Hi, I’m Cate, a Project Officer for Shelter SA in Adelaide, South Australia. Shelter SA is an organisation that believes that housing is a basic human right. We promote and campaign for affordable housing, public housing and for those who are homeless.
If the idea of ‘home’ represents security and safety for most people, its opposite is homelessness. But, homelessness signifies much more than simply being without physical refuge. How can we really explore the impact of homelessness unless we understand what home represents to us?
I’m asking the question: what is ‘home? What do you think creates the feeling of ‘home’? Is ‘home’ the place you live, or is ‘home’ another place connected to your history, heritage, friends, family or country?
“Our literal home is a “sacred,” mythic place, even for non-religious people. We all believe in a special space beyond our own doorsills that simply cannot be violated. This is my place, where I can close the door on chaos and find some kind of cosmos, peace, assurance of purpose. “This is mine; here I belong.” (unknown source)
The meaning of ‘home’ is not an easy concept to isolate. It seems to encompass a broad sphere of emotional experience, sensory perception, memory and feelings of nostalgia. For many Australian Aboriginal people it relates, very directly to Lands they feel displaced from living in the city, or traditional Lands represent places where they experience safety and wholeness.
While the term ‘home’ is immediately identifiable, and the physical reality of home is a central characteristic of our everyday lives, our perceptions of what home truly means to us, do not get very much attention. Home, seems something most of us take for granted. But, the most elemental embodiment of life is ‘home’.
Home constitutes, for almost all of us, simple rituals that link us with sequences of the day and patterns of time. The rituals that surround, gathering food, cooking for ourselves or our families, washing, eating, sleeping and cleaning connect us to almost all of humanity yet we do very little to celebrate or pay tribute to those rituals that centre around, and link us to the diverse but collective experience, of ‘home’.
Humans, throughout history, have constructed a myriad of methods to evoke ‘home’. The concerns of modern first world societies are not fundamentally that dissimilar to the struggles of very early humankind. We still seek the basics for survival, such as, food, clothing and shelter, perhaps more sophisticated and complicated versions, but the basics nevertheless. But because humans seek and need shelter, the homes we have, and continue to inhabit, create and recreate layer after layer of cultural meaning.
The meaning of home, of a protected refuge, is very often connected with comfort, relationships, family, relatives, friends and the traditional rituals that give meaning to our lives. This is borne out by the trauma people experience after a break-in or the loss of home through a natural disaster or a relationship split up. But home is also related to memory, a wish to honour the past and communicate to others our identities through the spirit of our homes.
To start the project I emailed as many contacts across Australia as I possibly could. Below is the message I sent out and the posts are the messages I received back. If you would like to add anything more please share your thoughts with all of us!!!!!
What is Home
I am initiating a small project that explores the idea of ‘home’ and what ‘home’ represents to a broad range of individuals. I’m interested in gathering a big collection of people’s ideas about ‘the meaning of home’. I would like to explore what ‘home’ represents for individuals including as many culturally diverse people as possible. I’m asking the question: what is ‘home? What do you think creates the feeling of ‘home’? Is ‘home’ the place you live, or is ‘home’ another place connected to your history, heritage, friends, family or country? Is ‘home’ defined by an internal response to place or by external circumstances?
If the idea of ‘home’ represents security and safety for most people, its opposite is homelessness. But, homelessness signifies much more than simply being without physical or emotional refuge. How can we really explore the impact of homelessness unless we understand what home represents to us?
My Story of Home
All my life I have been very attached to my home. And not just the 1940’s red-brick house I can first ever remember living in but the hill behind it, the trees in the garden, the smell and the warm bodies of the horses in our back paddock, the satsuma plums that were almost black and so juicy, lying on the ground under the tree. There were so many places and spaces around the house and beyond that make up the meaning of home as a child; my bare feet walking, pressing on the tiny flowers that grew along the path that ran alongside the bowling green and up to the kindergarten, the luxurious smell of my mother’s perfume, cigarettes and red wine.
As I remember, I realise I could write a book. I should write a book Memories flood into my mind. So, the meaning of home is a living, moving cosmos where memory and experience meet to distil, me.
The meaning of home for me now is, the colour red, the love of my son, his handsome face, the smell of the sea, the sound of the waves at night, the smell of cigarettes, food cooking, staring at my beautiful garden, my grandchildren, hot sand in summer and the feeling of a soft sun soaked body. It is also about mess. My son’s clothes tossed in the bath when he showers, his work boots lying in the middle of the kitchen floor, his work bag sitting on the kitchen table, weeds in my garden that need weeding, washing that needs washing – and so it goes on.
