken-down homeless person.” These homelessness organizations receive a wide range of funding between them, from donations to government funding, and reflect a range of service philosophies. Participants described the winning strategy as generally “being more pathetic” in their interactions with these service providers. Although viewed as an effective way to get their social capital needs met through most of the homeless service system, participants also recognize that behaving as less capable or lower functioning reinforces their weaknesses and none of their strengths. As one man put it, “I don’t think it does anything good for my skills.” On the other end of the spectrum, participants reproduce a different homeless identity in relation to their understanding of Housing First and what it means as a programmatic response. In Kelowna, as in other areas of Canada, Housing First resources (project-based and clustered through market-based housing) are now part of a Centralized Intake System that includes other models of housing, including supportive housing. All individuals are assessed through the same process for all types of housing. Whether or not it is entirely accurate, the process is known among people in the community as “Housing First-related.” Street homeless participants were aware of this association and the 129 Housing First label, even if they didn’t entirely know what it meant. Participants talked about performing up or trying to present as higher functioning for these assessments. One participant who in his words, has been “waiting for housing for years now,” described negotiating the performance as “acting like I had fewer problems than I do. Like, I’m doing ok, but just need a little help.” Although he didn’t know if that was the correct approach, he knew that he needed to be able to function in market housing on his own. So, as he put it, “When I had an interview for Housing First, I played up the fact that I could live alone and could work.” This finding is consistent with Woolford’s and Nelund’s (2013) results from their study of homelessness in Winnipeg. Researchers found that street homeless people, based upon their read of service agencies expectations of them in a neoliberal funding climate, are enacting the identity of good “neoliberal citizen.” The image of the homeless man or women working diligently to be a productive, hardworking member of society promoted through the idea of neoliberal citizenship is similar to what participants in this study seemed to be working to project. In particular, an average, relatable individual who has fallen on hard times, but is still capable and ready and willing to work. Whether street homeless people perform up or perform down, as neoliberal citizens or as down and out hobos, the lack of authenticity in their encounters with homelessness service providers is a barrier to receiving assistance that will be of most benefit to them. Those working with street homeless people need to be cognizant of the degree to which this is occurring through every helping interaction. An unfortunate consequence of playing up or playing down their abilities is the high likelihood that street homeless individuals will be screened out of services that they are well suited for, and in fact, may desperately need. Authenticity in helping relationships is necessary to build therapeutic benefit, as in Trauma-Informed Care (Hopper, Bassuk, & Olivet, 2010). It is also integral to develop service or support plans that align with people’s specific housing and related support 130 needs. The goal of practice needs to be cultivating authentic relationships that foster an accurate understanding of strengths, abilities, limitations, as well as cultural differences. A key finding from a study by Hole et al. (2015) examining aboriginal people’s experiences of accessing healthcare is the occurrence of structural violence that reproduces institutional and historically-based trauma. Through practices that disregard voice and culture, aboriginal people reported feeling less visible as an aboriginal person. When we silence culture by ignoring its relevance, or worse, when we assume people are a particular way because of race, we deny their ability to be authentic in their interactions. In this way, culturally safe practice is not possible if we are not intentionally cultivating authentic relationships. In the context of homeless service delivery, this starts by recognizing the underlying discourse on homelessness being promoted through policies and programs aimed at the homeless and how it includes and excludes different voices. 5.2 The Space-time Aspects of Street Homeless Social Capital In this section I explore the interaction between homeless social capital, space, and time and the relationship to the street homeless social capital locale types, and the factors that mediate street homeless people’s access to space. I highlight two key findings – the avoidance of negative social capital and hidden effects of time and discuss the theoretical and practical implications of each. Through this discussion, I focus on the less obvious or more hidden ways that space and time affect street homeless social capital. 5.2.1 Theoretical Implications 5.2.1.1 Avoidance of Negative Social Capital The spatial and temporal aspects of street homelessness play a significant role in homeless social capital and street homeless people’s resulting locales. In particular, it impacts where their sources 131 of social capital are located, when they can be accessed, and how much and what types of support are available. Those sources viewed as the most important naturally exercise the greatest influence on street homeless people’s locales. As a result, the street homeless participants tended to stay close to key sources of social capital and/or when needed, would travel long distances to access them. Over and above the influence of positive sources of social capital, which are those relationships that bring the outcomes street homeless people want or desire, to understand the space-time aspects of street homeless social capital, it is also necessary to consider the avoidance of negative social capital. As it is used here, negative social capital is social capital that results in outcomes not desired by the street homeless participants. For them, their stock of social capital, in terms of the people they know and what comes through their interactions with them, is equally something they seek out and work to avoid. This is because both good and bad outcomes result from homeless people’s relationships with others. Although social capital is generally not named in the literature on homelessness (Shier, Graham, & Jones, 2010), the broader research on homeless people’s social support reveals important insights about the impact of others. Their networks and affiliations of support have been empirically linked to a range of different health and social outcomes, both positive and negative. On the positive side, their relationships are associated with improved social support and mental health outcomes (Rosenheck et al., 2001; Townley et al., 2013), reduced criminal victimization on the street (Lee & Schreck, 2005; McCarthy et al., 2002), improved housing outcomes (Rosenheck et al., 2001), and as a means of exiting or transitioning out of homelessness (Cheng et al., 2013; Karabanow, 2008; MacKnee & Mervyn, 2002; Thompson et al., 2004). Alternatively, the social networks of the homeless can also have a negative or counterproductive effect. Homeless people’s relationships contribute to substance abuse (Manzoni, Brochu, Fischer, & Rehm, 2006; Martino et al., 2011; 132 Vangeest & Johnson, 2002), intimate partner violence (Petering, Rice, Rhoades, & Winetrobe, 2014), arrest rates, including involvement in street survival behaviours (Chapple, Johnson & Whitbeck 2004; Thrane, Chen, Johnson, & Whitbeck, 2008; Yoder, Bender, Thompson, Ferguson, & Haffejee, 2014), a lack of success while on parole/return to prison (Baldry, McDonnell, Maplestone, & Peeters, 2006; Bucklen & Zajac, 2009), and diminished mental health functioning (Harper et al., 2008). Others still have found that while supportive in some respects, the same relationships were simultaneously detrimental to the welfare of homeless people in other ways (Stablein, 2011). Irrespective of the level at which the theory is conceptualized, the main theorists of social capital, including Bourdieu, Coleman, and Putnam, only consider the beneficial effects of social capital, viewing as individual or social asset only (Portes, 1998). However, as noted above, social capital is a “double edge” phenomenon with both positive and negative outcomes (Villalonga-Olives & Kawachi, 2017). In my study, the negative individual effects of social capital are about the unwanted tangible outcomes that arise through certain social capital interactions. For example, the increase drug or alcohol use and/or potential for relapse and the heightened risk of assault and/or sexual victimization. The avoidance of negative social capital is a defining feature of the different locale types, including where participants will go, but also where they won’t go and why. Women participants in particular talked about the need to stay away from certain urban spaces, including “downtown,” “Leon Avenue,” and “any co-ed shelters,” often choosing to be geographically and programmatically separated from men. The avoidance of negative people, and ultimately the consequences these relationships can bring, is equally, and perhaps even more important, in shaping participants’ locales than their relationships that bring desired outcomes. For this reason, it is important to look at the good and bad in homeless people’s relationships with others and explore 133 what is underlying the space-time aspects of their social capital. This involves recognizing the beneficial effects of homeless people avoiding certain people and relationships, including shelters and other homelessness services. The many practical implications of negative social capital are discussed below. 5.2.1.2 The Effects of Time The second notable finding is the multiple, diverse impacts of time. In particular, the subtle or more hidden ways that time interacts with place/space and social capital. There is a temporal rhythm flowing through space that is rooted in street homeless people’s social capital. Based on the findings of this research, there is a number of direct and indirect ways that time shapes the socio-spatial aspects of street homelessness. Some of these are more obvious effects with known causes, while others are more hidden, with unknown factors driving their occurrence. One of the more obvious effects of time is the timing of homelessness services; specifically, when and where street homeless people need to be to access them. Consistent with DeVerteuil’s (2003) view of the new poverty management and street homeless people’s hypermobility between time-specific services, street homeless mapping participants were extremely cognizant of time to the point of being hyper-aware. In almost every mapping session, participants asked me for the time, sometimes on multiple occasions before the session ended. As they would often explain after asking me for the time, they were concerned because they had an appointment with a service provider for any number of reasons and/or were connecting with friends, family, or acquaintances. Timing is so essential for street homeless people because if they miss their window of time, they will miss their opportunity for important connections. Knowing when to call in or when to line up for services is key in being able to access essential support. Timing is also important in terms of when they can use certain washrooms, can get a free cup of coffee, or even just simply get in from out of the cold. The 134 receptivity of urban environments changes based on time. Connections can be especially sensitive to time when it is a friend and meeting that person at the same time and place is the only way they are able to connect. This was the case for a participant who had a friend who lived off the grid, meaning he lived out in the bush without a phone or any means of contacting him. The only way he was able to connect with his friend and “know that he was doing ok” was by meeting him a specific time and place once a month. On the flip side, mindfulness of timing is also necessary to avoid certain people and sources of negative social capital. Another more obvious impact of time is the seasonality of homelessness. Seasonality manifested in different ways including changes in the level of transiency, with summer being more pronounced, and how deep into the bush people will chose to camp. In the summer, when there are more risks to safety because of increased transiency and more shrubbery/leaves to conceal camps, people move their camps further back into the bush. In this way, the shift through the seasons completely changes the approach in how to deal with homeless campers from a service delivery perspective and in terms of park management. People are also more vulnerable based on seasonality due to extreme cold in the winter and heat in the summer. More people naturally come out during the afternoon and can be found in parks, in services, and on city streets. Outreach workers often have no idea where people go at night. This reflects the extreme privacy and hidden nature of the sleeping locations for many of the street homeless. After dark there are greater risks to safety downtown because “things get rowdy,” so people need to leave downtown before dark if they do want to be involved in the nightly street activity. One of the more interesting hidden effects of time includes the daily changes in the street homeless make-up or the numbers of homeless people that can be found on city streets from day-to-day. To illustrate, each day the outreach worker does a count of the number of people she is able 135 to find in known homeless locations throughout the city, particularly in the downtown core. Every day this number changes, irrespective of the season, whether or not social control tactics have been used, if it is income distribution or cheque issue day, or any other temporal factors that key homelessness stakeholders recognize can impact street homeless people’s geography. Sometimes the numbers of people found on city streets quadrupled overnight only to have it drop down to just a few people the following morning for no apparent reason. There are clearly multiple factors that govern the space-time aspects of street homelessness people’s broader spatiality at any given time and only a few of them are actually known. Other findings stood out more because of the obvious practical implications. The interaction between time and cognition is one of these findings. By this I mean changes in how participants think from longer-term to more short-term thinking in order to free up mental energy to focus on the here and now of their survival. This also includes distortions in cognition where there’s a loss of the sense time, such as feeling that time moves at a slower pace when homeless and on the street. Another finding with obvious practical implications is how time impacts the socio-spatial aspects of street homelessness and increases vulnerability. As previously discussed, this happened through inclement weather and other related risks, but time also increases vulnerability through heightened risk of exploitation or victimization. The quintessential example from my study is how street homeless women may be more at risk of being sexual victimized by men based on the timing in relation to cheque issue date. In particular, the farther it gets from cheque issue date, meaning the longer it has been since women have received any income, the more desperate they become and more likely they are to be victimized. Recognizing this, a male participant talked about how he intended to exploit this vulnerability by offering money or drugs to women just prior to the next cheque issue date in exchange for them having his baby. The fact that he believes he can exploit 136 women to such a degree based primarily on the timing on when he attempts to do it, reflects how the desperation of street homeless women and their vulnerability fluctuates based on temporal factors. This means that at certain times of day, week, month, and/or year, street homeless women are more vulnerable than others. Collectively these findings highlight the unexpected ways that time is important and needs to be considered in the spatial aspects of street homeless social capital. 