About the Project
In the UK, more than 350,000 people are registered homeless. Looking at the definition of Homelessness, there are other types of homelessness that this number does not represent. According to sources, the data will be doubled if hidden homeless people were to be included in this count. My project is about understanding the challenges that people face while experiencing Hidden Homelessness and how can we provide adequate support so that they do not end up sleeping rough on streets.
Glimpse of the Research
The research was conducted using multiple mediums to facilitate the conversation and gather insights into the current situation around homelessness. Digital Ethnography, Interviews, Workshops and Journey Mapping exercises were some methods brought into play during the research process. The diverse stakeholder group represented policymaking, frontline workers and personal experience to have a holistic perspective about the challenge.
How Might We statements
After the research and synthesis, there were two questions that became the northstar for the project and directed it
Concepts
The first idea was to create a hand-holding platform that navigates the person out of their homelessness through continuous guidance at each step and provide all the relevant information about essential support organizations (food, showers, storage etc.) on the user-friendly platform. The second concept was of a card game that will become a conversation starter in workplaces as anyone can be hidden homeless and an empathetic workplace is one less thing to worry about for the person experiencing homelessness.
User Testing
User feedback was key in shaping the project. Testing was conducted with multiple stakeholders at different stages to learn about user preferences and ease of use. It was done through in-person testing and online tests depending on their availability and technology access. The feedback from these activities was very insightful and helpful in further iterations for the project.
As every case of homelessness will bring different set of platform requirement, this platform is currently imagined for people very similar to the profile of Fiona and Adam.
Adam's Journey
Continue Reading Adam's Journey
Journey to my Home! is a bridge between all those ‘access points’ and the 'support system' for homelessness. It is made available at the all the places accessed by people experiencing homelessness to have a maximum reach of this information.
How it works?
'Journey to my Home!' is a digital platform that acts as a personal mentor for anyone experiencing homelessness. It is a custom navigator for the user and designs the most appropriate journey for their homelessness after processing answers of some initial questions about personal nature, disability, employment experience and current housing situation.
After processing the answers and understanding the person's circumstances, it breaks down their journey in few steps. For every step (that could be an interaction with a local authority), it provides documents checklist, usual questions and other important information about their contact details, working hours and emergency numbers. The user is asked to record their response for the platform to know any help that might be received by them and what could be the next steps. Learning about the user's experience (with the authority) helps the platform decide their relevance in future journeys and their speciality. With all the essential support (for food, showers, storage etc.) mentioned on the page, it enables the person to quickly access other services that are needed but would not be part of their journey.
Future of the Platform
In the future, this platform will play an integral role in cross-organization communication. It will become an ecosystem that holds trainings and awareness about topics like homelessness and work on behaviour change towards sensitive topics. It will be a secure document repository for homeless people and piloted in other parts of the country.