In my job, I don't get to just see the homeless; rather I get to see the person who is homeless. I see underneath the hardships and addictions. (Journal entry, Jameson, August, 2009).
The often hidden nature of rural homelessness makes it difficult to find individuals willing to tell their stories. In smaller centres, the homeless are often shy when it comes to sharing their experiences, a timidity likely heightened by the lack of anonymity familiar to anyone living in a small town. Being homeless is embarrassing, Sarah and Gerry, a couple who has struggled with homelessness for many years, tell me. “[…] people say […], 'Oh, you still haven't found a place?‟ kind of sarcastic like,” says Sarah. The stories of rural homelessness, told through the voices and photographs of the homeless, both challenge and re-enforce the “previous folklores of rural homelessness, suggesting the nomadic life of rough sleeping men” (Cloke and Milbourne, p. 262), and speak to how homelessness is experienced on an individual level.
For the homeless, spaces are creatively turned into lived places. A car becomes a compact bedroom for the evening; a tent pitched along the riverbank a home with a million-dollar view; a motel room a castle; a baseball dugout a solitary refuge. Lefebvre (1991) writes of how occupants of any space leave some indication they were there: “[…] leaving traces that are both symbolic and practical […]” (p192). Yet, for the rural homeless, there is an added effort to remain hidden, even when occupying highly visible spaces. Still, traces can be found: cardboard discarded in a back alley doorway); an abandoned campfire, grown over with grass and weeds.