Home is a sensory space; it’s where my aesthetic sense and practicality meet. It’s where I can light the fire, load the kitchen table with food for my family and create projects, plans and talk for hours. It’s my space, my love, my spirit is expressed there.
Home is:
My roots
My identity/connection with a home, town, state and country
Family, (deceased and living).
A “safe haven” an escape
A burden
A tie
A place to always come back to
Where I have been happiest and saddest
Where I live, flourish and grow – not the places where I have just existed
Home has two clear concepts – for me i.e.
1/. Cultural = Belonging;
· Social, emotional & spiritual wellbeing – in relation to living on my country “Narungga ”
2/. Generic = Not belonging;
· Safety, security & legal rights – in relation to living off my country.
Cheers
I have been involved ?in the area of homelessness since the late 70′s when I was a teenage runaway and at that time ‘home’ meant seeking a place to belong and a place to ‘Be Me”.
As the years went by ‘home’ ?meant ?a place of growing, expressing, love and a place of belonging. ?A place to grow a garden and a place to retreat and renew.
I have a story about the of losing and creating a home and the ?process of re-establishing peace of mind ?in my blog,with a couple of photos. You can view it ?here:
http://carolom.wordpress.com/2007/01/09/law-of-attraction-for-gardening-soil-and-soul/
In the Aboriginal Women’s Empowerment ?group last week I created a black and white ?Mandala template for the group members to create their own personalised poster, ?titled “I am at home with Peace and Prosperity”…
Just my quick background: I am an Aboriginal Australian from a rural city originally
but have had a very western upbringing without much connection to my cultural heritage.
Home: To me this concept is one which does hold many meanings for me. I can feel at home when I am at my actual physical house where I have my little fortress of solitude. It is my ability to escape the outside world and all of the judging eyes of society and the vast commercialism and focus on capital and relax, be myself without the worry of offending someone or having to conform to the strict rules of how to present oneself respectfully due to working in the public sector. Home provides safety and shelter from the physical and emotional world at your doorstep. However, I can also get this feeling when one goes back into nature, when you decide to go ‘walkabout’ back to the bush. This feeling is related to that solitude I referred to earlier as you can truly be yourself again without society being in your face. It also gives a nostalgic feeling being away from the cold artificial world we have constructed and reminds you of your true nature and where I am really from. It makes me dream of the past and yearn to have more connection with my cultural heritage, to be a hunter gatherer with the freedom of being a nomad moving with the seasons and the land. Home is nature; home is a place where all of this cruel marketed world can be shut out or completely absent. Home is a connection between you and nature and a society or family concerned with survival and their connection with each other on an equal collective level not an individual one.
I am rather creative and poetic…overall a romanticist of what could be and what I want to see. This explains shutting out the outside world that forces acknowledgement of what the reality of it all really is.
For me the meaning of “home” has many layers. There is “home” which is my traditional lands where I feel safe, like I belong and where I don’t have to explain myself to the world. But my house where I live in Adelaide is my home because it is where my family comes and it is our safe haven from a sometimes hostile world. Its where we go and we know that the rules don’t change and we know what to expect – love, caring, nurturing and shelter.
Home is somewhere that is safe and secure and gives us a sense of belonging. Home is also about how we maintain that home once we have one particularly after being homeless and having experienced family violence. A roof over ones head doesn’t necessarily fix all the other issues that a homeless person has experienced so home also includes a place where the residents are happy and healthy and are living together harmoniously and are able to maintain their home financially.
Home is the smell of My Mother when I hug her.
Home is where I love to burn candles and incense and cook food
Home is the feeling I get when I arrive at Darwin Airport and smell the Territory air
Home is when I jump into the fresh waterholes in Kakadu, feel the soft water on my skin
Home is greeting all my many people who I call relations and all the Nunga people I love and adore
Home is seeing my niece and sisters happy
Home is traveling around Australia by myself
Home is spending the precious time with My gorgeous trusted friends
Home is the beautiful sunrises and sunsets
Home is when I am safe from harm.
Home to me,including the experiences of some of clients is the place they feel connected to as well as being a place of safety.
Home is the place where I belong, not exclusive to or constrained by walls or geographical boundaries. It must feel safe, be secure and provide a level of permanence for me to let my guard down and create an environment that reflects and nourishes my soul. It should be culturally comfortable with a sense of community as well as having a character and aesthetic that suits me, I’d much rather live in a box with a view than a grand mansion overlooking a concrete car park.
