Thematic Analysis: Rough Sleeping in London Research Report, LC533

This report presents a qualitative analysis of the experiences of young people aged 18-26 who have experienced rough sleeping in London. The research, based on interview transcripts, explores the factors leading to homelessness and the challenges faced by these individuals. The findings section details the life stories of two participants, Luke and Gemma, highlighting their troubled childhoods, experiences with foster care, and the circumstances that led them to the streets. The discussion section examines the responses in relation to social science theory and relevant policy, focusing on the actions of the local government and the impact of programs like "Life off the Streets." The report concludes by emphasizing the need for continued efforts to address the root causes of rough sleeping and provide adequate support for vulnerable individuals. The report follows the structure of an introduction, findings, discussion, conclusion, and references, adhering to the guidelines provided in the assignment brief.

Running head: ROUGH SLEEPING IN LONDON
Rough Sleeping in London
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ROUGH SLEEPING IN LONDON
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Findings...........................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References:......................................................................................................................................9

2ROUGH SLEEPING IN LONDON
Introduction
The purpose of this research study is to understand the current sleeping pattern among the
18 to 26 years aged people living in London, who have experienced rough sleeping in the last
few years. This research is interested to examine and understand the lives of the young
generation and how they got to the point of sleeping rough and their experiences on the streets of
London. To this extent, this research has sought to adhere to the interview method of data
collection. Accordingly, two people have been selected who belong to the specified age group
and forms a part of the target population. To this extent, the method of non-probability random
sampling has been followed where only the people who forma an integral part of the survey had
been chosen to be selected for the process of interview. From amongst them, two candidates had
been selected for the research study. The information gathered has been scrutinized with the aid
of qualitative data analysis method. This has helped the research to draw a holistic and
comprehensive understanding of the research in context. Furthermore, a subjective understanding
has also been provided to the research study.
Findings
The purpose of this research study is to understand the current sleeping pattern among the
18 to 26 years aged people living in London, who have experienced rough sleeping in the last
few years. This research is interested to examine and understand the lives of the young
generation and how they got to the point of sleeping rough and their experiences on the streets of
London. To this extent, two participants were chosen from the target population in order to
understand the hardships faced by them in the context of their sleeping pattern.

3ROUGH SLEEPING IN LONDON
The first participant who was interviewed was named Luke. Luke was a twenty two year
old buy belonging to the White British ethnicity. He grew up on a town that was situated in the
outskirts of London. He stated that n his childhood, he lived with his single mother and
grandfather. His grandfather used to live a few blocks away and they would visit him often.
When his mother decided to remarry, Luke found himself being alienated with the arrival of a
new baby brother. Luke decided to live with his grandfather who soon passed away. The city
council could not allow Luke to continue staying alone in his grandfather’s house and soon, he
was shifted to a hostel in a college.
However, upon arriving there, Luke underwent a lot of physical disturbance and soon he
was thrown out. Due to his violent nature, he was sent to the young offenders’ house in
Birmingham. Over there, he found a new found passion in mechanics and was given the name of
“Sparky”. When Luke left the place after six months, he went to live with his family only to find
an excuse to run away again. From then onwards, he met several of his peers who were used to
sleeping rough. They frequented “Empty buildings, office blocks, warehouses, churches. That
sort of thing. I found somewhere to sleep under a bridge. They were other people there”. They
had to keep moving as they could not stay in one place for a long period of time.
The people he were with had knowledge about where to get the leftover food from and
the places they could shoplift. To this he stated that “… every day you have to get enough money
to survive … start all over again … it’s hard to keep going”. When asked about the efforts
undertaken by the city council to resolve the issue, Luke stated that the council members were
only concerned with making sure that they could not sleep rough. No permanent solution was
made in order to provide relief to them and the pattern continued every time a new city council
came to power.