5.2.2 Practical Implications 5.2.2.1 Avoidance of Negative Social Capital In conceptualizing the relationship between homeless social capital and interventions aimed at street homeless people, particularly those provided on an individual-level, it is important to make a clear distinction between positive and negative social capital. In every example where participants talked about avoiding different placed-based sources of social capital, it was about staying away from particular individuals or groups of people that weren’t good for their wellbeing. These include, for example, by compromising their clean time,” their ability to “stay out of jail,” and/or to increasing the likelihood of being assaulted. In all cases, these relationships worked against participants’ goal of getting off the street, something all of them said they wanted to do as soon as possible. In reference to her brief stint at the main downtown shelter, a female participant described it, “I was off the street, but I was worse off. Just being downtown…running into people you know. It’s never good for your recovery.” Talking to recipients of homelessness services about the people and places they want to avoid is an important conversation for providers of these services to have with street homeless people. One that is, in fact, essential in supporting homeless people’s positive choices and promoting their overall wellness. As much as is possible, the goal of street homelessness interventions needs to be on fostering or nurturing positive sources of social capital and limiting exposure to negative or 137 problematic ones. Given that street homeless participants identified so few positive, trusting relationships in their current lives suggest that the avoidance of negative social capital is more relevant in the day-to-day lives of many street homeless people than facilitating connections with positive sources. Helping street homeless people to stay away from negative sources of social capital requires knowing the spatial and temporal factors that put homeless people at risk of contact with negative sources of social capital and facilitating options that enable them to avoid certain locations entirely or at specific times. It is important to factor the avoidance of negative social capital into individual case planning as a complementary but opposite component of building homeless people’s social assets and broader support networks. As a practitioner, it often just comes down to recognizing the importance of street homeless people being able to stay away from certain potential sources of social capital. As an example of negative exposure occurring through services, two of street homeless participants in my study talked about reconnecting with negative associates in the waiting room of the mental health services office, and another while at Outreach Urban Health. In this way, the avoidance of negative social capital ideally needs to be a consideration in the layout and design of homelessness services, as well as in the staffing of them. Through these comments I am not advocating for the siloing of homeless people from each other, but a recognition that through existing service delivery models and a growing heterogeneity of street homeless population, we unintentionally make the situation worse by homogenizing and dehumanizing people. Within the broader street population, street homeless people are bombarded by negative social influences. From this perspective, “Tolerance Zones” that funnel homeless and a broad range of street people together into a defined spatial area are clearly not the answer. A better option is individualized services that separate people out based on identity categories like sex/gender, age, disability status, or early versus later stages of homelessness, and takes individual 138 vulnerabilities and locale into consideration. In terms of escalating potential risk and vulnerability, no service is more relevant than emergency shelters, yet shelters are rarely segregated. According to 2016 shelter capacity report for Canada (ESDC, 2017), of the twenty shelters existing in British Columbia at that time, only six were separated based on age (youth shelters) or sex/gender, and there were no shelters for families, seniors, persons with disabilities, or those with diverse gender identities. Although through Housing First and a focus on less crisis-oriented service delivery, the homeless servicing system is trying to move away from the use of shelters as a programmatic response, by integrating diverse populations in shelters. The findings from this study suggest we may be doing damage in the short-term that never gets undone. If we are to continue to use shelters as the cornerstone of emergency homelessness services and minimize the potential for harm caused through their use, what is needed are smaller special population shelters and neutral day spaces where street homeless people can spend time and plan activities (Rowe & Wolch, 1990). These spaces should be strategically located in areas outside of the downtown core and cater to a single demographic, such as seniors, families, or those new to street homelessness. Given that residential densification as a public benefit has been shown to reduce community resistance to social housing (Doberstein, Hickey, & Li, 2016) having smaller, more residentially-based facilities integrated in neighbourhoods across the city might further aid in countering public opposition. It is not uncommon to overhear a member of the general public lamenting about homeless people refusing available assistance and thus, “choosing” to be homeless and on the streets. A key lesson from these findings is that just because someone refuses assistance from available resources, does not mean they are unrepentant and want to remain street homeless. An important starting point is recognizing why homeless people refuse to access services designed for them, like shelters or other front-line services, and then finding better ways to accommodate people and their needs that 139 overcome these concerns. From the perspective of trying to stave off the homeless identity, homeless people’s refusal of services is potentially a positive thing and not necessarily a sign that someone is lost to street life. In fact, it may mean the exact opposite. 5.2.2.2 The Effects of Time Outside of basic temporal considerations, like service delivery timeframes or office hours, homelessness service providers need to more thoroughly consider the effects of time in the development of interventions aimed at homeless people. As discussed, time impacts the socio-spatial aspects of homelessness in several key ways that greatly impacts street homeless people’s level of risk and overall functioning, including their ability to successfully operate within mainstream culture. For instance, when living on the street their needs regarding immediate survival take precedence over longer term planning. Short-term or immediate thinking is a component of a homeless mindset that helps people to survive when in states of absolute homelessness. It in turn, however, keeps them from thinking beyond one moment to the next. Thinking in the here and now can create difficulties for people when trying to think beyond their immediate needs, as in necessary when putting steps into place to improve their situation over time. Moving beyond this requires a shift in thinking that needs to be both acknowledged and supported. In helping street homeless people to transcend temporal barriers, it is important to recognize that part of being homeless and on the street may mean that they require basic assistance with time-related tasks. Seemingly simple tasks, like getting to a job interview on time or scheduling appointments, are so basic that the need for support regarding these tasks can easily be overlooked. Owing to a loss of sense of time when homeless, managing time is particularly challenging when transitioning back and forth between street and mainstream culture. As an example, if/when a street homeless person is trying to work or attend school while living in an emergency shelter or sleeping 140 rough on the street. In these situations, failure to follow through could interpreted as being about a lack of motivation or desire to change one’s circumstance and not an inability for time to mesh across street and mainstream cultures. It is important to help street homeless people compensate for temporal distortions until which time they are able to adjust back to a more standard temporal rhythm and sense of time. In helping street homeless people overcome temporal challenges, homeless service providers are most impactful when they’re working to minimize street homeless people’s vulnerabilities and the risks to their safety. Based on the experiences of the street homeless participants in this research, in some ways the homeless serving system in Kelowna does better at this than others. For example, local service providers do a good job of responding to needs related to extreme weather (hot or cold) and adding additional shelter beds as needed to prevent risk of physical harm and even death. Where homelessness service providers don’t do a good job, is in making a point of being aware of potential vulnerabilities based on time that exist just below the surface of practice. For instance, women being more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and victimization closer to cheque issue date, and why this occurs. By knowing and integrating this type of temporal information into practice with street homeless people, steps can be put in place to mitigate potential risks - like staggering income assistance payments to distribute money more evenly over the month, providing additional outreach support, and/or creating some form of safe haven for women closer to the date of income assistance distribution. While I recognize there are no easy solutions, an important first step is turning our mind to the importance of time in homeless survival through the interaction between temporal, spatial, and social factors. 141 5.3 Considering the Personal & Structural Context In this section I explore the intersecting factors (individual and structural) most important in determining the space-time aspects of street homeless social capital. In this discussion I highlight two key findings regarding individual and structural factors and the interaction with the space-time aspects of street homeless social capital. The first, are the types of street homeless locales and the mediators of place-based social capital, and the second, is gender, geography, and issues of power and resistance. 5.3.1 Theoretical Implications 5.3.1.1 Locale Types, Markers, & Mediators What is most interesting and ultimately most useful about the locale types and the alternative geographies of street homeless social capital they represent is their specificity, and in particular, how each is so representative of precise groups of like individuals. The importance of this finding is in how different individuals are highly comparable and can be categorized based on how they move, where they spend time, the people they spend time with, as well as demographic and health-related variables. Each locale type has a specific temporal and spatial rhythm, meaning that individuals occupy and move through space in similar ways at similar times, and within each type, individuals have similar vulnerabilities. Between locale types, individuals have different motives underlying their temporal and spatial patterns because they differentially value different sources of place-based social capital. Through this research I identified seven markers that define the different locales based on spatial, social, and individual factors. From a service delivery point of view, the interconnection between the markers tells a particular story of homeless identity useful in developing interventions and support plans for street homeless people. In this way, by knowing part of the story, it becomes 142 possible for practitioners to anticipate the rest. Ultimately, what this means it that by knowing street homeless people’s locale and the socio-spatio-temporal aspects of their experience of homelessness, things generally not considered in assessing homeless people’s need and determining plans of care, a lot is immediately known about their social assets, health related needs, general vulnerabilities, as well as strengths. This information is central to understanding and supporting people’s transitions out of street homelessness. Whilst the intent of the research was not to order locale types based on a continuum of severity of street homelessness or entrenchment, as a researcher and a practitioner, I offer a caution regarding whether a direct line between entrenchment in street homelessness and the types and/or categories like those I identified in this study can even be drawn. My sense is that it would do a disservice to the needs and abilities of street homeless individuals they represent to attempt to do so. This is because what intuition, common sense, and even previous research might tell us about severity of street homelessness, can be misleading. A perfect example is a male participant highly reflective of Locale Type 6 – an extremely anti-social, highly isolated (living in bush), longer-term homeless man with very limited interactions with others. Not long after fieldwork, I heard he had been housed through the Centralized Intake process described earlier and was adjusting well to housed existence with no real challenges to maintaining housing. Months later I ran into him and he told me he was still housed and doing well. The point here is that by many measures, he would be viewed as chronically homeless and hard to house. In reality, he is well suited for certain types of housing (Housing First) and requires very little support to succeed. In many respects, he is the opposite of hard to house. In ordering locales, in a multitude of ways Type 6 represents the least severely homeless (e.g., minimal support required to maintain housing, high functioning), although seemingly the most chronic by standard measures (e.g., homeless episodes/length of episodes, 143 highly anti-social, service resistant). This example serves as further caution regarding how we conceptualize the severity of homelessness and for the reasons mentioned here, time spent in homeless is not be the best gauge depending on what we are actually trying to measure. In determining the severity of homelessness, vulnerabilities are a better measure than length of homelessness, particularly in the context of identity construction and Bourdieu’s theory of social capital and habitus. And it is through an understanding of the mediators of place-based social capital that we can better conceptualize and measure vulnerability. As outlined in the previous Chapter, mediators are those things that facilitate or encourage street homeless people to prioritize certain urban locations over others. They are the expanders and limiters of locales determining the why, where, and when of street homeless social capital. There are three categories of mediators - time, individual factors that reflect different identity categories, and social/structural factors. The interaction between mediators within and across the different categories determines the socio-spatial aspects of homelessness through access to sources of place-based social capital. The interaction between mediators is also an indicator of homeless people’s vulnerability and risk level, for example, being a woman with a disability at night when services are closed. It is the interaction between individual (being a woman with a disability), temporal (night), and structural (access to services) factors that determines risk or vulnerability to further entrenchment. It is not the additive effects of different mediators, but how they interact with each other, and this cannot be known through a simple accounting of these factors. Within critical gender studies, the theory of intersectionality or “the recognition of multiple interlocking identities” (Parent, DeBlaere, & Moradi, 2013) underscores the importance of examining the intersection of multiple, different identity categories or dimensions of oppression in order to understand identity. For Dill and Kohlman (2012), it is about “mov[ing] beyond counting 144 and describing difference without any true analysis” (p. 169). In this same way, understanding vulnerability to entrenchment through an assessment of mediating factors must be done through an intersectional lens. The potential for specific factors to escalate or decrease vulnerability depends on context. It is through an intersectional approach to homeless social capital that inequity in social capital and the role of vulnerability can be better understood. This is because what could be considered a weakness in one situation, is a strength in another. Returning to my earlier example, being a disabled woman can decrease vulnerability if it promotes improved access to services. It is necessary to understand the broader context to know if individual factors are likely to increase or decrease risk and vulnerability. In order to do that, it is important to focus analysis on the point of intersection between mediators and the spatial aspects of homeless social capital. Following Bourdieusian logic, accelerators of the trajectory of homelessness are those things that increase reproductions of homeless identity. With increased vulnerability, comes a heightened reliance on others, and thus, a greater need to perform as homeless. On their own, many individual factors can and certainly do increase vulnerability, for example, being female or being of an advanced age. However, as mentioned, in certain cases being female and/or older may lessen vulnerability. There are two individual factors that warrant mention here because of how they escalate vulnerability and risk irrespective of other intersecting variables involved or the context. Owing to increased reproductions of homeless identity through interactions with problematic street relationships and/or the homeless serving system, as well as generally being compromised mentally/cognitively and/or physically, these variables are having a Serious Mental Illness and/or having a drug and/or alcohol addiction. There are high levels of stigma attached to these specific health issues for participants. On the street, those with drug and alcohol addictions are widely considered to be the “lowest rung of the social ladder.” They are viewed as the least trustworthy and 145 most generally reviled by homeless peers. Women participants often talked about being judged more harshly for substance abuse, primarily alcoholism, than any other issues they experienced. Participants struggled against labels such as “druggie,” “alcoholic,” “junkie,” “crackhead,” and “drunk.” For women participants in particular, their substance abuse is a significant source of shame that they often are never able to get out from under. Those with mental health issues are described as “getting kicked around by everybody because they don’t know any better.” It is for these reasons having a Serious Mental Illness and/or an addiction to substances are included in the definition of “chronicity” I used in this study. 