Beside One's Self: Homelessness Felt and Lived

Acknowledgments

xix Acknowledgments This book emerges in a large part from my experiences working on a number of funded projects on homelessness since 2002. Though I do not explicitly develop material from all of them here, they include “Understanding Iterative Homelessness: The Case of People with Mental Disorders ,” funded by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute; “Squatting: What’s the Reality?” funded by the Service and Regional Research Program of the then Commonwealth Department of Family and Community Services; and “Accommodation in Crisis: Forgotten Women in Western Sydney,” funded by Parramatta Mission and UTS (University of Technology, Sydney) Shopfront. These projects and my preceding doctoral research were facilitated on the ground in Sydney and Brisbane by nongovernment organizations working to both address and advocate for the housing, health, and support needs of those experiencing homelessness . Staff in these organizations were extremely generous in assisting and participating in my research and, through their many thoughtful conversations with me about my work and their own, they continued to inspire and re-center me when I felt I lost my way. Centrally, this book is made possible by the frank and reflective contributions of people of all ages experiencing homelessness whom I met in the course of undertaking my various projects. These contributions were intellectual, strident, sorrowful, and sometimes darkly piercing and hilarious. I have kept good company over the last years and hope to have given some too. xx | Acknowledgments Sections of the introduction and chapter 1 first appeared as “Felt Homelessness: The Contribution of Qualitative Approaches to Homelessness Research” in Qualitative Housing Analysis: An International Perspective, edited by Paul Maginn, Susan Thompson, and Matthew Tonts, 91–111 (Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing, 2008), and “Homelessness Felt” in Cultural Studies Review 15, no. 1 (2009): 167–72. I thank Terry Clinton from the Marketing and Communications Unit, UTS, for providing the author photo. Original photographic works were very kindly provided for the cover by James Croucher (http:/ /jamescroucher.com). For work on this book, I have gratefully received a Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Enhancement of Research Performance Grant and a UTS Early Career Research Grant. I appreciate the support offered to me during my six months as a visiting fellow in the School of Social Science and Policy, University of New South Wales, where I worked peacefully during a period of study leave provided by UTS. There are many UTS colleagues who have become friends in the writing of this book, and in particular I would like to thank Katherine Gordon , Virginia Watson, and Katrina Schlunke, who in their different ways have cared for me, been unstintingly patient with me, and have helped me to keep writing. I thank Chris Ho, Catherine Cole, Paul Ashton, and Robert Button for their continued interest in my work. I would also like to thank my students, in particular those who have undertaken Social, Political, Historical Studies Honours Seminar, with whom many of the ideas of this book have been discussed. Rose Searby and Kirsty Martin have paid unwavering attention to every high and low and, with Anna Yokoyama and Sally Blyth, have attended to my soul and to that particular muddle of writing, friendship, and motherhood. Because of the faith of Lisa Bostock, Bill Randolph and Brendan Gleeson gave me a start, which set me on this path. I have greatly benefited from the intellectual engagement and emotional support of many people within the homelessness sector, including Sue Cripps, Felicity Reynolds, Jon Haynes, Brian Smith, Trish Bramble, Jane Bullen, and Noel Murray. The astute advice of Mary Selden Evans, executive editor at Syracuse University Press, and John Short, series editor, has helped to shape my work as a book, and I thank Mary in particular for her initial and Acknowledgments | xxi ongoing conviction, Marcia Hough for her assistance with detail, and Julie DuSablon for her compassionate copyediting. My community of friends and family in Sydney and elsewhere have richly nourished me—intellectually, emotionally, and physically. The Warrington family has been steadfast, and in particular I thank my grandmother Edith Wojtowicz who shared much of my life and read much of my work, and with whom I discussed the key themes and progress of this book often and up until her death in September 2008. Finally, I thank Corinne, Michael, and Lawrence for the home I left and Andrew, Cassius, and Hester for the home I have come into. [3.141.24.134...