Case Study: Understanding homelessness

Ailsa Cameron is Senior Lecturer in School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol.

She works within the Centre for Research in Health and Social Care researching adult social care and support. Housing care services are a special focus on her research. She reviews the links between health and social care services.

Much of Ailsa’s research was within the University of Bristol’s TARA project, which looked to track homeless women’s experience of social care and the wider support system over a long period of time.

Some of the key findings of the TARA project identified that the experience of being ‘homelessness’ may well be different for women than men. The way that we conceive of the notion of ‘home’ is related to how we view genders. Key recommendations from the research identified that statutory and voluntary sector workers can work together to better support women using these services and that safety issues are a good starting point for any service. It was also important to recognise the gendered experience of homelessness and how this impacts men and women differently.

To read more about the TARA project, follow this link to read a report of the key findings. Or, if you have access to a library which provides access to online journals, you can read a research paper on the project by going to the link in the ‘See Also’ section below.