5.3.1.2 Gender, Geography, Power, & Resistance The most talked about identity category in mapping sessions (individual and group) was sex; in particular, the heightened risks of being female, homeless, and living on the street. In this way, the socially constructed, culturally situated gendered roles and expectations of being homeless and female, was the most pronounced area of difference between homeless participants that was highlighted by them. All participants, both female and male, raised the issue of women’s pronounced vulnerability in relation to space-time aspects of their social capital irrespective of other intersecting factors. Women draw more and different types of attention when they’re on the street. Although their numbers are growing, women are still far less common on the street than men (Rossi, 1990; Passaro, 1996/2014), forcing women to eke out an existence within primarily male dominated spaces of homelessness. In my research, women’s experiences and ongoing concern regarding victimization and assault was evident in the comments of all female participants. Additional intersecting mediating factors on top of being female greatly compound the risks to women’s overall safety. This also includes additional problematic labels based on further identity categories, such as “prostitute,” 146 “druggie,” and/or “drug dealer.” However, by virtue of being female, street homeless women are more susceptible to a range of potential risks and abuses than men irrespective of other intersecting factors. Separate from the resistance strategies previously noted (refusing to perform as homeless and enacting homeless identity without embodying it), there are two additional ways that female participants leverage social capital in an effort to reclaim power to maximize their chances of survival and/or distance themselves from a homeless identity. These strategies shape, and in turn are shaped by, homeless women’s locales. They involve leveraging assets and/or skills to their advantage as well as playing with levels of visibility/invisibility as marked homeless person unique to their specific locale. Owing to the variable nature of women’s gendered geographies of homelessness, it is important to consider the range of forms homeless women’s geographies take, both hidden and conspicuous (Klodawsky, 2006). In this way, participatory mapping was used as a tool for not only identifying the specific locales of street homeless women participants, but also to uncover the gendered social capital strategies underlying women’s unique geographies. The first of these strategies consists of two separate but related components, similar in terms of the low level of visibility as a homeless person each promotes - retreating and passing. The second strategy used by women is coupling, and like retreating and passing, this strategy is responsible for shaping women’s locales. Coupling is a strategy that women use when they are on the street and not accessing female-only shelter services. As discussed in the Findings Chapter, coupling involves women forming a primary, intimate relationship with a man for protection. It is a high visibility strategy because women live their lives exposed in public space, hence, the heighten risk and need for coupling in the first place. Because of the hardship and visibility of living and sleeping on the streets, women who use coupling are not able to use passing. In other words, they are unable to pass 147 as housed and not homeless. These findings are both consistent and vary somewhat from the findings of similar studies. However, any difference between these findings appears to be more a matter of differences in research focus than any real contrast in results. For example, in a study that examined the geographies of visibly homeless women, May et al. (2007) found that women either retreated into female-only spaces of care or assumed a more typically-male posture, living out their existence in public space as a marked homeless person. This is, in effect, the same finding, with slightly more specificity regarding what women actually do when they are on the street. In another study by Casey, Goudie, and Reeve (2008), the researchers identified retreating and coupling as key strategies that homeless women employ, but not specifically passing. Again, the findings here are consistent with Casey et al. (2008), but with some additional detail. By exploring different components of homeless women’s experiences, these findings collectively deepen and clarify understanding of gendered geographies of homelessness for women. Retreating involves homeless women sequestering themselves within female-only spaces to avoid contact with men and/or problematic sources of social capital more generally. The greater sense of shame surrounding women’s experiences of homelessness is undoubtedly a driving factor in their desire to retreat into female only spaces where they are less likely to be judged and can conceal their homeless status from the outside world. While it may seem as though women are just simply disappearing into the shadows, retreating is a conscious, purposeful form of resistance. It provides physical/psychological distance from a street homeless existence/identity and it is leveraged through women’s ability and willingness to navigate and utilize available homelessness services. As already discussed, for Bourdieu, power exists within social structures. Research on women’s use of relevant services reveals how adept they are at unleashing power through their engagement with the system of care (Passaro, 1996, 2014; Perrensi, 2004). Retreating also provides 148 women with the opportunity to work on their recovery and heal from past trauma. As stated by the participants, “I like to be in places I feel safe. I feel safe here,” “I have to work on feeling better,” “I need to be in places I can stay sober,” and “If I am there, I can get my life proper and get back with my kids.” However, because retreating increases exposure to homeless services and the full range people accessing them, it also means that women’s social identities are shaped more by structures and institutions (Tashahashi, 1998). The second component is passing, which is often used as a complementary strategy in conjunction with retreating. Both retreating and passing are used by women staying within women only shelters. Here I again turn to Erving Goffman’s (1963) theorizations regarding identity and specifically invoke his use of the term “passing” as a way to describe homeless women’s efforts to manage their identity by “passing for normal” (p. 87). In this situation, “normal” means overcoming the stigma of being homeless by passing as a legitimate member of mainstream culture. For Goffman (1963), passing is a strategy that is used to manage one’s presentation to others by hiding a concealable source of stigma, which if known, would disqualify them from full social acceptance. In this same way, in this study women’s efforts to conceal their status as homeless and “pass as normal” revolve around managing their appearance, or as one woman put it, “I really try hard not to look homeless.” Their efforts also involve hiding or minimizing the appearance of related concerns that are also highly stigmatizing, such as living in poverty. This means passing is only a strategy available to women able keep up appearances through access to showers, clean clothes, are not sleeping outside, etc. Given that women who use this resistance strategy also use women only shelters, this means that outside of getting what they need from shelters (food, place to sleep), they try to avoid spaces of homelessness as much as possible. As stated by a female participant in relation to her avoidance of frontline homelessness services, “The longer I stay out of those places, the better 149 I feel.” These women may also have part-time jobs (volunteer and paid employment) or are attending/trying to attend school or other training programs. As noted previously, homeless men also use passing, but they appear to use it primarily to access different sources of social capital, for example, in passing as a less homeless when panhandling or more homeless when accessing services in order to maximize benefits received through their social capital interactions. For the women in this study, their use of passing appears to be more about women’s desire to stay connected to their mainstream identities and avoid the criticism and judgement of those around them. A more complete answer to this question is beyond the scope of this study. It is left for future research to consider. The other main strategy women employ is coupling, which as noted, is used by visibly homeless women accessing co-ed resources, particularly shelters, and/or sleeping rough on the street. As a strategy employed to maximize social capital, women use a coupling process to form and maintain intimate relationships with men as a way to protect themselves in an environment aggressive towards women’s bodies (Watson, 2016). Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of social capital, Watson (2016) introduced the term “feminine social capital” to describe the “body alliances” women enter into with men for physical protection when living in a state of absolute homelessness. Through these coupling partnerships with men, the worth and privilege ascribed to men’s bodies is extended to women, even if just vicariously (Watson, 2016). The notion of feminine social capital is supported by the findings of this study, in that street homeless women in this study recognized and pushed back against gendered expectations of being homeless and female. As one women participant put it, “Having to get with a man just to survive the street.” Through these coupling relationships, the power in men’s bodies through their physicality is extended to women. When this protection is no longer needed because she is housed and the context has changed, the relationship no longer has value and ideally, is ended. Working within the bounds of the cultural expectation that women will 150 couple with men when homeless and on the street, the way women are used by men and in turn use men, is an effort to best leverage what they have of value in a given situation. Consistent with findings from research on homeless women and coupling (Duff et al., 2011; Watson, 2016), women in this study also had to navigate and trade off the protection and other benefits received through their coupling relationship against the risks these relationships created. The main risks of these relationships that women participants identified were relapse into drug and/or alcohol addiction, overdosing, and/or sexual and/or physical assault/violence. In this way, feminine social capital operates as a mechanism for both empowering and disempowering women simultaneously, protecting them from some risks, while putting them at greater risk of others. 5.3.2 Practical Implications 5.3.2.1 Locale Types, Markers, & Mediators By returning to the same place-based sources of social capital across the same routes and pathways, at the same times, over and over again, street homeless people spatial and temporal patterns are highly predictable. For reasons described below, knowing and understanding homeless people’s locales provides a rich source of information that should not be overlooked in the development of homelessness policies and interventions. Through attention to socio-geographic and socio-temporal dimensions of street homelessness based on homeless people’s locales, this research is a reminder to policy-makers and practitioners to think socially, spatially, and temporally in responding to issues of homelessness. Viewing homelessness through a context-sensitive social capital lens assists policy makers in predicting in “which cases people-or place-based policy, or some combination, is likely to work best” (Lang & Horburg, 2010, p 13). The approach used here underscores the need for place-based polices and program development based on what motivates homeless people’s behaviour, and what drives them 151 into and out of different spaces in the city. In addressing the unique needs of individuals contextualized within the urban spaces they occupy, it is important to move beyond broad, overarching strategies and consider micro-level, place-specific policies, programming, and planning. The findings from this study can be used to inform such approaches. Typologizing street homeless social capital provides a way to assess appropriateness and timing of different interventions based on street homeless locales. The locales reflect distinct need areas indicative of specific interventions. For example, in terms of housing resources and the fit with each locale - Type 1, 2, and 3 suggests the need for supportive housing or Housing First, Type 4 indicates mental health housing, Type 5 points to addiction treatment and supportive recovery environment, and Type 6, Housing First. Some locales are more at risk of specific health related crises, such as drug overdose. This underscores the need for place-specific health services and outreach responses that accommodate the diverse spatial and health related needs of the different types. Knowing where individuals within these types are primarily located and when they are there, allows practitioners and other caring professionals to better track them if specific concerns about safety exist. In this way, this approach is an important tool in addressing the current overdose crisis. Informally, the tracking of people via space and time is already happening, but to my knowledge, not in a way that actually articulates and formalizes the temporal and spatial aspects of homeless social capital and builds into case planning and safety strategies. As a further benefit, based on understanding an individual’s locale, practitioners are better able to anticipate how an individual’s needs may progress over time. This has the effect of shifting the emphasis of care onto prevention and the provision of preventative services based on how others within a given type or with a similar locale progress. Through mediators and the multiple intersecting categories of individual, social-structural, and temporal factors, this research is also a reminder to think intersectionally. The intersecting mediators 152 of homeless social capital can be used to understand where and when people are at greatest risk and where and when they are most resilient against risk. This is essential knowledge necessary to inform strength-based approaches to transition planning or homeless services more generally. Fixed mediators point to potential static vulnerabilities or strengths that need to be worked into planning, while variable mediators, like mental health and addiction status, are obvious points of intervention, because they change through the course of homelessness, and rarely for the better. Having knowledge of mediators and their fixed and variable nature provides the opportunity to intervene in areas before situations worsen. In this study participatory mapping is used as the method to gather and integrate multiple sources of relational, spatial, and demographic information that informed the construction of street homeless social capital locale types. As the mechanism by which to gather and unify different types of information, including demographic, relational, and spatial knowledge, participatory mapping was invaluable in this study. The use of participatory mapping being promoted here is best described as a “clinical” or “assessment tool” to deepen awareness of the space-time aspects of homeless social capital in order to promote improvements within homelessness interventions and social policy responses. The spatial and temporal aspects of homeless people’s affiliations and networks of support are often not considered in assessing need, yet in many ways, speak for themselves in terms of how best to intervene. Participatory mapping provides a rich source of highly personalized, context sensitive information that is easily accessible, not intrusive, and deeply relevant to all aspects of street homeless people’s health-related, social, and economic needs. Being present with street homeless people as they developed their maps detailing intimate aspects of their lives, is a highly intuitive and natural way for researchers to work with homeless people to express their connection to different spaces in the urban environment. The power of maps/mapping 153 is in its ability to engage with people instinctually and emotionally versus rationally (Imagining Homelessness in a City of Care, 2014). As indicated by its application in this study, participatory mapping promotes an ease and naturalness that belies the intimacy and sensitivity of the topics being discussed. Although mapping sessions were, on one hand, highly detailed and personal, working through the map seemed to create distance for participants between themselves and the sensitivity of the topics being discussed. The emotional distance provided through maps/mapping allowed for conversations to happen that would not have occurred otherwise. As a result, the content of my interactions with street homeless people were enriched through mapping both in terms of context (time-space sensitive) and the depth or significance of the information that was revealed. It is for these reasons that researchers across disciplines should be optimistic about its potential in homelessness research, which has only begun to be explored in this thesis. 