ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the same basic situation, but from the viewpoint of the family itself. It looks at families’ housing histories, aiming to put the experience of homelessness into chronological context, and to discover something of the stability or instability of each family’s housing experiences. The chapter takes a family-eye view of the events immediately preceding the latest entry to the temporary accommodation hostel, and what the family did to try to prevent or cope with the loss of its home. It tackles the question of motivation for becoming homeless, and looks at the relationship between a homeless family and the community in the period before homelessness. The chances of stability were scarcely much greater in good-quality high-rental housing. Stability was generally confined to those living in low-rental, often sub-standard properties.
