(Re)assembling the Self: Homeless Young People’s Identity Journeys and the Search for Ontological Security

ABSTRACT

Homelessness is frequently assumed to be a fixed state that suspends people in time and space as they enter into contexts and environments where they struggle to exert control over their lives and their futures. Furthermore, a multitude of negative identities are ascribed to people who are homeless based on their lack of stable housing. A growing literature has contributed to a more nuanced understanding of the identity “work” engaged in by youth who experience homelessness. Nonetheless, most studies have examined the construction of identity cross-sectionally; in many cases, exclusively or primarily through the lens of youths’ experience of street and shelter life. Additionally, while the home has long since been argued to provide a secure base around which identities are constructed and ontological security attained, the intersection of identity with ontological security has, hitherto, not been adequately addressed within the youth homelessness literature. This paper examines the identity journeys of homeless young people based on selected findings from a six-year biographical longitudinal study of homeless youth in Dublin, Ireland. The analysis—which is organised according to the themes of rupture, the interruption of trust, and the (re)assembling of self—builds on existing studies by engaging with the concept of ontological security alongside an examination of young people’s accounts of, and reflections on, their journeys through and, in some cases, out of homelessness. The paper concludes by discussing the importance of understanding the identity stories of homeless youth through longitudinal biographical narration and addresses the policy implications arising from the findings presented.

KEYWORDS:

• Homeless youth
• identity
• ontological security
• biographical research
• qualitative longitudinal research

Introduction

Youth homelessness is a growing problem across Europe, with available estimates suggesting that young people aged 18–29 years represent 20-30% of the total homeless population in many countries (Busch-Geertsema et al., 2014). There is also evidence that youth homelessness has increased in several countries, including Ireland (Central Statistics Office, 2012, 2017), the Netherlands (FEANTSA, 2017) and the UK (Centrepoint, 2021).

People who experience homelessness suffer losses and deprivations across multiple domains (Somerville, 2013) associated with their displacement and separation from society by virtue of the (homeless) places they occupy (McNaughton, 2008). Becoming homeless can also “severely disrupt one’s sense of self and autonomy” (Daya & Wilkins, 2013, p. 363) since individuals are forced to occupy spaces over which they may have limited control and where the condition of homelessness is ever-present. A multitude of negative identities are ascribed to people who are homeless based on their lack of stable housing (Gonyea & Melekis, 2017; McCarthy, 2013), whether or not they themselves identify as homeless. As Parsell (2011) observes, once homeless, people confront the imposition of the identity of a “homeless person”, which has the potential to interrupt a narrative of self. Furthermore, as a totalising category (Horsell, 2006), homelessness confers meanings based on stereotypical assumptions that are stigmatising; ignoring other axes of identity (McCarthy, 2013) and overlooking the heterogeneity of homeless populations (Parsell, 2010). This is despite the fact that many individuals who experience homelessness may reject the term “homeless” and also resist a homeless identity, even during periods of literal or street homelessness (Gonyea & Melekis, 2017; Kidd & Davidson, 2007; Preece et al., 2020).

This paper examines the identity journeys of homeless young people based on selected findings from a six-year biographical longitudinal study of homeless youth in Dublin, Ireland. Situated within an emerging scholarship that has drawn attention to the relevance of identity for understanding the experience and consequences of homelessness, the analysis aims to build on existing studies by engaging with the concept of ontological security alongside an examination of young people’s accounts of, and reflections on, their journeys through and, in some cases, out of homelessness. The paper starts by reviewing research on the identity “talk” or “work” of adults and youth experiencing homelessness. Drawing primarily on the work of Giddens (1990, 1991), the link between identity and ontological security is elaborated, before setting out the study’s methodological approach. The presentation of findings follows, organised according to the themes of rupture, the interruption of trust, and the (re)assembling of self. The paper concludes by discussing the learning arising from the findings presented and their contribution to furthering understanding of the evolving identities of young people who experience homelessness.

Homelessness and identity “Talk”

Identity, which can be characterised as “a shared set of meanings that define individuals as members in particular roles in society” (Stets & Serpe, 2013, p. 31, emphasis in original), is also an everyday word used to give expression or meaning to people's sense of who they are (Djité, 2006). Speaking about identity, Giddens (1991, p. 188) suggests that, for individuals, modernity involves “dilemmas which, on one level or another, have to be resolved in order to preserve a coherent narrative of self-identity”. Homelessness might be regarded as one such dilemma or disruption and an experience that is likely to alter one’s sense of self and place in the world.

A substantial literature has examined the identities of homeless adults, frequently emphasising the threat to identity posed by the condition of homelessness. In the earliest analysis of identity among homeless individuals, Snow and Anderson’s (1987) US-based study documented three patterns of “identity talk” among the homeless. The first, “distancing”, either from the notion of themselves as homeless or from other homeless individuals, represented their “attempts to salvage a measure of self-worth” (Snow & Anderson, 1987, p. 1353). The second, “embracing”, demonstrated the extent to which individuals identified with homeless others; while the third, “fictive story telling” centred on participants’ stories of their past, present or future experiences and accomplishments, which were said to denote their “attempts to say something concrete about oneself and how one would like to be regarded” (Snow & Anderson, 1987, pp. 1359–1360). With the identities constructed by homeless people depicted as emergent, many who had been on the street for shorter periods of time were found to use distancing strategies, while those who had been homeless for a prolonged period were more likely to embrace a homeless identity.