5.3.2.2 Gender, Geography, Power, & Resistance There are multiple practical implications regarding women’s geographies of homelessness, many of which I have touched on in previous sections. The remaining key points will be summarized here. In the provision of services to the street homeless, people and places are recognized as promoting risk, specifically, spending time with certain people in specific places. In this same way, it is important to think about how women’s vulnerabilities increase based time of day, week, month, etc., and build in proper support to accommodate temporal fluctuations in risk. A central recommendation based on findings is the importance of having female only spaces of care as options for women, especially within emergency shelter services. These spaces provide an avenue for women to escape or avoid abusive coupling relationships that do not exist within mixed-sex shelters. As noted above, the opposite trend is currently occurring within social services in British Columbia, in that there’s a movement away from specialized, gender-specific shelters. Kelowna is especially 154 noteworthy in this regard. All additional shelter spaces added throughout the city in the last several years have been co-ed and located in large (40+ people) facilities. By identifying the need for single sex services, my intent is not to romanticize female only spaces of care, but to highlight the gendered dynamics that exist within male dominated spaces - dynamics that disproportionately disadvantage women. In this same vein, it is important for practitioners and policy makers to understand why women don’t want to access male dominated spaces that in a very real way, requires them to surrender their bodies and their autonomy to men. Women in the female-only-shelter accessed in this study seemed to find a greater sense of normalcy that helped them to hang onto the remnants of the mainstream identities. The two main strategies (retreating/passing and coupling) employed by women reflect two very different populations that could indicate variant levels of entrenchment in homelessness. Not one woman I met sleeping rough on the street or in a co-ed shelter indicated she was actively engaged in recovery. Within the women only shelter, the vast majority of women said they were in recovery. It is possible that the different strategies of resistance reflect different stages of entrenchment that women move through over the course of homelessness - starting with retreating into women only shelters, moving into co-ed shelters, and eventually sleeping rough on the street. This is supposition at this point. It is offered here as an observation with significant practical implications if validated by future research. More so than men, women in this study had a strong emotional connection to place/space. Knowing and understanding women’s relationship to particular locations requires knowing the socio-historical context. Their feelings about place/space are highly interconnected with the experiences and interactions that they have within them. In this way, participatory mapping can also be used as a tool for practitioners to better understand women’s emotional connect or disconnection 155 to different locations in the urban environment. By just walking into a particular service environment, for example, women are already highly attuned to its receptivity or non-receptivity based primarily on their past experiences. Women participants identified spaces of care and those places where they thought they would receive understanding, but in reality, experienced only judgment, as the greatest sources of shame for them. These feelings went to the heart of their identities as women and in many cases, as mothers, and through these negative associations to specific service locations, feelings of shame and judgment become entwined with the bricks and mortar. In the end, these feelings greatly impacted women’s willingness to access certain resources, even essential services important in helping them to escape homelessness. Using this knowledge to improve practice means being aware of and strengthening women’s positive emotional associations to service spaces whenever possible. Doing this requires examining the underlying narrative(s) about homelessness promoted through different resources – both the explicit and implicit, the known and unknown. 5.4 Limitations & Future Research 5.4.1 Limitations There are four primary limitations of my research. The first limitation pertains to the overly large scope resulting from research questions that were extremely broad and encapsulate multiple potential facets. As discussed, the intent of this research was to provide an exploratory, overarching analysis of the space-time aspects of homeless social capital that also considered the connection between homeless identity and the spatio-temporal aspects of homeless social capital. Taking a broad view of homeless social capital and homeless identity meant that I would naturally cover a lot of informational ground, that for me, needed to include both theoretical and practical components. However, owing to the breadth of research questions and the resulting scope of 156 findings, at times it was hard to know what to exclude and where to focus attention because everything was in some way related. For this reason, trying to distill and make sense of the large quantity of primary information was often challenging in my work with the advisory committee. Our discussions often involved complicated and interconnected variables that made the work heady and laborious. Because of this, it was easy for us to get off track and get lost in ideas that were not always entirely relevant. Although I recognize the overly ambitious nature of my research is rooted in my status as practitioner-researcher and my sense of responsibility and curiosity as a practitioner, as a participatory project, managing the information was a lot to ask of advisory committee members. Paring back the scope of inquiry from the beginning would have made the process less complicated and easier and more manageable for them. This could have been accomplished by, for example, focusing on individual or group mapping with street homeless participants, not both, or on developing locale types and mediators, and not also doing the added thematic analysis of participatory mapping sessions. While research findings are extremely rich and varied, because of the broad scope, I was unable get into too much depth with anyone topic. In this way, I just scratched the surface of multi-layered and complex phenomenon. The second limitation relates to methodology and inconsistency in the application of methods owing to the unpredictable and often erratic fieldwork environment. Owing to the chaotic nature of the fieldwork setting, conducting sketch mapping with street homeless participants was often difficult in the street context. The barrier of inclement weather (e.g., snow, windstorms, rain, etc.) made meeting outdoors impossible, sometimes for days or weeks at a time. This meant that I had to adjust my fieldwork plan by changing the setting of participatory mapping interactions from the street to inside of shelters. Conducting mapping in a shelter versus on the street is a different setting that undoubtedly had an impact on our interaction(s) and the resulting findings in multiple ways. As 157 a related issue, although my initial intent was to have only one main mapping session with individual participants, over the course of fieldwork I encountered some participants again and again while in the field. Some of those I met wanted to add to their sketch maps through another more formalized one-to-one session, while others wanted to provide me with quick verbal update. In the end, the numbers of interactions I had with individual street homeless mapping participants and the types of interactions and information I was able glean through these encounters, varied between participants. Some people had more completed maps because they had provided information on different occasions, while others I only met with once. This was an unavoidable inconsistency in my approach because I was doing naturalistic participatory mapping with homeless people and I could not control the numbers of interactions I had with individual mapping participants. As mentioned, connecting with individual participants was also complicated by the fact that multiple mapping participants died over the course of fieldwork and others simply just disappeared. The third limitation pertains to my treatment or lack of treatment of issues of race. Through my research approach, I aimed to highlight a range of important factors – social, temporal, spatial, as well as individual, and socio-structural. Although I gathered demographic information on race and there was certainly opportunity for participants to discuss race during mapping sessions, my design did not capture the effects of race. To better understand and draw out how race influences the space-time aspects of homeless social capital, a more effective method would be to approach race in the same way as I approached gender in my research. In particular, by comparing two groups of homeless people separated based on race, such as homeless social capital of indigenous versus non-indigenous people, or, an intersectional gender-sensitive approach, the space-time aspects of the social capital experiences of homeless women of colour versus white women. In this study, the problem with detecting difference using participatory mapping is broader than any particular 158 identity category, be it race, gender, or otherwise. The difficulty stems from the use of participatory mapping as a way to understand and make explicit difference across broad groups of homeless individuals. Unless participatory mapping is used to directly contrast two groups of homeless individuals based on some type of categorization, for example women and men or indigenous and non-indigenous people, it can be difficult to pick up on more subtle effects of different individual factors. In this way, conducting participatory mapping across broad groups of homeless people was too blunt a tool to detect the many tensions and differences based on unique identity categories. People’s shared status as street homeless person ended up blurring other differences, including race. It is for this reason that the best way to promote understanding of difference using participatory mapping is through a head to head comparison or contrast based on one or more identity categories and/or socio-structural factors. Additional examples of how this could be done include: separating people out based on age (older or younger), mental health status, those new to homelessness or the longer term homeless, race (indigenous or non-indigenous), type and level of service usage, or as was done in this study, based on gender using a male-female binary (women and men). The implications of this approach are discussed in more detail below. The final limitation of my study consists of two separate yet interconnected critiques of my analysis of gender in relation to my research design/approach. The first critique is my use of a female/male binary, which as previously noted, was used to separate out participants into two groups based on self-identified gender. Although conceptualizing gender as dichotomy was useful in doing a comparison of female and male participants’ experiences, I acknowledge gender is not non-binary. By conceptualizing it this way, I created an artificial dichotomy that is inconsistent with the nature of gender as a dynamic construct more accurately conceptualized as existing on a continuum (Johnson et al., 2009). The second critique is similar to the aforementioned limitation regarding 159 race; specifically, the lack of integration of issues of gender more thoroughly into my research design. From the outset of research, I considered the potential effects of a broad range of factors, such as age, race, mental health status, and gender. It was, however, retrospectively that gender emerged as key factor in the space-time aspects of homeless social capital. Because the gender analysis I had built into the design of my study was limited, including not sampling to ensure that I had gender diverse individuals represented in my study population, I wasn’t able to explore different components of gender (e.g., identity and/or roles) in relation to participants’ experiences. These reflect missed opportunities for inquiry into gender issues that are clearly relevant in the space-time aspects of homeless social capital. For example, key questions that remain unaddressed include: Do homeless people (women in particular) play with levels of femininity/masculinity/androgyny through their performances of homeless identity? Do gender relations and gender identity change through the course of homelessness and how? What is the role of institutionalized gender in the space-time aspects of homeless social capital and in homeless survival? These questions are left for future research to consider, as are additional areas of future research suggested by the findings of my study I review in the next section. 5.4.2 Future Research As it was used in this study, participatory mapping was an effective method for understanding the space-time aspects of homeless social capital. On an individual level, I used it to map the spatial and temporal aspects of social capital across groups of street homeless people and develop the locale types and mediators of street homeless people’s place-based relationships, as well as to identify key themes based on the narrative component of mapping sessions. On a group basis, I used participatory mapping to look at between group differences of street homeless women and men. In this application, participatory mapping provided an effective method for comparing different groups of 160 street homeless people. A comparative approach is particularly effective for illuminating difference between groups of homeless people distinct from each other in some respect. Through a direct comparison of the two groups, the researcher is better able to assess difference, which stand out more when contrasting groups versus looking across them. Additional research suggested by the findings of this study that would benefit from this approach is an examination of gender differences in the use of gendered resistance strategies, like passing, and what motivates men and women to use their chosen strategies. As noted in the previous section, further research is also needed to examine the relationship gender and performances of homeless identity. Insights of the nature provided through this type of research would be helpful in developing targeted, gender-sensitive interventions. A similar and equally fruitful approach to research would be to separate out groups based on socio-structural factors, like whether or not they access homelessness services. Having a better understanding why some people access homeless services, and some don’t, and the role this plays in resisting homeless identity, is important in knowing how best to intervene in ways that don’t cause further harm and foster dependency. Simply having a conversation with different groups of street homeless people about their relationships (sources and types of support) and having them map them as function of time, is a powerful way to understand how experiences of homelessness vary for different groups of people. It is also a powerful way to spotlight those factors that are the greatest source of difference within the broader street homeless population. Participatory mapping should be viewed as an important tool in developing relevant interventions that promote maximum benefit. Putting the obvious critique aside, specifically the tension between conscious and pre-conscious nature of habitus, Bourdieu’s theory of social capital and related concepts provided a useful conceptual framework that deepened understanding of socio-spatio-temporal aspects of 161 homelessness. His theorizations moved the analysis into worthwhile areas that would not have been examined otherwise. In particular, positioning homeless culture as distinct from broader mainstream culture is a provocative way for researchers and academics to conceptualize and approach homelessness research. Thinking about street homeless existence as crossing two separate yet connected cultures, helps to clarify and bring into fuller focus the experience of straddling these two world realities. The inclusion of habitus, doxa and fields, puts emphasis on the identities that homeless people are performing and to what end. This in turn, is useful in understanding why homeless people behave in the ways that they do and how their actions are working to bolster or mitigate entrenchment in homelessness. Separate from the utility of Bourdieu’s theorizations as way to think about homelessness, further research is needed to probe deeper into homeless identity and the point where the performance of the homeless subject becomes embodied or internalized. Learning and understanding more about how this happens is important to intervening and changing the trajectory of homelessness. This is a grey area in homeless identity that may be a window of opportunity for creating change in the lives of street homeless people. The key to intervening successfully is knowing when and how