Researching Migrant Homelessness

We are gathering the life stories of migrants experiencing homelessness in the UK.

This research project, led by Professor Simon Stewart, was launched in 2020, as a UK Research and Innovation /Economic (UKRI) and Social Research Council-funded (ESRC) project titled 'Homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic: homeless migrants in a global crisis’.

We are examining the life stories of migrants in relation to their experiences of homelessness before, during and since the COVID-19 crisis. The project’s findings and recommendations have been captured in several journal articles and have been incorporated in reports published by the Health Foundation (2021), the Kerslake Commission on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping (led by Lord Bob Kerslake) (2021), Homeless Link (2022), and The No Accommodation Network (NACCOM) (2023). The main report deriving from the project was recently published and was facilitated by St Mungo’s. We’re collaborating with colleagues at the University of Sussex and nine homelessness organisations in the sector, including St Mungo’s.

Responding to a recommendation from our research report, the Access to Justice service in immigration law opened at the University of Portsmouth as a collaboration between the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the School of Business and Law and Friends without Borders. Led by Dr Charles Leddy-Owen, The Access to Justice project is situated in Portland Building alongside the existing UoP Legal Advice Clinic. It provides free legal advice and casework on complex immigration applications, with a particular focus on human rights matters, for some of the least well-off residents of the city.