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Research suggests that those who are bereaved and experiencing homelessness may not be well supported in their bereavement. People experiencing homelessness may rely on community service workers for support, but these individuals typically lack formal training in supporting bereaved individuals. There is a need to understand how bereavement is experienced in the context of homelessness to be able to better support individuals who are experiencing homelessness and bereavement.
Monk and colleagues (2023) conducted a rapid review to answer three research questions:
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- What can we learn about how individuals frame and understand the bereavement experience in the context of homelessness?
- What are the current practices to support the bereavement experience in the context of homelessness?
- What are the gaps and challenges in addressing bereavement for individuals experiencing homelessness?
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Seventeen qualitative studies that met the inclusion criteria (published in the English language between 1970 to 2022 and investigated bereaved individuals with lived/living experiences of homelessness) and were included in the review. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the studies.
How individuals frame and understand the bereavement experience in the context of homelessness
Four themes that were identified in understanding the bereavement experience in the context of homelessness:
- Bereavement: A risk factor for homelessness – the death of someone (often a parent or sibling) that was cared about can be a primary risk factor for transitioning life trajectories toward homelessness. Support may be needed to process grief from deaths prior to experiencing homelessness.
- Anticipatory grief – individuals at risk of homelessness can experience heightened anticipatory grief and find it difficult to discuss housing insecurities prior the death of their loved one. Anticipatory grief can be experienced with both the death of a human or animal companion.
- Increased frequency of death – a high frequency of death experiences in people’s lives is observed both prior to, and during experiences of homelessness with many deaths occurring suddenly.
- Ways of processing grief – It can be very difficult for bereaved individuals to process their grief while concurrently experiencing homelessness, resulting in unresolved grief.
Current practices to support the bereavement experience in the context of homelessness
Very few practices emerged in this rapid review. Those that were described included:
- Memorials – holding a memorial service to honor the deceased, providing a safe space for individuals to grieve together and build a sense of community.
- Advocacy
- Trauma-Informed Care – principles of a trauma-informed practice may be central in caring for the bereaved, especially considering the interaction of housing insecurities with grief as traumatic.
Gaps and challenges in addressing bereavement for individuals experiencing homelessness
- Systemically overlooking death and bereavement: Preparing staff – service providers working with individuals experiencing homelessness often report that job training and orientation do not typically include bereavement, death and palliative concerns.
- Environmental features accompanying experiences of homelessness – exhaustion and anxieties of survival and adapting to homelessness may leave bereaved individuals with little energy to engage in processing their grief. Lack of support combined with inability to store or keep the belongings of the deceased lead to difficulty in processing grief.
This rapid review identified few studies that describe how bereavement is experienced in the context of homelessness. The authors suggest that future research explore how to best support bereaved individuals experiencing homelessness with their grief.
Source: Monk, J., Black, J., Carter, R. Z., & Hassan, E. (2023). Bereavement in the context of homelessness: A rapid review. Death Studies, 1-10.
