Part A - Feantsa - Horus

270 European Journal of Homelessness _ Volume 3, December 2009
Conclusion : ‘Thinking Locally’ to ‘Act Locally’
This paper has attempted to demonstrate that it is only when we move away from
‘big picture’ accounts that we can begin to trace, in ever finer detail, the ways in
which inclusive and exclusive strands of thought, belief and action play out in local
communities. I realise that in casting my lot for analysis that focuses on the local, I
am bucking a trend ; however, I suggest that ‘thinking locally’ permits us the ability
to assess more accurately the current state of affairs in our cities in relation to
effecting critical changes, as well as finding and shoring up strands of inclusivity
within local communities in order to frame contributions to public discourse on
homelessness more effectively (‘acting locally’). Such tracings will surely yield
difficult challenges that need to be faced by advocates for the homeless, but more
importantly they will also shed light on potential, as well as very real, openings for
change. How so ? Let me provide a final illustration.
In response to the problem of high levels of victimisation and under-reporting
among the homeless in Edinburgh, in 2002 the police and community service
providers implemented a third-party reporting system intended to facilitate victims’
access to justice. In 2003 I conducted preliminary research on the Homelessness
Remote Reporting Project (Huey, 2008). In 2008 a follow-up study was conducted
in conjunction with a larger research programme aimed at assessing whether this
model programme could be successfully implemented in two Canadian cities :
Vancouver and Toronto (Huey and Quirouette, forthcoming). These cities were
selected as potentially viable sites to explore adopting this programme for one
simple reason : previous research suggested that, despite some variations in levels
of inclusivity, there were very real avenues through which change could be fostered.
This view was further supported when we interviewed police leaders in both cities
and they generally expressed interest in the programme. Indeed, some commanders
offered their districts to test a pilot project. This is not to suggest that the homeless
are necessarily treated as well in, say, Vancouver as in Edinburgh, but rather that
there is sufficient scope for effecting a positive change in that treatment. We knew
this not from a blanket acceptance of the routine characterisation of the West as
uniformly neoliberal and thus uniformly exclusive, but from examining the political
economy of the local environment. It is from ‘thinking locally’ that the possibility of
‘acting locally’ in meaningful ways emerges.