Since Snow and Anderson’s (1987) early work, the notion of a “spoiled identity” (Goffman, 1963) has formed a strong strand within research that has examined the lived experience of homelessness through qualitative and ethnographic approaches. For example, Boydell et al.’s (2000, p. 31) research on adult shelter users in Canada documented the loss of identity they experienced, with both chronically and newly homeless individuals speaking of “a devalued self because of their homelessness”. In the UK, McNaughton’s (2008) exploration of the transitions of 28 currently or recently homeless people aged 25–60 years found that the stigma of homelessness had significant negative impacts on their identity. Participants in this research were not, however, without agency, described by McNaughton (2008, pp. 46–47) as “each individual’s ability to construct a narrative (and narratable) identity—a conceptualisation of who they are, over time”. Other researchers have similarly stressed the fluid and processual nature of identity construction among adults who experience homelessness and their agency in the deployment of strategies in the management of a homeless identity (Daya & Wilkins, 2013; Gonyea & Melekis, 2017; Preece et al., 2020). Thus, research focusing on adults experiencing homelessness increasingly emphasises the diverse identities constructed by them, often challenging and resisting “the temptation to valorise a binary distinction between ‘the homeless’ and ‘everyone else’” (Preece et al., 2020, p. 147).

Young people, homelessness and identity

Just as the causes of youth homelessness differ from those associated with adult homelessness—owing to the dominant role of family environment in the reasons why young people become homeless (Gaetz et al., 2013; Rosenthal et al., 2006)—the consequences for youth are distinct because of their developmental stage and lack of experience of independent living (Gaetz, 2014). Research has long since established the destabilising social, economic and psychological impacts of homelessness for young people (Johnson & Chamberlain, 2008; Mayock & O’Sullivan, 2007; Quilgars et al., 2008), who are simultaneously required to be independent or autonomous to varying degrees (Barker, 2014). Particularly in more recent years, a growing body of research has examined the meanings that youth attach to homelessness (Mayock & Parker, 2021), which are said to carry “unique and profound consequences for young people’s identities” (Farrugia et al., 2016, p. 238).

Following the work of Snow and Anderson (1987), a number of studies have examined the survival strategies used by youth as they navigate shelter and street-based settings, often with a focus on the stigmatising impacts of homelessness. Like the literature on “identity work” among adult homeless populations, research on homeless youth has highlighted the ways in which they too use “distancing” to maintain order and preserve a sense of self from the negative discourses surrounding them (Farrugia et al., 2016; Hoolachan, 2020; King et al., 2009; Roschelle & Kaufman, 2004; Thulien et al., 2019). This body of research has documented the loss of identity experienced by young people on becoming homeless (Farrugia, 2016; Farrugia et al., 2016; Karabanow, 2006) and their subsequent struggle for definition and meaning of self (Kidd & Davidson, 2007). The fragility of their identities has been discussed (Thulien et al., 2019), as has their attempts to “salvage the self” as they deal with feelings of shame, rejection and social isolation (Farrugia et al., 2016).

Like the more recent literature on adult homelessness, studies have highlighted young people’s agency, resolve and resilience as they negotiate identity within homeless spaces (Frederick, 2019; Thulien et al., 2019). Stressing that homelessness is not a monolithic experience (Roschelle & Kaufman, 2004), researchers have emphasised the diverse ways in which youth identify (or not) with street environments and with other homeless young people (Kidd & Davidson, 2007), also revealing the presence of “celebrated” identities among youth experiencing homelessness (Hoolachan, 2020).

This burgeoning literature has contributed to a more nuanced understanding of the identity “work” engaged in by young people who experience homelessness. Nonetheless, most studies have examined the construction of identity cross-sectionally; in many cases, exclusively or primarily through the lens of youths’ experience of street and shelter life (e.g. Farrugia et al., 2016; Frederick, 2019; Hoolachan, 2020; Karabanow, 2006). While emphasising the heterogeneity of experience, this focus nonetheless risks presenting homelessness as a one-dimensional or all-embracing identity (Parsell, 2011), particularly since street- and shelter-based relationships may lose their meaning for young people over time. Notably absent in the literature is consideration of young people’s relationship with and interpretations of their biographical past as they negotiate identity along a path of housing instability. Furthermore, while home has long since been argued to provide a secure base around which identities are constructed and ontological security attained (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998; Padgett, 2007), the intersection of identity with ontological security has, hitherto, not been adequately addressed within the youth homelessness literature.

Identity and ontological security

First used by Laing (1965) to describe the experiences of people with mental illness, the concept of ontological security was elaborated by Giddens' (1990, 1991) theorising on late modernity. According to Giddens (1990, p. 92), ontological security, which is “an emotional, rather than cognitive, phenomenon”, has to do with “being” or “being in the world”. Giddens (1990, p. 92) defined ontological security as “the confidence that most human beings have in the continuity of their self-identity” which, he proposed, is strongly connected to a sense of “reliability in persons and things”. Thus, certainty in the routines and practices of social life—within which a person can have reasonably predictable expectations—helps to bolster a sense of ontological security. Conversely, when social life becomes unpredictable, the individual becomes vulnerable and ontologically insecure.

Achieved in interaction with others, ontological security is contingent on trust, described by Giddens (1991, pp. 41–45) as “a condition of the elaboration of self-identity”; when trust is undermined, anxiety results, which can “threaten awareness of self-identity”. Just as Laing (1965, p. 39) emphasised that to be ontologically secure is to “have a sense of presence in the world as a real, alive, whole, and, in a temporal sense, a continuous person”, for Giddens (1991, p. 54, emphasis in original), an ontologically secure person is able to act autonomously because s/he has a stable sense of self and a “biographical continuity”, which is necessary for the development of a stable self-identity:

The existential question of self-identity is bound up with the fragile nature of the biography which the individual “supplies” about herself. A person’s identity is not to be found in behaviour, nor—important though this is—in the reactions of others, but in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going.

The concept of ontological security has been studied in diverse fields, including within housing scholarship, where it was first used to examine the meaning of home ownership (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998; Saunders, 1989). The ontological insecurities experienced by individuals who are homeless have also received some attention in the literature, with homelessness said to mark a rupturing of identity and ontological security (McNaughton, 2008, p. 144) and to have enduring ontological impacts for those whose homelessness is not resolved (Stonehouse et al., 2021). Importantly, research has also identified dimensions of ontological security that are regained by individuals who transition from homelessness to stable housing alongside a “repairing of identities damaged along the way”, even if many continue to grapple with personal insecurities (Padgett, 2007, p. 1932). Indeed, recent research has highlighted the ongoing struggle for ontological security experienced by homeless men and women along a path of becoming, being and exiting homelessness (Stonehouse et al., 2021) and by youth as they transition to housing (Henwood et al., 2018).

