Our Journeys Into Homelessness, and for Some, Back Into Being Re-Housed by Michael Arcuri
In this presentation, Michael shares his co-research with people experiencing homelessness drawing on collective narrative practices. Michael’s work was informed by a solidarity team carefully selected for their insider and professional knowledges to foster his accountability to those who had experienced “survival”, “fleeing violence”, “living without a roof”, or “feeling invisible”. The learnings from these collaborations subvert, upend, step beyond and outside of the dominant discourses of homelessness. We’ll learn about the betwixt and between space of being newly re-housed and the ways in which choosing homelessness might represent an act of resistance against a culture that does not work for everyone.
Author biography
Michael (he/him) is a psychiatrist who at age 73 migrated to narrative therapy practices because he realized with those skills and knowledges, he could work in partnership with others in a way he had always wanted to. Currently he provides narrative psychiatric services to community members who are still, or formerly were, unhoused in San Luis Obispo, California. Identities of privilege and oppression, and cultural contexts that invite his co-researchers to find paths beyond feeling isolated, stigmatized, de-skilled and unknowing are very much part of each session. His work is part of a Full-Service Partnership with each community member coordinated by Transitions Mental Health Association, on land first settled by the Chumash People.
Click here to read the ‘Journey’s’ document created in this project. If you would like to get in touch with Michael or share a response to the document, you can email him at mic312arc@gmail.com
Published on November 7, 2022
