People experiencing housing instability and homelessness often also grapple with legal issues that may affect their health, predate their entry into homelessness or manifest due to exclusion from accessing housing as a fundamental social determinant of health. Law clinics, sometimes as part of Health Justice Partnerships represent a radical point of departure intended to enhance capacities to address social determinants of health through legal support. This research asked how health and social care intersect with legal support in the context of housing instability. We sought to understand the experiences of health and social care providers and the people they support to address the question how legal supports may be leveraged to produce better health outcomes for people experiencing housing instability.
We found that the notion of adding legal support to the care mix for people experiencing housing instability, including homelessness was considered novel, and sometimes even counter intuitive. We came across questions, such as, what is a legal issue? When does it become a social or a health problem? Who is best placed to offer the holistic support people need to navigate complex systems? How can we advocate for system change in order to reduce these complexities? Law, health and social care professionals constantly appraised the challenges they were presented with to offer tailored and appropriate support, while people experiencing housing instability reported positive individual outcomes where these supports were well coordinated.
We conclude that there is significant legal need among people experiencing housing instability, including homelessness. However, suitable pathways and support practices to address legal need are less clear and contend with systemic failures to provide affordable housing for all members of the community. Legal support needs to be carefully embedded within health and social care to intervene at an appropriate time and place. For people with a history of trauma and deep distrust in authority, the primary health clinic might not be the ideal setting to be introduced to a lawyer. However, social workers within primary health care can play a crucial role in initiating and guiding participants towards legal assistance and representation, while facilitating routine support with housing, income support and disability support applications.
