32 Simon Communities in Ireland “It has now come to the point where I am seen by service providers as cantankerous or awkward … But there is nobody coming to me, there is nobody sitting down with me and saying, ‘Well is this the kind of house you want?’ I don’t want to be put into one specific type of housing; into senior citizen housing. And I felt very sad that people who were a generation younger than me were making decisions for me, regarding my housing … it was basically, I felt, that it was being voiced forced upon me. It’s like, ‘You go here or else, you’ve got no other choice’ and that has been an ongoing thing for over two years now.” (Fionnula, 58) Likewise, Irena’s experience of interacting with staff members on the matter of her housing and other support needs, led to her feeling side-lined and ignored: “I’m like a number, it’s not like I’m ‘Irena’ to somebody, you know what I mean” (Irena, 52). Very often women highlighted their need to be consulted, or ‘talked to’, about a range of issues that had a direct bearing on their present situations and their futures. “I think I was just one of those kids that people referring to service providers just gave up on like, ‘What will we do with her? Where can we put her?’ That kind of stuff like you know … I just needed somebody to sit down with me and talk to me and, you know, listen to what I had to say and my point of view, instead of saying, ‘We know what is best for you’ and ‘We are going to put you here because we think this is the best option’. And it wasn’t the best option, it was the easy option for them.” (Rosie, 38) A considerable number of women also talked about the routines that governed the day-to-day running of some service settings and the ‘culture of control’ that characterised staff-client interactions in many cases. These practices were frequently depicted as compromising their sense of privacy and autonomy and also resulted in many women feeling institutionalised and entirely dependent on the service system. Karen described the intrusive practices of surveillance that characterised some service settings. “Just being in the hostel, you know that there’s people watching you, looking over you, knowing you can’t do this and can’t do that. That’s very stressful, just horrible. We’re not teenagers; we’re adults in this place.” (Karen, 26) Reports of infantilising experiences and interactions within service environments were also commonplace and tended to be linked directly to how women felt treated by staff members. For example, some described being scolded and punished for rule-breaking in a manner that was frequently equated with being treated ‘like a child’. These encounters and experiences were invariably framed as humiliating, alienating and dehumanising. “I had drink on me once and if you come into hostel with drink on you, you have to sit on a bench for a while. Imagine at 36 sittin’ on a bench until they tell you to go over to your quarters … I know with my Ma, Jesus, at least I could sneak a drink in, but this was madness. Madness.” (Dervla, 36) “She referring to staff member in homeless service treated me like as if I was only a 2 year old child, do you know, the way you just scold a child sometimes? I couldn’t get over it and even now I still can’t over it I am still kind of saying that can’t be right. I was shocked.” (Imelda, 34)
Women, Homelessness and Service Provision
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