best to disrupt homeless subjectification. There are two key areas of research on social capital and homelessness indicated by the findings. The first is the prominence of negative social capital and its role in shaping the space-time aspects of homelessness. Within the street homeless context, the avoidance of people and relationships should be viewed as equally or even more important, than facilitating contact between homeless people and people and groups that are positive sources of social capital. Researching the negative as well as positive effects of homeless social capital is about understanding two sides of the same coin that are of equal importance in the space-time aspects of homeless social capital. Research is clear - homeless people’s relationships with others result in good and bad outcomes. In fact, 162 homeless people will work to build relationships even when these relationships only bring negative social capital (Hawkins & Abrams, 2007). Despite this, research on homeless social capital overwhelming situates social capital as a positive asset, ignoring the opposite, but complementary focus on the avoidance of relationships that promote negative or unwanted outcomes. Further research is needed to understand the role that the avoidance of negative social capital plays in homeless survival and the construction of homeless identity, with the end goal being that this thinking finds its way into practice. A key focus of future learning needs to be how homeless people’s interest in connecting with some people and their avoidance of others interacts through course of homelessness. The second area of research on social capital and homelessness that is needed has broad practical relevance. It involves determining how social capital can be leveraged to the benefit of individual homeless people and society as a whole. As I am often reminded through my interactions with street homeless people, despite their circumstance, they are individuals with tremendous resources, skills, and abilities that often go unacknowledged and languish through homelessness. They are artists, mechanics and technicians, artisans and crafters, and writers, truth tellers, and knowledge holders of all varieties; and, they want their abilities to be known and to be utilized. Homeless people’s awareness of their marketable skills was highlighted in a study by Tweed, Biswas-Diener, & Lehman (2012) that explored the self-perceived strengths of homeless people. Homeless people identified two categories of strengths: the first is personal strengths and the second is other skills and abilities, focusing on marketable skills that have practical value from the perspective of future employment or other advancement opportunities. These include marketable skills included job skills, education/training, and unique abilities (e.g., musical or athletic). As researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners we need to identity new opportunities to leverage homeless people’s 163 human capital by fostering social capital that creates meaningfully pathways out of homelessness. This involves more than just developing what Putnam (1995) would refer to as “bridging” or “linking” social capital or building relationships with individuals or groups that occupy a different social status (Barry, 2011). It is about how we identify and build on people’s unique strengths and skills in ways that disrupt the downward trajectory of homelessness. Playing by the current rules of the homelessness services game, homeless people are busy leveraging whatever they have to maximize their social capital through homelessness resources in order to survive. As we know, ironically, this is what ends up driving them deeper into homelessness. As people who want to meaningfully intervene, it is incumbent upon us to provide mechanisms for homeless people to leverage their skills and abilities in positive ways that don’t further perpetuate homelessness. 5.5 Reflections This research project was driven by two main research questions: 1) What is the relationship between homeless social capital, space, and time, and 2) How are locales (as a tangible expression of the socio-spatio-temporal aspects of homelessness) related to the trajectory of homelessness? These questions are rooted in my years of experience as a practitioner and what I was confronted with on a daily basis through my work with homeless people and other marginalized groups. What is the push and pull of homeless people in urban space – the shuffling of them from place to place, at different times of day and night, is constant that I witnessed throughout my career. The general lack of regard for why street homeless people are where they are in the first place, is the biggest question of my practice that no one seemed to ask, and it is the genesis of this research. The lack of understanding of the spatial aspects of homelessness is about the inability of mainstream society to appreciate homelessness from the perspective of being homeless. 164 A tension has always existed between my desire to do good work with people and my misgivings about the system of services of which I’m a part. Specifically, interrogating whether our collective efforts are inadvertently making things worse for the people with intend to assist. I remember as a new practitioner reading John McKnight and The Careless Society (1995) and being struck by his assessment of the broader helping profession as fostering dependency by supplanting personal resources and eroding inherent human capabilities. As evidenced by the findings from this study, the notion of sustaining life - as in the provision of emergency shelter on a freezing cold night or a meal to someone who has not eaten for days - only to saddle these same people with an increased likelihood of dependency, is a cruel irony that has yet to be addressed within homelessness services in British Columbia and Canada. As an example of how services address immediate problems of hunger or exposure, but create other issues that are equally, or even more concerning, after the end of fieldwork a new co-ed shelter opened in downtown Kelowna. It was established as a response to the growing numbers of people within the existing shelter system that was well over capacity. The new shelter housed eighty people of all ages, as well as their pets. People would sleep on mats on the floor in large open spaces where everyone was mixed together, side-by-side. There was an injection site within the shelter that consisted of a table with clean needles, but no direct medical support. Although I applaud efforts to make services more accessible for individuals that need them by lowering barriers to essential supports, like requiring sobriety, I worry that in the process these environments are becoming sub-human. In this regard, we need to revisit what is being done in the name of low-barrier services and harm reduction. Based on the findings here, central to helping efforts is the need to keep people connected to their mainstream lives and not cycling down to their lowest, least dignified, least productive selves. Though we may be saving lives in the short term, I question what it is costing 165 individuals and society as whole in the long run. A life may be saved in one respect, but what is also lost? In my career as a practitioner, I have found it challenging to confront social attitudes that valorize helping efforts irrespective of approach or potential ethical concerns and not discourage people from helping others more broadly. My comments here are not intended to encourage a withdrawal of support for homeless people in anyway, but to highlight the importance of recognizing that how we help has costs, as well as benefits. What are considered life-saving efforts from one perspective, are anchors in a homeless existence from another. This is about more than any single program or component of the homelessness service delivery system - it is about how we help those in most dire need as a society. To understand the potential repercussions of helping efforts, it is important to step back and look at the system as whole. Based simply on the growing numbers of visible homeless in municipalities throughout the province and the country, the system is not meeting homeless people’s needs. Given how overburdened front-line homelessness services have become, the system is not meeting its own needs either. As discussed previously, participants crafted their representations of homeless identity to align with their perception of the appropriate homeless subject based on their understanding of the underlying service/policy response. With Housing First, they played up their competencies, and with traditional homelessness services, they downplayed them. Although not a focus of this research project per se, the advisory committee members’ housing experiences provide further insight into the application of Housing First as a social policy response in Kelowna. Four out of five of the advisory committee members were in market housing for about a year when they joined the committee, and all were placed in housing through a Housing First approach. The fifth individual was in supportive housing. Under a Housing First approach service was: focused on the most chronic 166 based on length of homelessness/number of homeless episodes, involved the use of market housing, and initially included some manner of individualized services provided on an outreach basis. Over the course of fieldwork, the four advisory committee members in market housing lost the key support worker who had initially helped link them with housing. This happens as a result of service delivery policies that ended support after a period of time once an individual was housed or because of funding cutbacks. Ironically, the greatest and really only challenges each of them experienced was related to maintaining their housing, including dealing with issues with landlords, other tenants, and problems with rent or insurance. Despite being extremely resourceful individuals, they were highly vulnerable in this regard. Dealing with problems with tenancy was the only area where all advisory committee members appeared to need help and yet by the end of fieldwork, not one of the members in market housing had any assistance they could draw upon. I know this because they repeatedly asked me for this type of help, and not because I am a former practitioner, but because they viewed me as a competent, caring person who might be able to help. It wasn’t complicated bureaucratic issues or complex trauma and/or addiction involving years of intensive therapeutic intervention, but reasonably simply, straightforward problems related to housing. Having a single person whom they could go to for assistance in dealing with housing problems was the one area of support most essential to maintaining their housing, but glaringly, it was the one they all lacked. This occurrence highlights two key points. The first is the importance of focusing on the basics of support for people that can quickly derail successful housing interventions; and, the second, is ensuring that critical support remains ongoing. Given the tendency for street homeless people in this study to perform up when being assessed for Housing First, future research into the nature of service deficiency is warranted. Specifically, are the unmet support needs of advisory committee members (as formerly street homeless people) the result of them being assessed as having less need because 167 they performed at a higher level of functioning through the assessment, or is it simply the result of an overburdened and underfunded system? As a final reflection, when I began my doctoral research journey, I was hopeful that it could be a catalyst for positive social change for the advisory committee members and local street homeless population more broadly. My interest was for the advisory committee to become more connected, elevated, and inspired in ways beyond their tremendous contribution as research partners in my doctoral research. I was extremely fortunate to have a very articulate, experienced, and knowledgeable group of people for my advisory committee members. Knowing them made me even more optimistic that something bigger might come out of the experience for them, like a grassroots social change movement or something similar. In reality, although institutional support was able to move them out the immediate state of homelessness, they were never really fully housed and off the street. As noted above, because their housing was so precarious and they lacked the support that could help stabilize this area of their life long-term, they never got over being in a state crisis and looming return to a street homeless existence. On a regular basis, I was faced with helping them with their immediate issues that put their housing at extreme risk or not helping them. Every advisory committee member asked me for assistance at one point in time, and because of my knowledge and background as a practitioner locally, I possessed the ability easily assist them. For the most part, it involved simply providing names/contact information for individuals or groups that could help them solve their problem at hand. When I was first confronted by their requests for assistance, I thought long and hard about what was ethical for me as a practitioner-researcher – should I or should I not help? What is the right thing to do? In the end, I assisted all them with their various problems as best I could. In the context of research on homeless social capital with a focus on the importance of relationships as the 168 mechanism by which good things come about for people, ignoring their pressing need and disregarding what they had so willingly given through their time and expertise to the project, felt wrong and unethical. This is the nature of the difficulties we are confronted with through community-based, participatory research projects that engage directly and meaningfully with homeless people, particularly as practitioner-researchers. It goes beyond just questions of right and wrong, ethical and unethical, and to the heart of who we are as individuals, professionals, and human beings. 169 6. CONCLUSION Throughout my career, I bore witness to the frontline effects of the steady increase of punitive, reactive social policies leveled against homeless people. These policy responses never sought to improve the homeless condition, but simply dislocate people from their locales within the urban environment with little concern for why and how people were connected to these spaces in the city, or what these locations mean in the context of their day-to-day survival. Through this lack of awareness and appreciation of homeless people’s social capital and the associated space-time connections to the urban environment, their rationality and capacity as relational human beings who are deeply connected to others and depend on them for their day-to-day survival is denied. As a consequence, their behaviour is often framed in opposition to or against mainstream society versus in support of their own needs and interests. The division between mainstream and street cultures is perpetuated through a lack of understanding of the different relational meanings, uses, and needs related to urban space for homeless people, or how they change over time through the course of homelessness. Through improved knowledge of the spatial and temporal aspects of homeless social capital, we are better able to develop program and policy responses that are rooted in the reality of homeless people’s experiences and motivations versus being based on “mainstream middle-class assumptions and world views” (Hodgetts, Stolte, Nikora, & Groot, 2012, p. 1223). It is through highly contextualized accounts of homeless social capital, like the current study, that the artfulness and industry of homeless people as agents of their own survival, can be better understood. The concept of social capital takes a productive, practical view of homeless people’s actions; how their lives and in very real terms, their survival, is about the exceedingly human need to be social and form relationships with others. As is clearly indicated by the findings from this study, 170 homeless people’s survival is also about avoiding certain problematic people and connections. Most constructions of the homeless tend to portray them one dimensionally – “as deviants or victims” (Cloke, May, & Johnsen, 2008, p. 244). These constructions ultimately do little to advance understanding of the complexities of the spatio-temporal aspects of homeless social capital. In this way, research on the social capital of the homeless provides an important and often absent perspective. The spatial and temporal coordinates of street homeless people’s social capital are deeply meaningful. As indicated by this study, the meaning can be harvested to better understand homeless people’s needs and strengths, the effects of gender, race, and other individual factors, and/or the nature and depth of their subjectification. Through this research I offer a new approach to understanding and contextualizing social behaviour that speaks to homeless people’s motivations: why they do what they do when they do, and emphasizes the relational, the spatial, and the temporal in how they go about doing it. The theoretical and practical value of this study extend well beyond the context in which it is has been applied. For instance, the locale types and mediators of homeless social capital identified in this study cut across spatial, temporal, structural, and individual factors that impact homeless people throughout developed countries, like Serious Mental Illness, drug and alcohol addiction, and service dependency. Findings should serve as notice to the broader system of homelessness services that intent is no longer good enough, if it ever was. We must also be concerned with the unintended consequences of practice, and how what is implicit or hidden in practice, can work against the broader goal alleviating suffering and hardship. In the words of John McKnight (1995): It is the people, caught in this web of counterproductive systems who must seek survival in the hopeless spaces available…they are 171 normal people in an abnormal world, surrounded by expensive, costly helping systems that are the walls that bound their lives. To defy those walls, they must live abnormal lives – often productive, sometimes destructive, also creative (p. 146). Based on findings from this study, I would also add necessarily performative. 