From Roots to Home: Visualizing the Journey from Homelessness to Housing

Abstract

In this discussion piece, we describe our collective experience engaging in storytelling as we created the From Roots to Home image and text. As a research team of people with lived expertise on homelessness, we came together to share our unique experiences and find a common narrative of our journey from homelessness to housing. Working with an artist, we developed the image and the corresponding text to provide an understanding of what it is like to experience homelessness and the challenges and determination it takes to become housed. This piece also discusses our experience working with a university-based research team of academics and the important role of centering lived expert voice in academic research.

Keywords

• storytelling
• lived experience
• nothing about us without us