While the markers of ontological security are said to include “constancy, daily routines, privacy, and having a secure base for identity construction” (Padgett, 2007, p. 1925), identity and ontological security have tended to be treated separately in the literature, pointing to merit in articulating the two concepts to advance understanding of the meaning and ramifications of homelessness for young people.

Methods

The research, which was biographical and longitudinal, aimed to examine young people’s paths into, through and possibly out of homelessness. With time as its foundation stone (Saldaña, 2003), qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) is predicated on the incremental investigation and interpretation of change, process and social context. Thus, what distinguishes QLR “is the deliberate way in which temporality is designed into the research process” (Thomson et al., 2003, p. 185). Longitudinal qualitative approaches, which generate “rich, situated data about unfolding lives” (Neale, 2021, p. 654), are particularly important in capturing and understanding transitions, including identity transitions, since it is through time that we can begin to grasp the mechanisms and strategies used by individuals to generate and manage change in their lives.

Based in Ireland’s capital city, Dublin, 40 young people (23 young men and 17 young women) were recruited at baseline (Phase 1). Recruitment at Phase 1 of the study was incremental and hinged, to a large extent, on the co-operation of managers within relevant services. Permission was initially sought from eight statutory and voluntary agencies to use their premises as recruitment sites. However, as time progressed, the range of recruitment settings was extended to include additional hostels, night shelters, drop-in centres, places of detention and street-based settings. The non-agency settings used in this research included a number of locations used for begging or rough sleeping. Over the course of the conduct of Phase 1 fieldwork, contact was made with more than 25 homelessness services and agencies in an attempt to identify appropriate access routes. Although not all of the services contacted were used as recruitment sites, this level of engagement with service providers generated valuable local knowledge and also helped to incrementally inform the sampling strategy, which was purposive and aimed to enlist a diverse group of youth with experience of homelessness. Baseline recruitment and interviewing extended over a six-month period from September 2004 to February 2005. The interviews, which ranged in duration from 40 to 100 min, were conducted in a variety of service settings including hostels, residential care facilities, drop-in centres and, in a small number of cases, on the street.

Approximately one year later in 2006, 30 of these young people were successfully tracked and re-interviewed (Phase 2). The final follow-up phase (Phase 3) took place in 2009-2010, six years subsequent to the conduct of the baseline interviews, when contact was re-established with 28 of the study’s young people. The tracking process during Phases 2 and 3 frequently began with the researcher contacting the homeless hostel or residential setting where the young person resided at the time of their previous interview. Service providers were often aware of the young person’s movements and were sometimes able to provide information about their current living situations. This was clearly not possible, however, in the case of young people who moved frequently and/or were sleeping rough. In these instances, the tracking process involved a combination of visiting specific street locations and/or asking other homeless youth if they had knowledge about an individual’s whereabouts. Telephone contact was also made with a parent or other family member when young people provided information of this nature (which was optional) at the time of their last interview. Over the course of the study, retention rates were 75% and 70% at Phases 2 and 3, respectively, which are satisfactory, particularly in light of the challenges associated with retaining “hard to track” vulnerable populations in longitudinal studies (Conover et al., 1997; van Wijk, 2014).

From the outset, the research privileged the narration of personal biography. Thus, while a core aim was to track the experience of homelessness and housing over time, the research focused strongly on the subjective experiences of the study’s young people, their perspectives on what mattered to them, and their responses to the people and places they encountered subsequent to becoming homeless. An underlying assumption of the biographical mode of interviewing is that each individual has a unique story to tell and a unique understanding of that experience (Roberts, 2002). Biographical research is inherently interested in the process of identity building and change—termed “biographical work” (Gubrium & Holstein, 1995)—and is optimal for understanding the ways in which ideas about identity are conceived, mobilised, understood and practiced. As Miller (2005, p. 8) puts it, “[t]he study of narrative is one attempt at coming to terms with how social identity and, in turn, social action, are constituted and guided”. In such an approach, “plot is the narrative structure through which people understand and describe the relationship among the events” (Polkinghorne, 1995, p. 7), which is bolstered by a longitudinal component. With temporality at the core of this study’s longitudinal approach, the aim was to capture the “movie” rather than simply a “snapshot” in time (Berthoud, 2000), including participants’ evolving constructions of identity as a young person confronted with the challenge of navigating homelessness.

All baseline interviews commenced with an invitation to young people to tell their “life story”, thereby positioning them as active agents in the construction of their biographies. Throughout the interview, emphasis was placed on the elicitation of narratives of becoming homeless and on establishing a chronology of housing or living situations since they first experienced homelessness. Questions also focused on their social worlds, including the important people in their lives, their everyday situations and daily routines. During the follow-up phases of data collection, young people were encouraged to update their life stories and to discuss aspects of both continuity and change in their housing/homeless situations, social networks, family relationships and so on. They were also invited to reflect on events, past and present, and to identify experiences understood by them as having a significant impact or consequence(s).

