A Place To Call Home Exhibition - Histories of Homelessness

What is Histories of Homelessness about? 

I'm researching and writing about homelessness since the mid-Victorian period, right up to modern times. But I'm particularly interested in trying to understand the life experiences and the stories behind individuals who were prosecuted under the 1824 Vagrancy Act.

Why is this work important?

This work is important because it allows us to challenge the assumptions and the negative stereotypes that the judiciary, the police, the general public and politicians apply to those that they consider to be homeless. And by understanding them, we get to challenge these stereotypes that still persist today.

Why do you work on this?

I've become interested in these life stories of people considered to be “vagrants” because it's assumed that they are lost to history. And yet, in reality, my research has shown that they are there in the records from the mid-Victorian period onwards, and that we can reconstruct their life stories, not just at one point, but at multiple points throughout their lifetime.

What do you think home mean for the people involved in your project? 

So what does home means to the people I'm studying? In the eyes of the authorities, they’re of no fixed abode, which means they have no home. To these people themselves, they are moving around the country frequently between the workhouse, common lodging houses, perhaps prison, sometimes they’re sleeping rough. If you were to ask them what home was they’re, probably going to associate themselves geographically with town X or village Y.