Exploring perspectives on living through the COVID-19 pandemic for people experiencing homelessness and dealing with mental ill-health and/or substance use
Quick-read summary
Researchers conducted a qualitative study involving one-on-one interviews with people experiencing homelessness in an urban area in North East England to understand what it was like living through the COVID-19 pandemic for people experiencing homelessness. This included asking about the challenges and benefits it presented them in dealing with mental ill-health and/or substance use.
The research findings have highlighted the need to consider the immediate and longer-term impacts the pandemic has had on the lives of people experiencing homelessness, with a particular focus on impacts to mental health and substance use.
Who is this evidence useful for?
The evidence is useful for commissioners, providers from across statutory and voluntary, community or social enterprise organisations, and researchers interested in homelessness and mental health and substance use.
What is the issue?
The COVID-19 pandemic led to changes in how health, care, and housing support was delivered for people experiencing homelessness.
Current evidence suggests that people experiencing homelessness were disproportionately affected by the pandemic and associated restrictions.
With people experiencing homelessness often facing higher levels of mental health and substance use needs, it is important to understand how living through the pandemic impacted this.
Research summary
We spoke to 16 men and 10 women experiencing homelessness in an urban area in North East England to understand what it was like living through the COVID-19 pandemic for people experiencing homelessness and the challenges and benefits it presented them in dealing with mental ill-health and/or substance use.
We worked with five people who had prior experience of homelessness, substance use, and/or mental ill-health to understand what we found in the interviews. We present an overview of four themes below.
What the research found
- The lack of in-person support and increased isolation and loneliness led to relapses or new challenges for many people’s mental health and substance use.
- The ‘‘surreal’’ experience of the pandemic led to many people feeling uncertain about the future and when things would return to normal.
- Isolation and changes to relationships also played a role in mental health and substance use.
- Some people used the pandemic and restrictions as an opportunity for reflection and self-improvement for their mental health and substance use.
Why is this important?
Being able to speak to people one year after initial restrictions were put in place meant we could reflect more on changes across the year and longer-term impacts.
Study findings will help providers and policymakers for health, social care and housing to better understand that the COVID-19 pandemic did not uniformly impact people experiencing homelessness.
Findings also highlight that support will need to be adapted to support people who are new or returning to services and at different stages of their mental health and substance use recovery.
How were people with lived experience involved in this work?
We worked with three men and two women who have prior experience homelessness to analysis and make sense of the interviews. We collaboratively developed the themes and have co-written this paper.
What’s next?
Another paper exploring access to mental health and substance use support has been published and we have generated two visual representations of the findings with the support of More than Minutes. Future research is looking to unpack the role of trauma during homelessness in shaping mental health and substance use.
Read the full paper: Exploring perspectives on living through the COVID-19 pandemic for people experiencing homelessness and dealing with mental ill-health and/or substance use: qualitative study. Published in Advances in Dual Diagnosis, April 2024
Get in touch about this research
Lead researcher: Emma Adams
Email address: emma.adams@newcastle.ac.uk
Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) School for Public Health Research (SPHR) development fund for early career researchers (ECRs) (PD-SPH-2015), and by the NIHR Public Health Policy Research Unit (PH-PRU) (Grant Reference PHSEZQ47-21-A). Lead author Emma Adams was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) North East and North Cumbria (NENC) during the time she completed this work. Co-author Professor Eileen Kaner is Director of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North East and North Cumbria. Co-author Professor Amy O’Donnell is Deputy Theme Lead – Prevention, Early Intervention and Behaviour Change, NIHR ARC NENC.
Image credit: Jon Tyson, Unsplash (royalty free)