Youth who experience homelessness are clearly a vulnerable population due to their social and economic marginalisation and limited access to basic material resources (Ensign, 2003). Throughout the planning and conduct of the research, great attention was paid to several ethical issues and considerations, at the core of which was an appreciation of the sensitivity of the topic under study and the stigma of homelessness.¹ From the outset, it was recognised that while the study’s young people had homelessness in common, this experience did not define them (Runnels et al., 2009). Furthermore, conscious of not wanting to assume a status or position, the term “homeless” was not used when introducing the study to young people and it was instead explained that the research wanted to learn about youth who lived “out of home” or “away from home”. In this way, the imposition of meaning was avoided and each young person was encouraged to define their situation as they perceived it. The matter of written informed consent was also handled with sensitivity and all young people were given detailed in-person information about the study, as well as time to consider whether to participate. In all cases, a researcher met with the young person on at least one occasion prior to conducting the baseline interview and it was made clear that consenting to participate in this interview placed no obligation on them to participate in future waves of the research.² The longitudinal nature of the study and the fact that it was biographical generated ethical issues that required ongoing attention. As Neale (2013, p. 6) points out, adding time into the mix of qualitative research “heightens the need for ethical literacy”. Within research of this kind, the ethical management of research relationships inevitably arises, not least because the biographical approach is, above all else, “a matter of meeting with another person” (Kaźmierska, 2018, p. 409). At each phase of the study, considerable time was invested in revisiting the goals of the research and in explaining what the young person’s continued participation required. Again, this was an in-person meeting and a follow-up interview was only conducted at a later stage when the young person had adequate time to consider their ongoing participation. One noteworthy dimension of the research “journey” was that young people very frequently expressed appreciation for being contacted again and, irrespective of their status as housed or homeless, were eager to continue the telling of their stories. There were times when young people became emotional during an interview and, in such circumstances, they were immediately offered the option of terminating the interview, which was not taken up by any participant. Following the completion of all interviews, the researcher spent time chatting informally with the young person and all participants were provided with a list of services and supports related to education, mental health and substance use. Importantly, at Phase 3, it was made clear to the young people that this was the final stage of the research and that the researcher would not contact them in the future.

Qualitative longitudinal research is, as stated earlier, distinguished by the way in which temporality is designed into the research process, an emphasis which also generates analytic challenges, not least because of the volume and complexity of the data. Verbatim transcripts of all interviews were prepared and a coding scheme, comprising 15 conceptual and descriptive categories, was developed during Phase 1 of the research to facilitate the labelling, sorting and synthesis of data using the qualitative data analysis software package, NVivo. Over the course of the study, this coding scheme was elaborated and extended to incorporate new topics and issues and, in particular, to capture change in the lives of young people and their interpretation of change. At baseline, a “case profile” was also prepared for each young person and updated following each round of data collection. These profiles documented summarising information on young people’s pathways into, through and out of homelessness; key transitions (related to family relationships, substance use, health, education/training, and so on); “turning point” experiences; and insights, as they emerged, from the young people’s identity narratives.

This paper’s analysis draws on the “identity” code books generated over the course of the study, to which narrative data related to the following were assigned: the experience of homelessness; young people’s feelings about the people and places they encountered; their perspectives on and responses to transition and change; and their constructions and understanding of self as a young person negotiating the experience of homelessness and, where relevant, becoming housed. The identity code books from all three phases of the research were merged, re-coded and then analysed to capture dominant patterns and themes in the narrative data. To aid the tracking of continuity and change in the young people’s perspectives over the course of the study, the case profiles were used alongside the re-coded identity data to ensure understanding of the narrative “flow” of young people’s stories. The analytic process was iterative, paying close attention to processual features as well as to substantive content (Thomson & Holland, 2003), guided by a commitment to unravelling the depth and nuance of participants’ interpretations of their lives, situations and identity stories over time. Pseudonyms are used throughout the presentation of findings, with participants’ age and the study phase (P1, P2, P3) also specified alongside the narrative excerpts presented.

The study’s young people

At baseline (Phase 1), the 40 young people were aged 14‒22 years; 22 were under the age of 18 years and the average age for the sample was 17.5 years. Almost all grew up in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and, for a majority, the process of their becoming homelessness could be traced to childhood (Mayock & O’Sullivan, 2007; Mayock & Vekić, 2006). Young people’s opening life story narratives almost always included descriptions of household instability related to poverty, family conflict, and family illness and/or bereavement. Disruption to family life, often connected to parental substance use and/or mental ill-health, was commonly reported and the overall depiction of home was as a place where a parent(s) or caregiver(s) struggled to provide them with adequate care. Eleven young people had experienced violence in their homes, either as a victim or witness, three reported sexual abuse as children and 16 had been placed in state care during childhood or adolescence. Thus, like Stonehouse et al.’s (2021) participants, the ontological security of this study’s young people had been compromised prior to their becoming homeless and when first interviewed, very many recounted biographies replete with insecurities: “It’s hard just knowing that most of my family are on drugs and my dad is in prison and that I don’t get on with hardly any of my family … and the fact I have to be in care, I don’t like that either” (Melissa, 14, P1).

The living situations of the study’s young people at Phase 1 of the study varied, with emergency or short-term residential accommodation targeting the under-18s accounting for the largest number (25 young people). Others lived in a longer-term residential setting or hostel (2), an adult hostel or Bed and Breakfast (B&B) (3), between hostels and home (1), the street (2), prison (3) and supported housing (2) while two had recently returned home following a period of homelessness. These living situations changed over the course of the study as very many embarked on a path of ongoing transience and housing instability. However, by Phase 2, 17 of the 30 young people who were re-interviewed had exited homelessness, either in an independent or dependent sense.³ The remaining 13 young people continued along a path of moving between emergency short-term homelessness accommodation, interspersed by periods of rough sleeping, hidden homelessness and time spent in prison (Mayock et al., 2008, 2013). By Phase 3, of the 28 young people re-interviewed, 15 had exited (or sustained an exit from) homelessness, while 13 remained homeless. Young people’s success in exiting homelessness therefore varied: those who had exited by Phase 2 of the study tended to sustain these exits, even if a number did return to homelessness temporarily. Those, on the other, who had not transitioned to housing by Phase 2 were highly likely to remain homeless six years after they were first interviewed (Mayock & Corr, 2013). These findings draw strong attention to the importance of rapid exits from homelessness and to the detrimental consequences for youth of prolonged engagement with homelessness systems of intervention.

Young people’s identity journeys

The identity journeys of the study’s young people were multifaceted and complex, evolving alongside their unfolding experiences and their interpretation and re-interpretation of experience over time. As might be expected, young people’s homeless and housing transitions influenced how they perceived their situations. Significantly, these transitions also impacted young people’s “reading back” of their biographical past and their understanding or framing of self as a person with a history of homelessness. This section seeks to unpack these complexities, starting with young people’s accounts of the biographical rupture of becoming homeless, which had significant implications for their identity and ontological security.

