Still Somebody

Description

Still Somebody: A Project by Women Experiencing Homelessness in Northern Ireland
 
In society, and particularly in Northern Irish society, representations of home are constrained, limited, and undervalued. This is interrelated with experiences and presentation of gender, equality and more specific concerns such as domestic violence and homelessness where notions of home are contested.
 
Working with a group of women experiencing homelessness, a series of photography workshops supported them in visually articulating aspects of their experiences. This helped to develop their sense of agency in recording and sharing their own perspectives and stories and contributed to advocacy material for campaigns to raise awareness of homelessness in women. The project set out to demonstrate that home is more valuable and complex than it is presented in both society and culture, to legitimise women’s voices, and change narratives around women’s experiences of homelessness.
 
The participants talked about the stigma they face from others, the increasing precariousness of housing, their struggles with hopelessness, and the scary situations they’ve had to deal with. They also spoke about realising their own strength and resilience, pursuing their aspirations, and valuing the solidarity of female friendships.

Further impact activities from the workshops include a meeting with the Mayor of Belfast for Homelessness Awareness Week facilitated by Homeless Connect, talks in schools through Westcourt Centre, advocacy materials and a public exhibition in early 2025 with a series of events.
 
Northern Ireland has a tradition of marginalising experiences of both women and home. Its cult of respectability has long policed women’s lives here, rendering them silent and invisible. This was clear in the scandal of the mother-and-baby institutions, supported by the state⁠. At least 10,500 Northern Irish women and girls who became pregnant outside marriage were taken there by families, clergy, doctors and state agencies before the last institution closed in 1990.
 
It is a culture which also left the women and girls of Northern Ireland subject to some of the strictest abortion laws⁠ in existence, with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment: the harshest criminal penalty in the world. Women and girls who had the money, time and support to travel were able cross the Irish Sea to England to access abortions, and around a thousand every year made the journey. Criminal cases against women were still in the court system until abortion was finally decriminalised here in late 2019.
 
Marginalisation is evident in the current housing crisis in Northern Ireland, especially among women and children. With homelessness usually characterised by the image of the male street sleeper, there is even less recognition of the growing numbers of homeless who don’t fit that picture. Experiences of women and children are often very different to those of men, with domestic abuse a common reason precipitating their crisis. Safety fears are a widespread preoccupation as they navigate complicated and under-resourced systems to access frequently insecure temporary accommodation; being a lone female in an all-male hostel without door locks is not unheard of. Recent swingeing cuts to funding for housing, rising homeless deaths, unchallenged far-right propaganda around refugees, and an apparent political apathy towards addressing the problem do not provide grounds for optimism that change will come from the top.

To learn more about the shocking state of housing provision in Northern Ireland and the heartbreaking stories of some of the people impacted watch BBC Northern Ireland’s Spotlight programme Nowhere to Call Home https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0023w30

Period	1 Aug 2024 → 13 Dec 2024
Event type	Workshop
Location	BelfastShow on map
Degree of Recognition	National