172 REFERENCES Ahern, K. (1999). Pearls, Pith, and Provocation: Ten tips for reflexive bracketing. Qualitative Health Research, 9(3), pp. 407-411. Altheide, D.L. & Johnson, J.M. 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Evaluation and Program Planning, 53, pp. 25-33 208 APPENDICES APPENDIX A List of Stakeholders List of Key Stakeholders Organization Job Title & Number of Individuals Consulted Policing/Enforcement City of Kelowna By-law Enforcement (1) RCMP Downtown Enforcement Unit (2) Community Policing (2) Downtown Kelowna Association Manager, Downtown on Call (1) Westbank First Nations By-law Enforcement (1) Homeless Service Agencies Kelowna Gospel Mission Manager, Shelter Services (1) Outreach manager (1) + staff (1) Courtyard staff (2) NOW Canada Executive Director (1) Manager, Shelter (1) Shelter Staff (1) Westbank First Nations Social Services Development Manager (1) Ki-Low-Na Friendship Society Program Manager (1) Piers Manager (1) + staff (1) Government City of Kelowna Social Planning Managers (2) Regional District of Central Okanagan Manager, Community & Policing Services (1) Manager, Parks Department (1) Community Entity - Federal Homelessness Strategy Coordinator, Community Entity (1) Other Okanagan College (Kelowna Campus) Professor, School of Business (1) 209 APPENDIX B - Letter of Initial Contact & Recruitment – Key Stakeholders Dear Chair – PHD Committee, We are a team of researchers from UBC Okanagan carrying out a study in the Kelowna community. Shelley Cook is a PhD candidate working with Dr. Jon Corbett at the University of British Columbia – Okanagan in the department of Community, Culture, and Global Studies. We are contacting you to make you aware of a research study examining the space-time aspects of homelessness in Kelowna and to request your assistance related to the research. Purpose of Study: Despite the importance of social capital to the psychological and material wellbeing of people, even the most resource poor populations, little is in fact known about how it functions for the homeless. This research study aims to change that by examining the relationship between homeless people’s mobility/use of urban space and access to social capital. By social capital we mean the ability of individuals to acquire benefits via membership in a particular social network or other form of social structure. The intent is to develop a more nuanced conceptualization of homeless people’s mobility and spatial presence in the urban environment that is relational and contextualizes homeless experience within the broader municipal context. Overall this research study will advance understanding of why homeless people position themselves and move through the urban environment in the ways they do, and how these patterns relate to different geographically-contingent sources of social support, including homeless serving agencies, as well as to the overall trajectory of homelessness. Type of Research: The proposed research will be grounded in the paradigm of Community-Based Research. This means that all aspects of this proposed research include a core community element, that the research is respectful and has a tangible benefit for homeless individuals as well as broader homeless stakeholders, and that all project partners feel a strong sense of ownership over the research process and the final product. The research study involves doing participatory mapping with chronically/episodically homeless men and women who have different primary supporting environments located in diverse geographic regions of Kelowna. At its broadest level, participatory mapping is the creation of maps by local communities and it has been used for a variety of purposes, including social asset and mobility mapping. In addition, we will work with an advisory committee composed of individuals with homeless experience (current or past) who will oversee all aspects of the research study. Procedures: Representing many of the key homelessness stakeholders in Kelowna, we want to make you aware that we will be seeking the assistance of individual PHD member organizations with three unique research tasks. The first is in the identification of potential participatory mapping participants (maximum 4 hours), the second is in recruiting advisory committee members (maximum 2 hours), and the third and final task is providing policy recommendations based upon findings (maximum 2 hours). Only members with the most relevant knowledge will be contacted to assist with each of the tasks, and these members will be approached on an individual (organization by organization) p. 1 210 basis. In this way, we intend to use the PHD committee as means by which to identify and access experts on different aspects of homelessness locally. As the Chair of PHD, we are not requesting any further action from you at this time. We simply want to make you aware of how we intend to use members of this committee through this research project. Confidentiality: Privacy is important. All efforts to safeguard the privacy of those involved in the research study will be taken. What you share in focus groups will not have your name attached to it if you choose. However, given that you will know many of the homelessness stakeholders participating in this study, there are limits to confidentiality in the focus group. In addition, as a highly visible leader in the provision of homelessness services in Kelowna, it is probable that readers of the report on this research study will assume your participation across the phases of the research project. Beyond these limits to confidentiality, your identity will be confidential. Please note that if you decide, we will not share any identifying information as part of any publications. You can change your mind about any information at any time. Contact for information about the study: If you have any questions or desire further information with respect to this study, please feel free to contact the primary contact/co-investigator, Shelley Cook, at: homelessnessresearchkelowna@gmail.com or XXX-XXX-XXXX. The principal investigator, Dr. Jon Corbett who is at UBC – Okanagan Campus, can also be reached at: jon.corbett@ubc.ca or 1-250-807-9348. Thank you in advance for your participation! Sincerely, Dr. Jon Corbett Associate Professor Community, Culture and Global Studies UBC Okanagan p. 2 211 APPENDIX C Letter of Informed Consent – Key Stakeholders PARTICIPATION CONSENT FORM: A Participatory Exploration of the Space-Time Aspects of Homeless Social Capital I. STUDY TEAM Principal Investigator: Dr. Jon Corbett, Associate Professor at The University of British Columbia: Okanagan Campus- Community, Culture, and Global Studies. Irving K. Barber School of Arts & Sciences: The Institute for Community Engaged Research. Email: jon.corbett@ubc.ca Phone: 250-807-9348. Primary Contact/Co-Investigator: Shelley Cook, PhD Candidate, The University of British Columbia: Okanagan Campus - Community, homelessnessresearchkelowna@gmail.com Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX. II. INVITATION & STUDY PURPOSE We would like to invite you to take part in A Participatory Exploration of the Space-Time Aspects of Homeless Social Capital. This research will take a qualitative approach to inquiry and use participatory methods to understand the relationship between homeless mobility and social capital, an approach that can be applied to homelessness globally. This study is based on the principles of Community Based Research (CBR). This type of research involves reaching out to people working in the sector and other stakeholders to help guide the research process. In this study, different homelessness stakeholders will assist in different ways. As a member of the PHD committee with specific knowledge regarding homelessness and street-level activity in Kelowna, we are requesting your assistance with two primary tasks. The first is in identifying potential participatory mapping participants through the identification of the main geographic clusters of homeless people in the city. This will be done at a meeting or meetings [maximum two (2) meetings/maximum four (4) hours of time] that will be scheduled at a time and location that is convenient for you. The second task, which will be to provide policy recommendations based upon the findings from the research, will be done in a focus group format and will require a maximum of two (2) hours of time. III. STUDY PROCEDURES What you have to say is important to our community. We are asking if you will share your thoughts and experiences with our research team. The information you share will help us figure out where the main clusters of homeless people are located in the city and to identify policy recommendations arising from the findings. p. 1 212 If you agree to be a part in this part of the study, we ask that you attend a meeting with a member of the research team. The meeting will be scheduled at a time and place that is convenient for you. During this meeting you will be asked questions about the geography and overall dispersal of different groupings of homeless people in Kelowna. If you agree to participate, you will also be asked to attend a focus group with other homelessness stakeholders to discuss the policy implications of research findings. This focus group will be scheduled at a later date and once again, will be held at a time and location that is convenient for you. The data collected during this research will be accessed and used only by the research team. No external groups will have access to the raw data. IV. STUDY RESULTS The results of the research study will be written up in a final report and project brief that will be made available to all those involved in the study, as well as the broader community. Findings may also be used in public presentations, and articles or chapters in journals and books. V. POTENTIAL BENEFITS & RISKS Research findings have direct, practical relevance to an emerging social crisis of urban public space impacting municipalities across Canada. As a result, there are broad policy and service delivery implications. By sharing your knowledge and experience, you will help us make recommendations that can be used to help develop policies and actions. These policies and action will improve the health and wellbeing of the homeless in Kelowna. As you will not be asked any personal information and only about your day-to-day professional knowledge, we do not think that being a part of this study will present any risks for you. VI. COMPENSATION You will not be provided compensation for your time or reimbursement for additional expenses such as travel and parking. VII. CONFIDENTIALITY Privacy is important. The researchers are not seeking any information that may be harmful to any of the people who work with us in the study. What you share in the interview/focus group will not have your name attached to it if you choose. However, given that you will know many of the homelessness stakeholders participating in this study, there are limits to confidentiality in the focus group. In addition, as a highly visible leader in the area of homelessness in Kelowna, it is probable that readers of the final report for the project will assume your organization’s participation in the evaluation across the phases of the research project. Beyond these limits to confidentiality, your identity will be confidential. Please note that if you decide, we will not share any identifying information as part of any publications. You can change your mind about any information at any time. In an effort to respect the privacy of other focus group participants, we ask that you keep they information discussed in the focus group confidential. p. 2 213 Please note: This research is for S. Cook’s thesis. As a result, thesis documents will be published on cIRcle, which is publically available on the Internet. Cases where confidentiality does not apply: If you reveal that there has been an incident that involved abuse and/or neglect of a child or an elderly person (or that there is a risk of this occurring), please note that the research team must, by law, report this information to the authorities. Withdrawal from the Study: Participants (individuals) may withdraw from the study at any time. You are participating in this research study as a representative of your organization. You may decide to withdraw from the study, and your organization may choose to put forward another individual. Any information that you have provided as a part of this study will continue to be included in the data used for analysis. You can withdraw from the study by contacting Shelley Cook (see Section X below). Storage: All data related to the evaluation will be stored in SPiCE Lab at UBC Okanagan in locked filing cabinets. Only the researchers will have access to this information. As per UBC policy, all materials will be destroyed after a period of five years after publication. VIII. CONTACT FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE STUDY If you have any questions or desire further information with respect to this study, please feel free to contact primary contact/co-investigator Shelley Cook, at: homelessnessresearchkelowna@gmail.com or XXX-XXX-XXXX. The principal investigator, Dr. Jon Corbett who is at UBC – Okanagan Campus, can also be reached at: jon.corbett@ubc.ca or 1-250-807-9348. IX. CONTACT FOR COMPLAINTS If you have any concerns or complaints about your rights as a research participant and/or your experiences while participating in this study, contact the Research Participant Complaint Line in the UBC Office of Research Services at 1-877-822-8598 or the UBC Okanagan Research Services Office at 250-807-8832. It is also possible to contact the Research Participant Complaint Line by email (RSIL@ors.ubc.ca). p. 3 214 X. PARTICIPANT CONSENT AND SIGNATURE By participating in this project, I understand: 1. Taking part in this study is entirely up to me. I have the right to refuse to take part. 2. If I decide to take part, I can choose to pull out of the study at any time. I do not have to give a reason. 3. My discussion with the researchers MAY be audio recorded as part of the focus group process (if all participants are in agreement). 4. The information that I share may be used as public research material. This material may be used within UBC Okanagan, shown at public events and/or put on the Internet. It may also be published in journals or books, and/or presented at a conference 5. I don’t have to answer any questions that make me feel uncomfortable. 6. I understand that I will have an assigned pseudonym unless I choose to use my name. 7. The researcher has told me about the risks that are linked with the project. 8. I will receive a copy of this consent form for my records. My signature below means that: 1. I am saying YES to take part in this study. 