The biographical rupture of becoming homeless

As documented earlier, prior to their homelessness, a majority of the study’s young people had experienced challenges associated with (sometimes acute) home-based difficulties and a large number reported trauma arising from their exposure to conflict and, in some cases, violence in their homes. However, despite the challenging circumstances with which they had lived, all depicted the experience of leaving home as a significant “break” or departure from the familiar and as a juncture at which they experienced acute uncertainty. Young people’s narratives of becoming homeless were replete with descriptions of having entered into hitherto uncharted territory, often expressed as a fear and dread of what lay ahead: “I was finding it hard because I didn’t know where I was going to be living” (Melissa, 14, P1). Neil’s description of his first night out of home placed strong emphasis on the loss of what he had known, at a point when he took some solace from the knowledge that “I could find my way home”, despite having been forced to leave by severe disruptions to family life.

I can honestly say it was probably one of the scariest nights I’ve had. I was in a new place with none of my friends, none of my family. I didn’t know what was happening and I was mainly worried about what the hell was going to happen because I don’t like things I don’t know … The only thing I knew was that I could find my way home and, if anything got too bad, I would walk home and I would go to my friend’s house … but I can honestly say I did not like not knowing anything. (Neil, 20, P1)

Thus, although forced by stressful home-based circumstances, becoming homeless interrupted what had been, at the very least, familiar, marking young people’s entry to a biographically disruptive landscape. For Roisín, who told that she was “kicked out” of her home at the age of 14 years following a period of conflict with her parents, entry to the emergency residential setting where she would live for some time was daunting: “I was scared because of the things I had heard about hostels.⁴ I had heard stories—your shoes getting robbed off your feet, that sort of stuff” (Roisín, 16, P1). Becoming homeless also severed young people’s connections with people and places, including family members, friends, school and their local communities. Declan (19, P1) explained that he was no longer in contact with friends in his home neighbourhood “because it all changes when you’re out of home”. Thus, physically separated from their homes and communities and having entered into a world of contingency, the core of their self-identity was threatened and their sense of being-in-the world disrupted (Giddens, 1991). Sarah’s recollection of the first night she spent in an adult hostel conveys the debilitating anxiety she experienced, which led her to feeling “there was no turning back”.

[Do you remember the first night in an adult hostel?]

Yeah, I was in bits. I cried myself to sleep that night, I was terrified.

[Why were you afraid?]

I don’t know? The life that was ahead of me, I suppose. You know, choosing this life. The life I was choosing and afraid of what was to come. I felt there was no turning back, I don’t know why?. (Sarah, 22, P1)

The memory of the first night spent homeless had not faded for many and, at Phase 3, some six years later, several—particularly those whose homelessness had endured—recalled their feelings of abandonment at the point of becoming homeless: “Yeah, feeling like an orphan or something” (Gerrard, 22, P3). Christian, who remained homeless over the course of the study, recounted a memory of his identity as dismantled by homelessness: “I was homeless and I never thought I would be homeless. I had so many ambitions when I was younger and that all changed” (Christian, 22, P3). Thus, as a biographical rupture, homelessness altered young people’s fundamental meaning structures (Denzin, 1989), interrupting their sense of self and producing profound ontological insecurity. For all, however, the “moment” of becoming homeless was the beginning of a longer journey that invariably brought further disruption along a path of seeking an avenue out of homelessness.

Trust interrupted and the struggle for continuity

Over the course of the study, most young people had moved between numerous unstable living situations, including multiple homeless services settings. Navigating these spaces was challenging and all conveyed a lack of agency over their transience, as demonstrated in Brendan’s account of the absence of choice over the “actual situation” of homelessness.

There’s one thing about staying in the hostels, you’re in them. The bad thing about being in them, you’re in them full stop and it’s not your choice whether you’re in them or not … It’s the actual situation or else you’re walking around the streets all night. (Brendan, 17, P1)

Even at the point when young people were first interviewed, it was clear that their trust relationships had been severely undermined: “It’s very hard to trust people. I wouldn’t trust anyone here (emergency residential/hostel setting)” (Jacinta, 16, P1). A majority talked about the unpredictability of the environments where they lived, depicting them as places where routine, which is valuable to sustaining ontological security and identity (Giddens, 1991), was largely absent. Very many questioned the quality of the relationships they formed with other homeless youth in these settings, which they said engendered (further) uncertainty and insecurity. Indeed, most described those with whom they socialised as “associates” rather than friends, explaining that their social networks rarely conferred a sense of loyalty or trust: “It’s very hard to trust people on the street, very hard. The only one I trust is myself” (Siobhán, 22, P1). Rachel, who was just 14 years old at the time of her Phase 1 interview, had learned not to form personal attachments because she feared that others would be either “untrustworthy” or move on from the hostel where she lived and never “come back and see you”. Central to the reality of being homeless was the task of learning to live with the erosion of trust, as Rachel explained.

Like anyone could come in here (hostel/emergency residential setting for the under-18s) and I don’t know their history … You’re better off just keeping to yourself and people are making the mistake of getting attached to people. It’s their mistake, because basically either people are going to be horrible to you, untrustworthy, or else they leave before you and they don’t come back to see you. (Rachel, 14, P1)

Young men in particular frequently told that, as time passed, they had come to understand the importance of presenting oneself as a person who was strong, knowledgeable and street wise in order to safely and successfully navigate homelessness service and street-based environments. Displays of weakness or vulnerability posed serious risks to one’s ability to survive, as Christian remarked: “I’m telling you, anybody that shows weakness on the streets is going to be fucked” (Christian, 17, P1). Perhaps in an attempt to manage and maintain ontological security, several adopted identities perceived as necessary for their safety and survival: “You wouldn’t know what would happen on the streets, no one knows. I’ve been beaten up plenty of times and I’ve beaten up people plenty of times. It’s the way of life out there, you know. Like there’s always someone out there better than you at the end of the day” (Declan, 19, P1). However, self-presentation as a person with street smarts was not the only response to hostel life, with others describing the importance of disassociating oneself from street scenes. Indeed, exiting homelessness and maintaining housing was considered by some to be contingent on establishing and maintaining a distance from other homeless youth: “I don’t really tell them (young people from hostel) that I have a flat because they’d be like, “Ah let’s go up to your flat” … like they are nice to hang out with outside, but they’d probably start bringing drink (alcohol) in and all and that would get me kicked out” (Jacinta, 18, P2).

