6: Where Is My Home?

Home can be understood in various ways: as an emotional sense of comfort, as a physical structure, as the social connections within it, as a possession and as a place where identities are formed and a sense of belonging is nurtured. While extensive literature exists on the concept of home, none offers a definitive description that applies to the homeless individuals in this study. This chapter focuses on how people create or reconstruct a sense of home and explore their emotional attachment to specific locations. Through interviews and participant observation, the author presents participants’ personal stories, giving readers the opportunity to engage directly with their experiences. These personal stories led to the identification of two distinct practices in the home-making process, including the construction of ‘us versus them’ relations.

The role of multiple dwellings or places – such as homeless organisations, public spaces, streets and the notion of a ‘national home’ – in creating a sense of home is emphasised. Attention is also given to understanding home among homeless Polish migrants and the home-making practices they engage in within the various places they occupy daily. The conclusion suggests that the sense of being at home should be viewed through the lens of individuality, developed in unique ways by those recognised as homeless in various contexts. In other words, the feeling of being at home depends on how much and in what way an individual feels at home, and there is often no singular or definitive answer to whether or where someone feels at home.