2. I have a copy of this consent form. 3. I understand the risks involved. ☐ I agree to have the focus group audio-recorded and used in the study results. ☐ I DO NOT want the focus group to be audio-recorded. I want to have my focus group responses to be in writing only. I agree that the investigators can use the information I share in their results. ___________________________________________________________________ Name (optional) Signature (optional) Date ___________________________________________________________________ Pseudonym Signature Date ___________________________________________________________________ Organization you are representing (optional) ________________________________________________________________________ Person obtaining consent Signature Date p. 4 215 APPENDIX D Letter of Initial Contact & Recruitment – Advisory Committee Members Dear Homeless Service Provider X, We are a team of researchers from UBC Okanagan carrying out a study in the Kelowna community. Shelley Cook is a PhD candidate working with Dr. Jon Corbett at the University of British Columbia – Okanagan in the department of Community, Culture, and Global Studies. We are contacting you to make you aware of a research study examining the socio-spatial aspects of homelessness in Kelowna and to request your assistance related to the research. Purpose of Study: Despite the importance of social capital to the psychological and material wellbeing of people, even the most resource poor populations, little is in fact known about how it functions for the homeless. This research study aims to change that by examining the relationship between homeless people’s mobility/use of urban space and access to social capital. By social capital we mean the ability of individuals to acquire benefits via membership in a particular social network or other form of social structure. The intent is to develop a more nuanced conceptualization of homeless people’s mobility and spatial presence in the urban environment that is relational and contextualizes homeless experience within the broader municipal context. Overall this research study will advance understanding of why homeless people position themselves and move through the urban environment in the ways they do, and how these patterns relate to different geographically-contingent sources of social support, including homeless serving agencies, as well as to the overall trajectory of homelessness. Type of Research: The proposed research will be grounded in the paradigm of Community-Based Research. This means that all aspects of this proposed research include a core community element, that the research is respectful and has a tangible benefit for homeless individuals as well as broader homeless stakeholders, and that all project partners feel a strong sense of ownership over the research process and the final product. The research study involves conducting participatory mapping with chronically/episodically homeless men and women who have different primary supporting environments located in diverse geographic regions of Kelowna. At its broadest level, participatory mapping is the creation of maps by local communities and it has been used for a variety of purposes, including social asset and mobility mapping. In addition, we will work with an Advisory Committee composed of individuals with homeless experience (current or past) who will oversee all aspects of the research. Procedures: We are requesting your assistance with two unique research tasks. The first is in recruiting members for the Advisory Committee that will oversee the project. p. 1 216 The inclusion criteria for potential Advisory Committee members are: • 19 years of age or older; • Able to speak/understand English; • Expressed willingness to attend monthly committee meetings (max. 1.5 hours per month x 9 months); • Currently homeless or homeless within the last 2 years; • Maintains contact with local homeless serving agency (may or may not be receiving service at this time); • Has lived in Kelowna for minimum of 2 years. Advisory committee members will be asked to attend approximately seven (18) monthly meetings (July 2016 – January 2018) with other individuals with homeless experience. The purpose of the advisory committee is to advise the research team on different aspects of the study including any potential areas of concern or possible harm that could result. At each meeting members will be asked to provide input on a variety of different research related issues that are specific to the needs of the research at that time. Items could include such things as how best to approach potential participatory mapping participants and possible risks to their or others safety. Each advisory committee meeting will be approximately one and a half (1.5) hours in length. Therefore, the maximum amount of time required to participate as a member of the advisory committee will be 27 hours over the length of the project. Advisory committee members will also be asked to attend one (1) focus group with other advisory committee members (only) to discuss the policy implications of research findings. At most, the focus group meeting will be two (2) hours in length. Advisory committee members are key to the success of the research study. Individuals will not incur any costs related to their participation (i.e.: childcare) and they will receive bus tickets and a $10 gift card for each meeting attended. For additional details, please see the attached recruitment poster for advisory committee members and the guidelines related to consent. We ask that you make this information available to eligible/interested parties through your agency. A member of the research team is happy to meet with any prospective advisory committee members to answer any questions regarding their involvement. The second task involves you attending a focus group with other homelessness stakeholders and providing policy recommendations based upon research findings. The focus group will be scheduled at a later date (time and location that is convenient for you). Confidentiality: Privacy is important. All efforts to safeguard the privacy of those involved in the research study will be taken. Advisory Committee member’s identity will be kept anonymous through the use of pseudonyms and if necessary, by altering identifying details in reporting documents. p. 2 217 What you share in the focus group with other homelessness stakeholders will not have your name attached to it if you choose. However, given that you will know many of the homelessness stakeholders participating in this study, there are limits to confidentiality in the focus group. In addition, as a highly visible leader in the provision of homelessness services in Kelowna, it is probable that readers of the report on this research study will assume your participation across the phases of the research project. Beyond these limits to confidentiality, your identity will be confidential. Please note that if you decide, we will not share any identifying information as part of any publications. You can change your mind about any information at any time. Contact for information about the study: If you have any questions or desire further information with respect to this study, please feel free to contact the primary contact/co-investigator, Shelley Cook, at: homelessnessresearchkelowna@gmail.com or XXX-XXX-XXXX. The principal investigator, Dr. Jon Corbett who is at UBC – Okanagan Campus, can also be reached at: jon.corbett@ubc.ca or 1-250-807-9348. Thank you in advance for your participation! Sincerely, Dr. Jon Corbett Associate Professor Community, Culture and Global Studies UBC Okanagan p. 3 218 APPENDIX E Poster - Advisory Committee Member Recruitment ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEMBERS NEEDED TO OVERSEE HOMELESSNESS STUDY IN KELOWNA We are looking for individuals to participate as members of an Advisory Committee that will guide a community-based study on homelessness entitled: A Participatory Exploration of the Space-Time Aspects of Homeless Social Capital You must be: • 19 years of age or older; • Able to speak/understand English; • Have been homeless within the last 2 years; • Maintain contact with local homeless serving agency; • Have lived in Kelowna for minimum of 2 years. If you are interested and agree to participate you would be asked to: provide your advice regarding different aspects of the research study and make recommendations based upon the findings. Your participation will involve attending monthly advisory committee meetings between July 2016 – January 2018 (eighteen months) and each meeting will be about 60 minutes. Additionally, you will be asked to attend a final meeting to provide input on the study’s findings. Your involvement will be strictly confidential. In appreciation for your time, you will receive: Bus tickets and a $10 gift card (per meeting) For more information on this study, please contact: Shelley Cook UBC-O, Community, Culture & Global Studies Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX Email: homelessnessresearchkelowna@gmail.com 219 APPENDIX F Letter of Informed Consent – Advisory Committee Members PARTICIPATION CONSENT FORM: A Participatory Exploration of the Space-time Aspects of Homeless Social Capital. I. STUDY TEAM Principal Investigator: Dr. Jon Corbett, Associate Professor at The University of British Columbia: Okanagan Campus- Community, Culture, and Global Studies. Irving K. Barber School of Arts & Sciences: The Institute for Community Engaged Research. Email: jon.corbett@ubc.ca Phone: 250-807-9348. Primary Contact/Co-Investigator: Shelley Cook, PhD Candidate, The University of British Columbia: Okanagan Campus - Community, homelessnessresearchkelowna@gmail.com or shelley.cook@alumni.ubc.ca II. INVITATION & STUDY PURPOSE We would like to invite you to take part in “A Participatory Exploration of the Space-Time Aspects of Homeless Social Capital.” This research involves working with homeless men and women to create place-based maps of their social networks. Doing this will help us understand the relationship between where/how homeless people move around the city and their access to social capital. By social capital I mean the ability to generate all form of benefits through relationships with others. This study is based on the principles of Community Based Research (CBR). This type of research involves reaching out to homeless people, as well as people working in the sector and other stakeholders to help guide the research process. In this study, individuals with homeless experience will participate in one of two ways – as a member of the advisory committee or as a participatory mapping participant. Those who participate on the advisory committee will also be asked to attend a focus group meeting with other advisory committee members at the end of the study. The purpose of this focus group is to get advisory committee members’ input regarding the findings of the study. You are specifically being asked to participate as a member of the advisory committee. III. STUDY PROCEDURES What you have to say is important to our community. We are asking if you will share your thoughts and experiences with our research team. The information you share will help us to ensure the best decisions are made throughout the research process. p. 1 220 If you agree to be a part of the study, you will be invited to be part of the advisory committee for the study. As a member of the advisory committee you will be asked to attend approximately seven eighteen (18) monthly meetings (July 2016 – January 2018) with other individuals with homeless experience. The purpose of the advisory committee is to advise the research team on different aspects of the study including any potential areas of concern or possible harm that could result. Each meeting you will be asked to provide input on a variety of different research related issues that are specific to the needs of the research at that time. Items could include such things as how best to approach potential participatory mapping participants and possible risks to their or others safety. Each advisory committee meeting will be approximately one and a half (1.5) hours in length. Therefore, the maximum amount of time required to participate as a member of the advisory committee will be 27 hours over the length of the project. If you agree to participate, you will also be asked to attend one focus group with other advisory committee members (only) to discuss the policy implications of research findings. This focus group will be scheduled at a later date and once again, will be held at a time and location that is convenient for you. At most, the focus group meeting will be two (2) hours in length. The data collected during this research will be accessed and used only by the research team. No external groups will have access to the raw data. IV. STUDY RESULTS The advisory committee will provide input into how the results of the study are written up and distributed to participants in this study, as well as the broader community. At a minimum, it is expected that the results of the research study will be written up in a final report and project brief that will be made available to all those involved in the study and the general public. Findings may also be used in public presentations, and articles or chapters in journals and books. V. POTENTIAL BENEFITS & RISKS By sharing your knowledge and experience, you will help us to ensure we conduct quality research that is respectful of the rights and best interests of all people with homeless experience. In the end, you will be helping us make recommendations that can be used to develop policies and actions. These policies and action will improve the health and wellbeing of the homeless in Kelowna. However, over and above the direct compensation you will receive for your involvement, it is important for you to be aware that these other benefits of participation cannot be guaranteed. In terms of potential risks to your involvement, there are two main risks that you should know about. p. 2 221 As an advisory committee member you will not be asked any personal questions. However, you will be asked to consider/provide input on aspects of the research (homelessness) that may be directly relevant to your experience. As a result, there is potential for you to be affected in some way by your participation. In order to help mitigate this risk I will: 1) ensure you are clear on all the potential risks before starting (consent form), 2) inform your support worker of meetings times in order to provide additional support if needed, 3) monitor/check in with you at the close of each meeting to assess your wellbeing, 4) work with you to develop a support plan for you (who to contact, how to contact, when to contact) that can be activated at any time, and 5) providing you with a list of additional support services that you can access. As second potential risk of your involvement, it is possible that others could perceive that you are assisting authority in a negative way (i.e.: local government, the police), which might bring some form of reprisal. In order to mitigate this risk, I will: 1) keep your identity anonymous (outside of the limits of confidentiality – see VII below), 2) ask advisory committee members to keep other members’ identities confidential, and 3) make clear (to all involved) that the primary intent of the advisory committee is help ensure people are not inadvertently/indirectly criminalized or in some way harmed through their involvement in the research. Please note that your services will not be affected if you refuse to participate in this study or at any point during your involvement you mention your dissatisfaction with services. VI. COMPENSATION You will be provided with a $10 gift card for each meeting you are able to attend (beginning of each meeting), as well as bus tickets (2) to assist you with transportation to and from the meetings. It is important to the researchers that you do not incur any out of pocket expenses related to your involvement. If you have any other costs resulting from participation (i.e.: child care, parking, etc.), please speak to Shelley Cook. VII. CONFIDENTIALITY Privacy is important. What you share in advisory committee meetings and focus group will not have your name attached to it. However, given that you may know other members of the advisory committee, there are limits to confidentiality in the advisory committee meetings and focus group. Beyond these limits to confidentiality, your identity will be kept confidential. Please note that we will not share any identifying information as part of any publications. It is important that you let researcher(s) know if there is anyone you are uncomfortable with being on the advisory committee with for any reason. Please note: This research is for S. Cook’s thesis. As a result, thesis documents will be published on cIRcle, which is publicly available on the Internet. p. 3 222 Cases where confidentiality does not apply: If you reveal that there has been an incident that involved abuse and/or neglect of a child or an elderly person (or that there is a risk of this occurring), please note that the research team must, by law, report this information to the authorities. Withdrawal from the Study: You may withdraw from the study at any time. You can withdraw from the study by contacting Shelley Cook (see Section VIII below). Storage: All data related to the evaluation will be stored in SPiCE Lab at UBC Okanagan in locked filing cabinets. Only the researchers will have access to this information. As per UBC policy, all materials will be destroyed after a period of five years after publication. VIII. CONTACT FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE STUDY If you have any questions or desire further information with respect to this study, please feel free to contact Central Investigator Shelley Cook, at: homelessnessresearchkelowna@gmail.com or shelley.cook@alumni.ubc.ca The principal investigator, Dr. Jon Corbett who is at UBC – Okanagan Campus, can also be reached at: jon.corbett@ubc.ca or 1-250-807-9348. IX. CONTACT FOR COMPLAINTS If you have any concerns or complaints about your rights as a research participant and/or your experiences while participating in this study, contact the Research Participant Complaint Line in the UBC Office of Research Services at 1-877-822-8598 or the UBC Okanagan Research Services Office at 250-807-8832. It is also possible to contact the Research Participant Complaint Line by email (RSIL@ors.ubc.ca). X. PARTICIPANT CONSENT AND SIGNATURE By participating in this project, I understand: 9. Taking part in this study is entirely up to me. I have the right to refuse to take part. 10. If I decide to take part, I can choose to pull out of the study at any time. I do not have to give a reason. 11. My discussion with the researchers MAY be audio recorded as part of advisory committee meetings and the focus group process (if all participants are in agreement). 12. The information that I share may be used as public research material. This material may be used within UBC Okanagan, shown at public events and/or put on the Internet. It may also be published in journals or books, and/or presented at a conference. 13. I don’t have to answer any questions that make me feel uncomfortable. 14. I understand that I will have an assigned pseudonym unless I choose to use my name. 15. The researcher has told me about the risks that are linked with the project. 16. I will receive a copy of this consent form for my records. p. 4 223 My signature below means that: 4. I am saying YES to take part in this study including the advisory committee meetings and focus group. 