Irrespective of youths’ responses to the people and places they encountered, the struggle for biographical continuity permeated their narratives and, while practically all described attempts to adapt to the uncertainty of their lives, most articulated a lack of control over their everyday worlds. The diminution of personal autonomy was particularly apparent in the accounts of those who had not found a resolution to their homelessness: “I’ve been going round in circles for a long time, probably since back then (referring to previous interview), and it’s just hard. I get setbacks, you know, having nowhere to stay is the main thing” (Eoin, 22, P2). As young people grappled with the absence of continuity, the task of dealing with precarity arose time and again, with anxiety about what might unfold a constant feature of their accounts. Several months after first leaving home, Lisa’s response to the question of what worried her most focused firmly on the stress of not knowing what was “going to happen next”.

Trying to find out where you are going to be moved to and things like that. Just things around the places that I am going to be moved on to and what is going to happen next. Where am I going and how long is it going to be. And the stress. (Lisa, 15, P1)

By Phase 2, Lisa had moved to a stable residential care setting where she had started to build trusting relationships with staff and others, including family members with whom she had very little contact since becoming homeless. Having transitioned from a period of “fending for myself” to “feeling more normal”, she was clear that her situation had improved. However, at this juncture, Lisa also recalled the insecurities of her transience, describing the consequences as “real hurtful”: “No matter where you went, you never belonged. Every bed you stayed in was never your bed … I have moved too many times and I have left so many people behind that it is real hurtful” (Lisa, 17, P2). Young people like Lisa were grappling with experiences that had altered their sense of self and their understanding of what it meant to trust and feel secure. Having “left so many people behind” as she moved between service settings, she struggled to maintain biographical continuity, which is essential to the construction of a continuous self and for the development of a stable self-identity (Giddens, 1991).

Importantly, housing stability did bring about change for those who achieved it over the course of the study. For example, Caroline, who explained that “I was going from one thing to another just to get to where I needed to be” (Caroline, 21, P3), had moved to a private rented apartment by Phase 3, where she lived with her child following a period spent living in transitional housing. The move out of “the system” to a home had clearly conferred a sense of security.

I think when you go through the system you class yourself as homeless because you’re never guaranteed a bed. But now I have a home, this is my home … it’s my personal space and everything in it is mine. It’s my home. (Caroline, 21, P3)

Similar to Caroline, who no longer considered herself to be homeless, Taofeck framed his move from a homeless hostel to transitional housing by Phase 2 of the study as having altered his sense of who he was: “Well I see myself as a young person living out of home but I am not homeless (now) because I’m not homeless” (Taofeck, 17, P2). Seán, who remarked at Phase 3 that he had “come a long way” since the time of his previous interview, also discussed his transition to housing, depicting it as a “confidence booster”, which he attributed to having “somewhere I can call my own home”.

I’ve come a long way from where I was the last time I was talking to you. I did up the apartment and that was another sort of confidence booster that I actually, I had somewhere I can call my own home. (Seán, 26, P3)

In keeping with the findings of other studies (Henwood et al., 2018; Stonehouse et al., 2021), exiting homelessness and becoming housed did not necessarily provide an immediate resolution to the ontological insecurities endured by young people, often over many years. For example, a fear of the future loss of housing was very present in Lisa’s Phase 3 account although she had been living in private rented accommodation for over one year: “I’m excited but I’m scared … It’s always in the back of my mind, “Am I going to lose this house?” (Lisa, 20, P3). Nonetheless, ontological security was significantly bolstered by the transition to housing, which provided a secure base from which to construct and repair identity and work towards self-actualisation (Padgett, 2007).

(Re)assembling the self: young people making sense of the present

Young people were engaging with complex ontological and identity processes as they navigated the challenge of homelessness, with many accounts suggesting that they were not only processing the rupture of homelessness but, also, the biographical disruptions that preceded their homelessness. Importantly, identity work varied between young people and was also subject to change over time. However, as documented in the previous section, housing stability ushered identity shifts that were strongly connected to feeling (more) ontologically secure. Furthermore, among those who exited homelessness over the course of the study, a striking feature of their narratives was the space that housing provided for them to (re)consider their biographical past, including but not limited to the experience of homelessness. When reflecting on the past at Phase 3, several young people spontaneously revisited their experiences prior to becoming homeless. In the following narrative, Rachel, who was living in private rented accommodation with aftercare support, reflected on her journey to the present.

From being by myself (referring to the move to housing), realising that when I first went into care, I thought, “Oh, this is great, no one’s going to tell me what to do”, and then when I realised, I was sitting there by myself, and I had no one around me. Do you know? I need to feel like I have someone that cares about me. I’d find that a big important thing to me, to have someone there, and I feel like I need to have someone to love me … I’d be looking for that because that’s very important to me because I didn’t get that as a child. (Rachel, 19, P.3)

In this account, we see Rachel’s identity as intensely entwined with her coming to terms with her biographical past; in particular, with having been placed in care, the consequences of which she narrated as a felt need to be cared for because “I didn’t get that as a child”. Also reflecting on her journey through and out of homelessness, Olivia (20, P3) described having been in care as “a huge part of my life”, adding that “it’s something I shouldn’t be ashamed of because it’s part of me and it’s made me who I am today”. Olivia’s trajectory through homelessness had involved staying in emergency residential (hostel) accommodation where she spent many months, after which she was placed in foster care and subsequently moved to private rented accommodation. She explained that, at the point of transitioning to independent housing, she felt “a bit misunderstood” because it seemed “like nobody cared about me, I’m on my own, kind of thing”. Like Rachel, Olivia found herself processing painful experiences as a young person who was housed following a lengthy period of instability, the (re)solution to which she described as “a matter of seeing, of looking at it from a different perspective”.