4ROUGH SLEEPING IN LONDON
The second participant who was interviewed was by the name of Gemma. Gemma was
born in a city in the north of England. She is twenty four years old and of mixed black
Caribbean and white British ethnicity. In her childhood days, she had to live with an absentee
father and a mother who was in to drugs. As a result of this, she was taken in to social care where
she had to live for quite a number of years. However, her foster home was changed and was
moved in to a children’s home. The children’s home was not safe for the residents as most of
them were trafficked in to prostitution and other identical jobs. By the time Gemma was eighteen
years old, she was pregnant. However, she decided to raise the baby alone as her boyfriend was
abusive in nature. For a short span of time, she found relief in her mother’s home but had to
leave when an argument broke out between them. Gemma ran away, leaving her baby, Tasha,
behind with her mother.
Gemma started to sleep rough and spent quite a number of years outside of London.
When she returned to London, she desired to see her child but realized that she could not be a
normal parent as she did not have a residence of her own.
Talking about the health care facilities that were provided to those people who slept
rough, Gemma opined that such people could not visit a doctor when they were ill. This was due
to the reason that doctors required a proof of residence during the time of checkup and this was
not an option for those who slept rough. When Gemma was a infection in her chest, she was
compelled to reach out to the A&E section of the city. With regard to the other people of the
society who also frequent A&E, she stated that “… but they don’t like it …. I mean the other
patients, when they see you waiting. They looked at me and I could see them thinking “steer
well clear of her”…. But inside I’m just mush … last time I went to the center, I just cried and
cried …..couldn’t stop …..”

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Discussion
The responses gathered in the previous section shows that the people who are involved in
the activity of rough sleeping are usually those individuals who have faced certain hard ships in
life. With reference to both Luke and Gemma, it can be seen that they had a troubled childhood.
Even though they had parents, they still had to live in foster homes and in the offenders’ house.
Luke was comparatively a more violent person than Gemma. He got involved in drugs and
intoxicants. However, both of them had to take to the streets to sleep. Luke had to move around
considerably from one place to another. Gemma found a relatively stable lace to stay until a
murder occurred and the dwellers were asked to leave by the police.
The issue of rough sleep has been tried to be addressed by the local government within
London. In the case of Luke, it can be seen that the city council undertook measures to keep the
rough sleepers away from intruding upon public property (Blackender and Prestidge 2014). For
instance, in the words of Luke, it can be seen that “then someone sees you and you get moved on
… they board up the building and take your sleeping bag if they can”. When asked who ‘they’
were, he replied that “Feds, security guards, council, any jobs worth in a uniform …. You name
it … You have to live on your wits … always on the lookout for the next place to bunk down
like”.
This shows that the local authorities of London are concerned about the rough sleepers
(Greene 2014). A programme has been launched by the Mayor of London, known as the “Life
off the Streets”. This programme provides many various initiatives and services which help the
individuals sleeping rough on the streets to come forward and get a chance to rebuild their lives
(Petty 2016). These initiatives are complementary to the ones which are provided by the
boroughs in London (Wilson 2018). The Life off the Streets programme has undergone a

6ROUGH SLEEPING IN LONDON
reformulation in the recent times and new initiatives and services have been included which can
be stated as follows –
 Providing significant assistance to the individuals who are at an imminent risk of
undergoing rough sleeping. This assistance is provided by the means of “Somewhere
Safe to Stay” hub.
 Providing assistance to the individuals who are already rough sleeping by getting to them
with the aid of Rapid Response Team.
 Boosting the strength of the local cold weather shelters by providing assistance to them
with the aid of the Winter Programme Fund.
However, it can be seen that the issue of rough sleeper is still to be resolved within the
city of London (Ritchie 2015). Furthermore, the rough sleepers are not treated with care and
affection. In the case of Luke, it can be seen that the policemen and the security guards used to
chase them away in the event that they found them to be occupying any public places for their
sleeping purposes (Mackie, Johnsen and Wood 2017). Instead, of providing aid to them or
directing them to any nearby local authority who has the power to provide relief, the policemen
used to take away their sleeping bags (Garapich 2014). Additionally, loud music used to be
played near the places of rough sleeping so as to discourage any rough sleepers from undertaking
the activity (Clarke 2016).
This can be termed as a borderline case of harassment (Fitzpatrick and Pawson 2016).
The police has the important responsibility of ensuring the protection of the people. They need to
be able to maintain the safety and security of the individuals of the society, without any
discrimination (Ravenhill 2016). The homeless people of the community are considered to be the
vulnerable people who need additional protection from the local authorities (Midgley 2016).

