Emotional attachment to home and security for permanent residents in caravan parks

1. Emotional attachment to home and security for permanent residents in caravan parks Janice Newton BSSH University of Ballarat

3. Aim • To explore notion of emotional attachment to home and ontological security for permanent residents • Evidence from 11 Melbourne caravan parks

4. Background • Shortage of public housing • Caravan parks used for crisis accommodation and for a minority of Australians (tertiary homelessness) • Manufactured Housing Estates challenge this • Alternative discourses:Lifestyle choice & sense of community versus sites of concentrated disadvantage

6. Conceptual frames • Ontological security (Giddens) – living with anxiety and lack of trust • Mindful, emotionally-expressive bodies (Williams and Bendelow) • Spatial, temporal and cultural dimensions of ‘home’- regularity imposed on furniture and flows of people; insider and outsider boundaries. • Clapham (2005) Home and family still central, linked to identity . . Ontological security

7. Research • Phase 1 Interviews Caravan Park Managers (10) 2003-4 • Phase 2 Interviews and observation Caravan Park Residents (12) 2006 • Issues of representativeness: Manager interviews covered a broad spectrum of parks in terms of resident types and size. Resident interviews less representative (aged 43-81, 7 previous home owners, 5 men, 3 women, 2 couples; 6 divorced, 1 single, all Australian or UK born)

8. Thematic analysis: Security, safety and happiness (Manager and Resident responses similar so analysed together) • ‘Security’ linked to ‘community’ ‘They like the village atmosphere and feel safe’. Oh, it’s the security that I like. You’ve got to walk past about 8 cameras to get here’ • Managers on happiness Length of stay and pride in site • Residents on happiness ‘everybody needs a base’; decorations, access to view, bbq etc. • Homes demonstrate Individual identity

9. Looking outward – some focus on aspect from site Staying in – others draw curtains. ‘You know I shut these doors and whatever happens is my gig’ Embodied attachment to home Sigh of relief End of recurring nightmare Encounter with God Embodied attachment & ontological security

10. The final question is, what do you think the way you’ve set up your house says about you as a person? R: I’m untidy (laughs). It also says I read a lot and I watch television a lot. And I used to collect houses. Now, I thought that was rather fascinating. They’re rather beautiful, aren’t they? R: They are. Yes. … And, are they associated with places you’ve been? R: No. I just like houses (laughs). I love empty houses. I love going into empty houses, and looking around and seeing what it’s like, you know?And, I used to, up until I came here, I always had this dream, or dreams, that I was looking for somewhere to live. Do you think that’s because of your past? R: I was always trying to find something for myself or the children, or else we were being thrown out of somewhere. So you were anxious about it? R: Yes, and I think as soon as I came here, it stopped. I’ve never had one since. So, you’re secure? R: Yes.

11. Conclusion • Attachment to home possible in outer urban parks • Central significance of safety and security • Ontological security objectively challenged but subjectively possible • Centrality of home and family to identity • Can trust be reinscribed in MHEs?