These accounts suggest that young people’s identity journeys involved biographical appraisals or what might be termed a re-thinking or re-working of biography. The ontological security derived from having a stable base facilitated these personal journeys, which were rooted in the search for an internal sense of identity and a (re)assembling of self. Caroline’s appraisals led her to “read back” or re-frame homelessness as having “added to who I am”.

I think that going through homelessness and everything that I’ve done really in my life has added to who I am … it kind of made me realise, not what I wanted to be, but what I didn’t want to be. Does that make sense?. (Caroline, 21, P3)

Somewhat similarly, when reflecting on the experience of homelessness, Anna remarked that “it wouldn’t have been the life that I would pick for anybody”, adding that “I learned a huge amount and I wouldn’t change it and it’s made me who I am now” (Anna, 22, P3). Albeit in very different ways, these young people were engaged in identity work as they sought temporal coherence or, in Giddens (1991, p. 51) terms, a way to keep a narrative going.

Among young people who remained homeless at Phase 3 of the study, narratives of both the present and the past held very different meanings and always articulated an ongoing sense of rupture. The challenge of navigating the precarity of homelessness for many years had taken a significant toll, even if several expressed hopes and aspirations that focused firmly on finding housing stability, employment and re-establishing relationships with family members and, in some cases, a child or children with whom they had very little contact. Although still homeless at Phase 3, Declan described himself as “in a better space” than previously because “I know what I want now”.

I see myself in a better space now, you know. As I say, I’m getting there slowly and at least I know what I want now; I want my kids back in my life and I really want to get a job and my own place. So three things really that I just want: my kids, job, my own place. (Declan, 26, P3)

However, young people like Declan who continued on path of homelessness and housing instability almost always communicated a weight or burden, which they linked to their present situations and also to their biographical pasts. Colm, aged 25 at Phase 3 of the study, had first experienced homelessness as a child with his mother, who died when he was just 15 years old. He lived with his sister for a period and, at age 16, became homeless as an unaccompanied minor. Since that time, although having transitioned to private rented accommodation on two occasions, he had embarked on an institutional circuit, moving between homeless hostels and prisons, alongside periods of hidden homelessness when he lived temporarily with his brother or girlfriend. When asked what caused worry or stress, Colm’s account focused firmly on the anxiety of his past.

Just kind of my past, that’s what worries me the most. Kind of when I’m thinking about that it gets me upset … It gets me down, makes me feel down and stuff. Just my past, that’s about it. (Colm, 25, P3)

Later in the interview, when “summing up” his life, Colm recalled not going to school as having had a significant negative impact on his ability to achieve stability and security, which he attributed to never having had “the proper guidance”.

[And just looking back on your life, how would you sum up your life, what life has been like for you?]

Horrible. When I think back, it’s just terrible, you know. Not going to school and stuff. I’d say if I went to school when I was younger, it would probably have been a bit better. I would have been able to get a job and it would have been easier, if I got a job, to get a flat, you know what I’m saying? It’s bad. Straight out. I never got the proper guidance. (Colm, 25, P3)

Colm and many others who remained homeless found it difficult to envisage the future: “I’ve no life. I’ve no future. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know where I’m going to end up” (Fergal, 23, P3). Ontological insecurities were seemingly unrelenting for these young people, leaving them without the material or personal resources to achieve continuity and stability of identity and self.

Discussion and conclusions

As outlined early in this paper, a burgeoning literature has examined the identity work engaged in by individuals who experience homelessness. Recent years have seen increased research attention to the identities of homeless youth, which has strengthened understanding of how young people manage and respond to the condition of homelessness and how they make sense of self within the environments they are forced to navigate. Nonetheless, to date, much of the research has focused on the survival and subsistence strategies of young people (Farrugia et al., 2016; Frederick, 2019; Karabanow, 2006), often through the lens of the street identities that youth embrace or, indeed, reject as they navigate the stigmatising impacts of homelessness (Hoolachan, 2020; Kidd, 2007; Roschelle & Kaufman, 2004). While a small number of studies have included youth who transition from homelessness to housing (Farrugia et al., 2016; Frederick, 2019), analyses to date nonetheless risk suspending homeless young people in time and space without adequate attention directed to the changing experiences and perspectives that accompany their often lengthy identity journeys. The analysis presented in this paper, which is based on the biographical accounts of homeless youth garnered longitudinally over a six-year period, has permitted an opening up of homeless young people’s emerging and, indeed, unfinished identity stories. Conceptually, the paper’s articulation of the concepts of ontological security and identity has uncovered young people’s engagement with ongoing cycles of interpretation, providing a unique window into their identity journeys.

For the study’s young people, the biographical rupture of homelessness involved a disruption at the level of identity strongly connected to the ontological insecurity of leaving home, even if home had been a site of uncertainty for a large number. Thus, consistent with the findings of other studies (Farrugia et al., 2016; Stonehouse et al., 2021; Thulien et al., 2019), young people experienced losses and hardships that altered their sense of “being in the world” (Giddens, 1991). With the anxiety of not knowing what might unfold, often expressed as “what will happen next”, emerging as an almost constant feature of their narrative accounts, young people’s ontological security was fundamentally undermined. Further to this—and critical to understanding the relationship between ontological security and identity—young people’s sense of trust was challenged and destabilised by the people and places they encountered following their entry to homelessness or residential care services as they observed and attempted to adapt to their new surroundings. Particularly with the passing of time, many learned that trusting others carried risks, leading them to adopt a guarded stance and not to trust. According to Giddens (1991, p. 40), trust offers a “protective cocoon” that enables individuals “to get on with the affairs of day-to-day life”. With routine and reliability largely absent for the study’s young people, the erosion of trust was a key marker of their ontological insecurity and one closely connected to a perceived lack of control over their environments, underpinned by the absence of a stable place to live. Possibly in an attempt to take control, and often as a protective strategy, young men who resided in homeless hostels frequently embraced an identity that communicated street smarts and physical strength. These young people’s evolving identity work was focused strongly on survival, highlighting the role of service environments in patterning young people’s responses to the biographical disruption that accompanies homelessness.

