Lived Experience Forum

[Former-Member]

Hi @Shaz51 it's good to have you here ❤️ I'm so sorry to understand that that was the context in which you lost your house (which is horrific in any context!), but in the sense that it represented an opportunity for housing security. As someone who's lived through housing insecurity my whole life, I think I can begin to understand the impact of that.

Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts tonight, and I truly hope that there will be another form of housing security in the near future for you 💗

[TideisTurning]

What do you imagine the impacts of safe, stable & secure housing might be on mental health?  

If this is something you have experienced, what was that like?  

[TAB]

Not having internal doors and 1960s lockwood locks as front door like some motels still do. No security basically and no peace and quiet plus crap Internet these days although if I joined people at local shops sitting on footpath they get 5 bars 4G I get 1bar in caravan which often drops back to 3G 

[Former-Member]

I have experienced both owning a home and renting and that doesn't matter to me so much as living somewhere that makes me feel like I'm part of a community. It's great to know the names of the local shopkeepers and they recognise me too. I think that's another aspect about staying in a similar area for a long time as you have the opportunity to get to know people, even if it's casual acquaintances like shopkeepers/hairdresser/dentist etc.

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I really like what you said here @Patchworks😊 Feeling part of a community is very valuable

[TideisTurning]

Mmm. I hear you @TAB. Having the ability to effectively lock your house can be huge for promoting feelings of safety & security. Internet connectivity can be a frustrating struggle at times!   

[Former-Member]

While someone may not technically be considered ‘homeless’ in accordance with the definition/s we shared earlier, insecure, unstable or unsafe housing can still have a huge impact. There can also be a big difference between a ‘house’ and a ‘home’.   

More information:  

• On home & housing  
• On feeling safe, stable and secure  
• On the security & safety of home, of which everyone is deserving  
• On housing, homelessness and human rights 
• On housing as a human rights issue  

As we know, insecure, unstable and/or unsafe housing can also have huge impacts on our mental health.  Some more information here the importance of length of rental leases, to help close the mental health gap between renters and homeowners.

[Shaz51]

@TideisTurning , @Former-Member 

To see the impact on my husband MI to have a place to call our own before the fire 

He loved going back home after work where he felt safe, secure,  at peace 

Enjoyed being at home 

[TideisTurning]

Having a sense of home can be huge @Shaz51 ❤️❤️ I'm wondering what may help promote that feeling of home somewhere else?

[Shaz51]

@Former-Member , @TideisTurning 

I think time , safe environment,  having a secure place , able to put your mark , what you enjoy , what you like into your personal space 

[chibam]

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@TideisTurning wrote:

That's a really cool definition @chibam. I'm super curious- thinking of home as a group of people, how would you define homelessness? 

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Well, I'm always reluctant to try to repurpose words that already have established common meanings - I think we lose our ability to communicate when everybody independantly rewrites the english language like that.

But whatever you call it; my "homelessness" is the absence of meaningful relationships that you engage with on a day-to-day basis, in real life. (i.e. I struggle to believe you can build a home over the phone or via zoom).

I think those relationships need to significantly play out in "free time", when the participants are truly free to be themselves in the presence of their companions. This allows the relationship to be between our real selves, and not the more cultivated images we may be obliged to project in the workplace. I suspect that even if you get to spend all your weekdays working alongside a team of coworkers who you adore, you still may not have achieved a "home" there, while your interactions are still ultimately under the thumb of what the company demands of you. But that's not to say you can't build a home together if you go back to a shared apartment together when you clock off for the day.

I've heard a lot of testimony from military servicepeople, who all live in the little base "villages" with their families, alongside all their coworkers, and for the most part, I'm lead to believe that they have a tremendous sense of "home" sharing their "off-the-clock" lives with their coworkers, who are also their close friends and neighbors.

I think having a home does demand living in the same address; that there's that level of intimacy between you that you share a dwelling, a bathroom, a fridge together. That you sit down together often and lazily half-watch television together. That it's that sort of connection/relationship that I don't think I can describe very well, you know?

And I guess that there's something about sleeping under the same roof (or similar), too, you know? Like you know that if you woke up in the middle of the night with some sort of crisis, you can just go down the hall and knock on a roommate's door, and you'll have someone there who's got your back, you know?