| dc.description.abstract | Available data in many European countries, Australia and the United States indicate that family homelessness has increased, generating intense discussion and debate about the emerging nature of this phenomenon and how it can be explained. Over the past 20 years, homelessness research has focused increasingly on the temporal character of shelter utilisation by analysing large-scale and longitudinal sources of administrative data. Most notably, the seminal work of Dennis Culhane and colleagues in the late 1990s and early 2000's demonstrated that a majority of individuals and families use homelessness services on a short-term basis, with much smaller numbers going on to experience prolonged or recurrent shelter stays. While statistical evidence of these three service use profiles has since been found in shelter populations across Denmark, Canada and Ireland, understanding of why (and how) these patterns emerge has, hitherto, not been fully interrogated. Initiated in 2016 against a backdrop of exponentially rising numbers of families experiencing homelessness in Dublin, this study examined the dynamics of family homelessness in the Irish context. Adopting a mixed methods approach, a primary goal was to fill a gap in the homelessness research literature by extending beyond a descriptive statistical account of families' shelter entries and exits, towards a deeper explanation of service use patterns derived from their lives as lived.
The research objectives were as follows: 1) determine to what extent patterns of short-term, long-term and recurrent shelter use exist in the Irish context; 2) identify risk and protective factors related to families' prolonged and repeated shelter stays as well as those which facilitate lasting exits to alternative housing; and 3) generate in-depth understanding of the individual, contextual and structural drivers that influence families' differing shelter system trajectories over time.
Situated in a Critical Realist paradigm that equally values and validates multiple perspectives in the production of knowledge, the research employed a sequential (explanatory) mixed method design. Quantitative analysis was first undertaken to interrogate a large-scale data set (N = 2533) assembled from administrative records pertaining to all families who had accessed Dublin-based State-funded emergency accommodation over a six-year observation period (2011 - 2016). A cluster analysis was performed to test the prevailing three-fold typology of transitional (short-term), chronic (long-term) and episodic (recurrent) homelessness service use using variables derived from the entry and exit dates of families' shelter stays. The emergent groupings were then compared by available demographics, family-level characteristics and service background data. These results fed directly into the development of the qualitative arm of the research and informed the selection of theoretically relevant cases for participation. Twenty-six parents whose families exhibited transitional (n = 7), chronic (n = 12) and episodic (n = 7) service use histories were recruited and in-depth interviews were conducted with these mothers and fathers. These data were analysed thematically to generate rich insights to help explain, elaborate and contextualise the broader patterns of shelter utilisation observed.
This research mobilised a complex-realist explanatory framework that fused the ontology of Critical Realism with complex systems theory to advance understanding of families' homelessness service use patterns. With analytic emphasis placed on families' interrelationships with the multiple parts of the shelter system, the conceptual constructs of non-linearity, adaption, self-organisation and emergence were used to identify mechanisms, contexts and circumstances that helped to explain why certain families exited emergency accommodation quickly, while others went on to experience prolonged or repeated shelter stays.
The results of the quantitative analysis revealed three distinct shelter system trajectories - linear, uninterrupted and circuitous - that broadly corresponded to Culhane and colleagues' typology of transitional, chronic and episodic service use, respectively, though notable proportional differences were observed amongst the sub-groups. While cluster membership was not related to parents' age or gender, significant inter-cluster differences were found on the basis of household composition, migrant status, race/ethnicity and the number and type of emergency accommodation services accessed over the study period. From these patterns of association, episodic service users emerged as having the most distinctive profile, while transitional and chronic service users demonstrated a number of similarities across several metrics. The study's qualitative data were analysed according to families' macro- and micro- level interactions both with and within homelessness service (and other related) systems. Parents' narratives revealed that their families' distinct shelter system trajectories were strongly influenced by their interdependencies with the wider 'environment' of emergency accommodation, including: how they related (and responded) to linear models of homelessness service provision and evolving homelessness policies; their ability to access and navigate public and private housing systems; and their experiences with health and social care systems over the course of their lives. Turning to their interrelationships within the shelter system, specifically, parents' accounts emphasised the role of shelter rules, management practices and service settings in contributing to their experiences of exiting, remaining in and moving between emergency accommodation(s) over time.
While there is general consensus that homelessness must be viewed as a process, this thesis extends this conceptualisation by reframing the distinct trajectories that families' take through the shelter system as a process of 'becoming' that is unpredictable, yet ordered: it is complex. Mobilising a mixed methods approach that contextualises administrative data and individual action, the analysis opens up a manner of thinking about the relationship between agency, 'choice' and constraint in the lives of families navigating homelessness services in a way that transcends a limited individual/structure dichotomy. Two generative (causal) mechanisms - neoliberalism and pathologising responses - are proposed to explain the dynamic patterning of shelter use amongst families in the Irish context. It is argued that when activated, these mechanisms have critical implications for homelessness policy, practice and service-level interventions. | en |