Identity work, as might be expected, evolved along multiple lines, not all of which were the same for all young people. However, the search for narrative continuity—which is linked to self-identity—came into sharp focus as the study progressed, particularly when young people reflected on their journeys. Their stories varied and there was no single or all-encompassing narrative. However, among those who exited homelessness, security of housing brought both material and emotional benefits, with the narratives of these young people revealing a process of re-working and (re)assembling of self as they looked to the past to (re)create a narrative plot that supported a cohesive life story. Several, for example, spoke explicitly about their care histories during their Phase 3 interviews and these narratives strongly suggest that they had reconstructed what had been painful experiences and learned to embrace them as an integrated and valued part of the self. As Dupuis and Thorns (1998, p. 27) point out, “(m)uch of the work that goes into maintaining or restoring a sense of ontological security takes place in the private realm”, which is precisely what housing security permitted these young people to do. As a strategy that worked to achieve biographical continuity, in Giddens (1991, p. 54) terms, they were assimilating events and sorting them “into the ongoing ‘story’ about the self” as they endeavoured to keep a narrative going. Young people, on the other hand, who remained homeless articulated a deepening of ontological insecurity (Stonehouse et al., 2021) strongly associated with the vulnerabilities generated by their ongoing transience. With nothing to filter out the insecurities of everyday life, these young people’s sense of reliability in persons and things (Giddens, 1990) was severely disrupted, in turn producing a threat to their identities and impeding their ability to conceive of or plan for the future.

The findings presented in this paper demonstrate that consideration of the identity stories of homeless youth has a much to contribute to understanding the reality and ramifications of the condition of homelessness. In particular, when stories of homelessness are tracked longitudinally, cumulative narratives and journeys are revealed, which is akin to “walking alongside” the person as they recount their experiences though time (Neale & Flowerdew, 2003). Like Parsell’s (2011) adult participants, homelessness did not define this study’s young people, nor was it a one-dimensional identity that they avoided or, alternatively, embraced. Rather, their identities were multifaceted, complex in their construction and subject to revision as young people came to terms with their homelessness and other aspects of their biographical past. Qualitative longitudinal research, which permits an exploration of the dynamic nature of the lives of marginalised youth, has the ability to uncover how identities are constructed and reconstructed over time and, in the case of youth who experience homelessness, how these constructions are fashioned and shaped by their homeless and housing trajectories and by the systems of intervention designed to address and respond to their needs.

Finally, and importantly, in terms of policy initiatives that aim to address the challenging phenomenon of youth homelessness, one of the clearest messages arising from this paper’s findings is the importance of speedy exits from homelessness. Housing enabled young people to shift from their categorisation as “homeless” to feeling “at home” and the ontological security that accompanied the transition to being housed enabled them to make sense of traumatic past experiences and to shape and (re)assemble their identity. Homelessness policy needs to directly address the situations of young homeless people—underpinned by a recognition that their experiences and needs differ to those of adults—and include strategic approaches that provide timely access to housing.

Ethical statement

Ethical approval for the conduct of this longitudinal study was initially obtained from the Research Ethics Committee at the Children’s Research Centre, Trinity College, Dublin and, during subsequent waves, from the Research Ethics Committee, School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College, Dublin. Ethical approval was also sought and obtained from the Irish Prison Service Ethics Committee during all three phases of the study in order to access or re-establish contact with young people who were incarcerated.

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge and thank a number of colleagues—Dr. Mary Louise Corr, Professor Eoin O’Sullivan and Dr. Krizan Vekić—who contributed to the conduct of this longitudinal study during one or more of its phases and to previous publication arising from the research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (formerly the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs and, currently, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth) and the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (formerly the Homeless Agency).

Notes on contributors

Paula Mayock

Dr. Paula Mayock is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin. Her research focuses primarily on the lives and experiences of marginalised youth and adult populations, covering areas such as homelessness, drug use and drug problems. Paula is the author of numerous articles, book chapters and research reports and is an Associate Editor to the international journal Addiction.

Notes

1 Ethical approval for the conduct of this longitudinal study was initially obtained from the Research Ethics Committee at the Children's Research Centre, Trinity College, Dublin and, during subsequent waves, from the Research Ethics Committee, School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College, Dublin. Ethical approval was also sought and obtained from the Irish Prison Service Ethics Committee during all three phases of the study in order to access or re-establish contact with young people who were incarcerated.

2 Young people aged 18 years and over were in a position to give consent independently but this was clearly not the case for those under that age of 18. Where possible, parental consent was sought but, in a small number of cases, this consent could not be obtained. It is widely recognised that there are circumstances when the requirement of parental consent may not be in a young person's best interests, particularly when the research involves the participation of high-risk youth populations (Ensign, 2003; Meade & Slesnick, 2002). In cases where parental consent could not be obtained, consent was given instead by the young person's social worker and this was arranged in co-operation with the manager of the setting where the young person resided.

3 Of these, seven were classified as having made independent exits (to private rented accommodation or had returned to the family home) while 10 were categorised as having made dependent exits and were living in either transitional housing or in a long-term residential care setting (see Mayock et al., 2008, 2011a, 2011b for further detail on these transitions).

4 Upon becoming homeless, young people under the age of 18 years were placed in an emergency/short-term residential setting while awaiting a more permanent solution to their homelessness. Stays in these emergency placements frequently extended for several months and, in some cases, for up to or exceeding one year. Young people always referred to these emergency accommodation settings as “hostels”, meaning homeless hostels or shelters.