I had a quick think about this and the first thought was the family home I have shared with my imediate family over the years, I also identify my cultural connections as home as well e.g. Mother = Raukkan (Pt McCleay) Father = Konnibba + Pt Pearce + Kuarna. Some family member’s residence are also classed as home e.g. “What’s mine is yours & Don’t be SHAME”. Sometimes my workplace is classed as a second home, being born and bred in Adelaide as a Kuarna man I identify Adelaide as home but when you travell overseas I can also relate to the song “I still call Australia home!”
Just a few thoughts on ‘home. I have lived in several places, and was not born in Australia, though my Dad was born in Australia and is an Australian citizen.
As a child, home was the place I lived with my parents, so as my parents moved, so did home. Home has always been the place I am currently living, with the exception of when I was studying in Adelaide and always returned ‘home’ to my parents for the holidays. During that time, I really had two homes – the boarding facility in Adelaide, and my parents home.
Now, home is wherever I and my own family move to. Right now, home is the house that my family and I rent. Last year home was Alice Springs, as that was where I was living. Soon, home will be a different address, as we are building a new home and it will be ready soon.
If I had no physical home, or if my physical home did not provide me with safety, or if I was separated from my family, then I am not sure where home would be. I think home has as much to do with family as it has to do with four walls and a roof. If my family and I had to live in a caravan or shed, then that would be home, even if the caravan moved every day.
don’t really know what home is as it is different for different people.
What home should imply is a place where someone feels secure, safe from the elements, where they can meet people who are like-minded, where they can have privacy when needed, where they can have visitors who are considered to be their “significant others” (whether family or friends). This place may be where they live, a “meeting place”, another person’s residence or other place (such as the pub!).
I’m a migrant from the UK who has moved back and forth between the UK and Australia several times. I now have strong loyalties to both countries. For a migrant who came here by choice, although now settled into the aussie way of life with friends and a good lifestyle, I know that my heart lies back “home” in Manchester. It is definitely the connection to my family, friends and community back there which I miss terribly and don’t think I can ever replace.
The dual loyalty issue is also there and I find myself defending Australia when I’m back “home” visiting the UK. Here in Australia, I also defend my “home” country to the hilt. Is it normal for me to feel like this? Hmmm I wonder sometimes !!
In retrospect I sometimes wish that I’d never come to Australia in the first place – that way I wouldn’t know what I’m missing !! If that makes sense !!
A home to me is where I have control over my life, work and leisure styles. It’s where I have privacy. When a person lives with a person with a disability who receives in-home services, a home is also where many controls can be lost. A home is a home first and a workplace second. This is a very important distinction for people with disabilities. A range of powers and controls can be lost when a home becomes a workplace: OHS&W issues can override privacy and control; staff ideas about what goes where?; keeping the things you want to be private can be jeopardized; having workers coming in a breaking or losing objects feels like a loss of power; staff who think they can do a range of tasks their way rather than your way is always an issue; having to listen their politics, likes and dislikes when you’re watching a movie etc; workers who want to be ‘friends’ because they have regular access to your home etc etc.
It’s quite a huge thing if you start to really think about it.
I was born in Australia but from Estonian heritage (both parents & quite a few generations back). When I first travelled to Estonia for the first time, I felt like I had come ‘home’. I spent most of my trip crying. When I arrived back in Australia, I didn’t feel quite right and a seed had been planted within me to plan to go there to live. However, after travelling back and forth many times, I realised that I couldn’t leave my ‘home’ here. (Besides, I would miss the song of the Magpies and the Kangaroos that run around near my house.)
For a long time I felt torn between two homes. I finally came to the conclusion that I definitely would remain here in Australia but would travel to Estonia as much as possible.
My physical home here is a house on a small property in a semi rural area. I need to be amongst nature. And I love ‘travelling’ to my home and leaving all the stresses of the day behind me in the city. When I was renting, I always looked for a place with a fireplace as there is something about lighting a fire at one’s home for me. It is like when I have lit the first winter fire in a new place, then it *really* feels like home.
Home is where I am free to express myself, to be with people I love and care about, a place where I always feel comfortable and safe. I can invite people who share similar ideals as I do and therefore not have ‘negativity’ or judgement in my own space In a nutshell – it’s a space where I am free to be me.
Home is a place where you feel totally comfortable, where you can be yourself , where you can do whatever you feel like within reason without wondering if it is appropriate or not. Home represents safety, peace and warmth.
What do you think creates the feeling of ‘home’?
Unconditional love, acceptance, respect
Is ‘home’ the place you live, or is ‘home’ another place connected to your history, heritage, friends, family or country?