5. I have a copy of this consent form. 6. I understand the risks involved. ☐ I agree to have the advisory committee meetings and focus group be audio-recorded and used in the study results. ☐ I DO NOT want the advisory committee meetings and focus group to be audio-recorded. I want my responses to be in writing only. I agree that the investigators can use the information I share in their results. ___________________________________________________________________ Pseudonym Signature Date ___________________________________________________________________ Name (Optional) Signature (Optional) Date ________________________________________________________________________ Person obtaining consent Signature Date p. 5 224 APPENDIX G Script - Initial Contact & Informed Consent – Participatory Mapping Participants (oral) A Participatory Exploration of the Space-Time Aspects of Homeless Social Capital • Greet individuals. Introduce myself/research team. Hi. May I speak to you? My name is Shelley Cook and I am with the UBC Okanagan. I am also working with Dr. Jon Corbett, the other member of the research team. • Briefly explain research/study procedures. I would like to talk to you about a study on homelessness in Kelowna. It is called “A Participatory Exploration of the Space-Time Aspects of Homeless Social Capital.” The point of the research is to explore the relationship between where homeless people spend time and their ability to access different sources of social support. Ultimately it involves me working with homeless men and women to create maps of their social networks. This research is for S. Cook’s thesis. Please note that all thesis documents are published on cIRcle, which is publically available on the Internet. This study is based on the principles of Community Based Research (CBR). This type of research involves reaching out to homeless people, as well as people working in the sector and other stakeholders to help guide the research process. What you have to say is important to our community. If you agree to participate, you will be asked to meet with me individually (between 2-4 times (max 1 hour each meeting) over the course of 7 months - October 2016 – April 2017) at times/locations that are convenient for you. During our meetings I will be asking you about your social support network (who they are), the different forms of support you receive from your different sources of support, and your overall survival strategies. I will then ask you to map your social support, meaning you locate them on topographic maps of Kelowna. Any follow up meetings will be to build upon what you identified through the maps of your social support. • Are interested in hearing more? Do you want to continue speaking to me? Confirm eligibility. Are you: -19 years of age or older; -Able to speak/understand English; p. 1 225 -Willing to participate in individual mapping sessions (maximum of 3 sessions for maximum of 4 hours total); -Are you currently episodically or chronically homeless; - Have you lived in Kelowna for minimum of 1 year. • Confidentiality Privacy is important. What you share with the researcher(s) will not have your name attached to it. For research purposes, you will be asked to select a pseudonym. Also, we will change personal information and locational details when necessary to ensure your participation remains confidential. Please note that we will not share any identifying information as part of any publications. The data collected during this research will be accessed and used only by the research team. No external groups will have access to the raw data. It is expected that the results of the research study will be written up in a final report and project brief that will be made available to all those involved in the study and the general public. Findings may also be used in public presentations, and articles or chapters in journals and books. • Cases where confidentiality does not apply If you reveal that there has been an incident that involved abuse and/or neglect of a child or an elderly person (or that there is a risk of this occurring), please note that the research team must, by law, report this information to the authorities. • Withdrawal from the Study You may withdraw from the study at any time. You can withdraw from the study by telling/ contacting Shelley Cook. Your services (if accessing services) will not be affected if you refuse to participate in this study or at any point during your involvement you mention your dissatisfaction with services. • Compensation You will be provided with a $10 gift card for each meeting (beginning of the session), as well as bus tickets (2) to assist you with transportation to and from the meetings (if required). It is important to the researchers that you do not incur any out of pocket expenses related to your involvement. If you have any other costs resulting from participation, we ask that you please speak to Shelley Cook. • Discuss benefits/risks There are benefits and risk involved in the research that you need to be aware of. p. 2 226 Benefits Over and above the compensation you will receive, you may benefit from your involvement in this study in other ways. Through your involvement you will have a voice to speak to issues that directly impact your survival and through which you will have access to/the ear of decision makers in the community. Although your perception of belonging to the community and your intrinsic motivation to actively engage in community life may increase, this and other benefits cannot be guaranteed. Risks For men and women involved in the participatory mapping sessions who will be asked to discuss (through participatory mapping) their relationships/social support spatially, there are two primary potential risks related to their involvement. The first is the fact that you could be affected/triggered in some way by talking about their personal relationships. In order to mitigate the risk, I will: 1) ensure that you are clear on the potential risks of being involved before starting, 2) ensure you are clear you can stop/withdraw at any time, 3) if relevant, I will ensure your support worker/person is aware of risk and with the consent of the participant, is notified of when mapping sessions will occur in order to provide additional support if needed, 4) monitor/check in with you at the close of each session to assess your wellbeing, 5) have a support plan for you (who to contact, how to contact, when to contact) that can be activated at any time, and 6) provide you with a list of additional resources. The second possible risk is the potential to share information that could put them (or someone member of their support network) at risk of recrimination by police or others. I will mitigate this risk by: 1) not revealing any criminal behaviour discussed in participatory mapping sessions/follow up interviews and only discussing income generating activities that are obvious through your actions (i.e.: panhandling and squeegiing), 2) not noting the specific locations of privates residences of personal supports identified in the study, and the general area, 3) only accessing participants from those homeless clusters already known to police/by-law enforcement and service providers, 4) changing personal information or details related to location to ensure anonymity is maintained, and 5) using the Advisory Committee to identify/work through possible risks to mapping participants' involvement. • Explain briefly the advisory committee and what their role will be. Emphasize that they will not have any specific knowledge of other participants and but will help ensure that no harm comes to anyone involved in the study. Storage: All data related to the study will be stored in SPiCE Lab at UBC Okanagan in locked filing cabinets. Only the researchers will have access to this information. As per UBC policy, all materials will be destroyed after a period of five years after publication. p. 3 227 Review point by point what their participation in the project means. Although you don’t have to decide now if you want to participate, to ensure you are clear on what it means to be involved, I will now review point by point what participating in this project means. By participating in this project, I understand: 1. Taking part in this study is entirely up to me. I have the right to refuse to take part. 2. If I decide to take part, I can choose to pull out of the study at any time. I do not have to give a reason. 3. My discussion with the researchers may be audio recorded. 4. The information that I share may be used as public research material. This material may be used within UBC Okanagan, shown at public events and/or put on the Internet. It may also be published in journals or books, and/or presented at a conference. 5. I don’t have to answer any questions that make me feel uncomfortable. 6. I understand that I will have an assigned pseudonym. 7. The researcher has told me about the risks that are linked with the project. Providing consent means that: 8. I am saying YES to take part in this study, which involves meeting individually with a member of the research team to map my social support on a minimum of two occasions (maximum of four). 9. I understand the risks involved. 10. I agree to have my sessions with the investigators be audio-recorded and used in the study results. • If individual is comfortable providing oral consent at that time Accept their verbal consent to participate. Schedule another time to meet with them to commence participatory mapping. Make note of their pseudonym. Pseudonym: _________________________________________________________________________ If the individual is wants to accept it, provide her/him with a list with the contact information for the study. • If the individual is not comfortable providing oral consent at that time Provide with the individual the researcher’s contact information. Indicate that if they would like to participate in the study/talk about more participating, they need to contact the researcher within two weeks. Ensure they are able to contact the researcher (have access to phone or other means of contacting researcher). p. 4 228 APPENDIX H Social Capital Worksheet (Individual Sessions) Social Capital Worksheet Individual Sketch Mapping Sessions Participant: _____________________________________________________________________ Date: __________________________________________________________________________ Location of Meeting:______________________________________________________________ Demographics: Age:___________________________________________________________________________ Gender (female, male, or something different?):________________________________________ Ethnicity: ______________________________________________________________________ Self-define as homeless – YES / NO How long? _______________________________________________________________ # of homeless episodes? ____________________________________________________ Average length of homeless episodes? _________________________________________ Self-define as resident of Kelowna – YES / NO How yes, how long? _______________________________________________________ If no, where from? _________________________________________________________ Where would you say home is? _____________________________________________________ Where is your primary sustaining environment? • Favourite place to hang out? • The place you spend the most time (% of time)? • The place you feel most connected to your support? _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ pg. 1 229 Individual-level Social Capital (one form for each relationship identified) Who do you sometimes turn to for help? Who/Relationship Type? What Support? Name: Gender: Male / Female / Transgendered / Other? Relationship to You • Non-kin • Family/kin • Formal social service networks Level of Trust (1 low/10 high) • How much do you trust her/him? Reciprocity (1 low/10 high) • How sure would you be (if you did a favour for her/him) that she/he would return favour if asked? Tangible (material) • Non-professional • Professional Advice • Non-professional • Professional Belonging • Non-professional • Professional Self-esteem support • Non-professional • Professional Freq. of Contact #per day _______ #per wk _______ #per mos _______ #per yr _______ Length of Time Known Weeks __________ Months _________ Years___________ Known Before Homeless? Yes / No Diversity of Network Also homeless? Yes / No Ethnicity___________________ Key Source Yes / No Network (Spatial) Proximity Where do you see them? Mode of Contact? pg. 2 230 APPENDIX I Script – Group Mapping Sessions Street Homeless Participants Script – Group Mapping Sessions Date of Mapping Session Group: ________________________________________________ Location of session: __________________________________________________________ Women OR men: ____________________________________________________________ Facilitator/Researcher: ________________________________________________________ 1) Introduce myself again – describe the purpose of the session. Ensure participants are aware of the importance of their involvement. 2) Discuss confidentiality for the session – confirm that no identifying details will be shared. 3) Focusing on Kelowna, please draw those locations/places/spaces that YOU find receptive or welcoming of your presence. 4) Please draw those locations/places/spaces that YOU do not find receptive or welcoming of your presence. In other words, non-receptive or unwelcoming spaces. 5) SAMPLE QUESTIONS TO ASK DURING SESSIONS: a. Why is this the case? b. Why do you feel this way? c. What makes it this way? d. Was this always the case? e. Do you feel safe/unsafe there? 6) Repeat (number 3-5) until participants have drawn/discussed all relevant spaces. 7) Wrap-up – a. Final comments/thoughts? b. Check in to make sure the participants are/will be ok. 231 APPENDIX J Script - Focus Groups Homelessness Stakeholders OR Advisory Committee Members Focus Group Script – Leveraging Findings Date of Focus Group: _____________________________________________________ Facilitator/Researcher: ____________________________________________________ 1) Introductions (roundtable) – researcher and attendees, confirm participants have completed consent form. 2) Discuss confidentiality for the session. 3) Review communication strategy – dissemination of results. 4) Review goal/objective for the day: Develop intervention/policy recommendations based upon findings from the study. 5) Findings (Power Point) a. Present/describe distribution of homeless clusters. b. Present/describe the layered maps. c. Present point form overview of initial findings/observations. d. Review any findings/recommendations from advisory committee. 6) Break into small groups (3-5 individuals per group) a. Additional findings? b. Implications of findings? c. Specific intervention/policy recommendations? d. Prioritize interventions/policy recommendations? 7) Presentation of findings (lg. group) a. Representative from each small group present findings – top 5. b. Additional findings & intervention/policy recommendations? c. Prioritize interventions/policy recommendations. 8) Wrap-up – a. Final comments? b. Review communication strategy – dissemination of findings. 232 Appendix K – Certificate of Approval The University of British Columbia OkanaganResearch ServicesBehavioural Research Ethics Board3333 University WayKelowna, BC V1V 1V7 Phone: 250-807-8832Fax: 250-807-8438CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL - FULL BOARD PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: INSTITUTION / DEPARTMENT: UBC BREB NUMBER:Jon Corbett UBC/UBCO IKE Barber School of Arts & Sc/UBCO Admin Unit 1 Arts & Sci H16-01114INSTITUTION(S) WHERE RESEARCH WILL BE CARRIED OUT:Institution SiteUBC Okanagan CO-INVESTIGATOR(S):Shelley Cook SPONSORING AGENCIES:N/A PROJECT TITLE:Mapping the Geography of Social Capital of the Homeless: An Exploration of the Socio-Spatiality of Urban Homelessness. REB MEETING DATE: CERTIFICATE EXPIRY DATE:June 20, 2016 June 20, 2017DOCUMENTS INCLUDED IN THIS APPROVAL: DATE APPROVED:July 13, 2016Document Name Version DateProtocol:Research Proposal N/A March 14, 2016Consent Forms:Consent (Oral) and Initial Contact - Participatory Mapping Participants 2 July 13, 2016Consent Form - Service Providers (Leverage Findings) 2 July 13, 2016Consent Form - PHD/COF-CAB-HPS 2 July 13, 2016Consent Form - City of Kelowna 2 July 13, 2016Consent Form - Advisory Committee 2 July 13, 2016Advertisements:Poster - Recruiting Advisory Committee Recruitment 2 July 13, 2016Questionnaire, Questionnaire Cover Letter, Tests:Interview Script - PHD Members (Expertise on Homeless Clusters) 1 July 13, 2016Script - Advisory Committee Meetings 2 July 13, 2016Script - Participatory Mapping Sessions 2 July 13, 2016Script - City of Kelowna - Tripartite Typology Focus Group 2 July 13, 2016Script - Advisory Committee Focus Group - Leverage Findings 2 July 13, 2016Script - Homelessness Stakeholders Focus Group - Leverage Findings 2 July 13, 2016Letter of Initial Contact:Letter of Initial Contact - City of Kelowna 2 July 13, 2016Letter of Initial Contact - Service Providers 2 July 13, 2016Letter of Initial Contact - PHD Members (Background Expertise) 2 July 13, 2016Letter of Initial Contact - PHD/COF CAB-HPS 2 July 13, 2016Other Documents:Confidentiality Agreement - RA, Trascribers, Translators 2 July 13, 2016
Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Interdisciplinary Studies
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
"Playing with monopoly money" : a participatory exploration of the space-time aspects of homeless social capital
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