7ROUGH SLEEPING IN LONDON
They are the disadvantaged people and therefore, requires more support and care from the city
councilors, especially the law enforcement officers (Dwyer et al. 2015).
In this regard, it can be seen that policies and the initiatives of the local law enforcement
officers along with the people who have the authoritative power should try to uplift the
vulnerable individuals of the community (Bretherton and Pleace 2018). The progress and
development of any community in the world is dependent upon the maintenance of a decent
standard of living by the individuals of the society (Johnsen, Fitzpatrick and Watts 2014). This
problem assumes a significant concern when the women of the society are also compelled to
resort to rough sleeping when they face any hard ships in their home environment (Wincup
2016). In this regard, there is a need on the part of the society, along with the political leaders to
ensure that the homeless people of the community have a decent place to sleep in at least one
time of the day (May 2014).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be observed that the issue of rough sleeping in London is yet to be
resolved by the city council members and the political leaders. The purpose of this research study
is to understand the current sleeping pattern among the 18 to 26 years aged people living in
London, who have experienced rough sleeping in the last few years. This research is interested to
examine and understand the lives of the young generation and how they got to the point of
sleeping rough and their experiences on the streets of London. To this extent, a qualitative
analysis was carried out by the researcher whereby the responses gathered with the aid of
interview method, has been analyzed. The main objective was to understand the hardships faced
by the people who had to undergo rough sleeping in order to sustain themselves. The various
policies of the government with this regard has been examined in the context of the research

8ROUGH SLEEPING IN LONDON
study. It has been observed that the policies need to be reformulated, thereby strengthening the
different measures to reduce the issue of rough sleep.

9ROUGH SLEEPING IN LONDON
References:
Blackender, L. and Prestidge, J., 2014. Pan London personalised budgets for rough
sleepers. Journal of Integrated Care, 22(1), pp.23-26.
Bretherton, J. and Pleace, N., 2018. Women and Rough Sleeping. A Critical Review of Current
Research and Methodology. https://www. mungos. org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Women-
and-Rough-Sleeping-Report-2018. pdf. Viitattu, 14, p.2019.
Clarke, A., 2016. The prevalence of rough sleeping and sofa surfing amongst young people in
the UK. Social Inclusion, 4(4), pp.60-72.
Dwyer, P., Bowpitt, G., Sundin, E. and Weinstein, M., 2015. Rights, responsibilities and
refusals: Homelessness policy and the exclusion of single homeless people with complex
needs. Critical Social Policy, 35(1), pp.3-23.
Fitzpatrick, S. and Pawson, H., 2016. Fifty years since Cathy Come Home: critical reflections on
the UK homelessness safety net. International Journal of Housing Policy, 16(4), pp.543-555.
Garapich, M.P., 2014. Homo Sovieticus Revisited–Anti‐Institutionalism, Alcohol and Resistance
Among Polish Homeless Men in London. International Migration, 52(1), pp.100-117.
Greene, J., 2014. Managing poverty, managing dissent: homeless politics and collective action in
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Johnsen, S., Fitzpatrick, S. and Watts, B., 2014. Conditionality Briefing: Homelessness and
‘Street Culture’. Welfare Conditionality: Sanctions, Support and Behaviour Change.
Mackie, P., Johnsen, S. and Wood, J., 2017. Ending rough sleeping: what works. An
international evidence review. London: Crisis.

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May, J., 2014. The view from the streets Geographies of homelessness in the British newspaper
press. In Cultural geography in practice (pp. 37-52). Routledge.
Midgley, J., 2016. Perspectives on responsibility in practice as revealed through food
provisioning offers for rough sleepers. Critical Social Policy, 36(4), pp.610-629.
Petty, J., 2016. The London spikes controversy: Homelessness, urban securitisation and the
question of ‘hostile architecture’. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social
Democracy, 5(1), p.67.
Ravenhill, M., 2016. The culture of homelessness. Routledge.
Ritchie, C., 2015. Prevent rough sleeping; create a psychologically informed
environment. Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic
Communities, 36(1), pp.36-42.
Wilson, W., 2018. Rough Sleeping (England). Briefing Paper, (02007).
Wincup, E., 2016. Gender, recovery and contemporary UK drug policy. Drugs and Alcohol
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