The feeling of being at home comes from within. The external environment and the people around us plays a role in how comfortable we feel. Someone can feel lost and lonely in their own physical home and ‘at home’ in the parklands or on a beach or in someone else’s house. As a migrant I do not feel completely 100% at home in either my native country or my adopted country.
Is ‘home’ defined by an internal response to place or by external circumstances?
Internal response generated by external factors
I’m not sure what home means to me as I am a non-Indigenous woman and a transplant. If Australia is home it’s because Oscar was born here. So that makes me Australian. That’s the global level.
But if by home you mean a place to live, then for me, my home is a refuge from the stress of work/city life. It’s about having somewhere I can be me, all the time. It’s the freedom to raise my boy without conflict (ie not having to be in an unsatisfactory relationship in order to have it: so it’s affordable; JUST! on a single income). It’s a place our friends and family can come to. It’s a place I don’t have to leave (cos I’m buying it).
I’m not sure I ever felt that in rental houses. When you’re renting, no sooner have you spent money on the gardens and put down roots than the owners want to sell it.
So it’s somewhere we can be longterm. It’s a place where we can feel safe, comfortable, happy. Our house is a very basic fibro shack, but it’s live-able.
We need better heating, and a bath would make it feel completely luxurious. But it meets our basic needs.
It’s safe, secure and affordable, although I do sometimes feel like I’m a slave to the mortgage. And we can see the ocean and hear the waves! So we’re very very lucky I bought it when I did.
I worry about whether my son will be able to have a home of his own as housing is becoming a privilege. And I worry about whether there will be a planet to have these homes on, too.
Home has a wide range of interpretations for people and even amongst the Aboriginal community has a range of meanings. But, I beleive that “Home” is a safe place where every member of the family can grow and develop with encouragement and without fear of intimidation and criticism. Home is a place where everyone has their own space and room to move. The upper end of the income market can afford to buy or build these kinds of homes,but unfortunately the majority of the community will live in units that are anything but sufficient for their need.
One more thing – home has to be sustainable i.e. long term and accessible. No point thinking the pub is a great place where your “family” meets if it is likely to be taken over by the yuppies or if the person is disabled and cannot get there.
To me ‘home’ is the house where I live. I have lived in lots of houses, and they have all been home. It is the place that I come back to. The place where I sleep. It is the place where I feel safe, secure, and most like ‘me’. It is where memories are made, and held. It is warmth. It is the shell that protects those inside. It is the place where my partner and our daughter dance and sing and nobody is watching! It is the place where we belong.
But it’s also my country. My state. My town. My street. My community. And most of all, my family.
It is the place, that when you are in a plane flying back in to Adelaide when you have been away, that when you come over the hills and the plains and all their concrete and roads and buildings, and the landmarks and the sea come in to view, that makes butterflies erupt in your belly. Why does that happen? It is like the most exciting nervous moment of your trip – and you might be coming home from Paris!!! But it is the sight of home that stirs the emotions. Is it familiarity? Safety? A welcome home? I am not sure. It is only now, writing this, that it makes me wonder why it happens….
I have two senses of home the first being where I currently live and where my children and family visit me.
However as a “10 pound tourist” who has lived in Australia for forty years I still think of England as home. Even though I am currently considering taking Australian citizenship (I would not consider this until I could take dual) I still feel a strong link to my birth country. This is where my identity was formed and although I left there as a young adult I still retain many of the traditions and customs from my homeland as well as traditions of my family which we have traced back to 16th century London.
I am really grateful to be in Australia and on the whole find the Australian community very accepting and in most cases embracing of difference, and have confidence that the new arrivals of today will be accepted in the same manner. I do however find that many Australians do not understand this sense of “home” after living here for such a long time.
What does “Home” mean to me?
It is my refuge. It is my shelter. It is somewhere I can feel safe and warm and sleep but it is also somewhere where I can have respite from the outside world and escape the noise and busy-ness of life and slow down and enjoy my hobbies and interests. I can spend time with my family. I can invite friends over and enjoy time with them. I can pursue my on-line studies. Because of my home, I am also a member of a community and can participate in local events at the Neighbourhood House. Through my home and community, I am able to establish relationships with the community, neighbours and local shopkeepers. Because of my home, I also have a say in what happens in the local area (through Council elections and forums). My home gives me a ‘voice’. My “home” is more than a 3 bedroom brick house – in some ways it also becomes a reflection of my personality and identity because of the way I have decorated it ie family photos, my drawings and paintings, large book collection, even the garden gnomes in my yard!!
“my experience supporting adults living in the community brought home to me the value of housing as a means of providing an environment in which developmental gains could be achieved, and the meaning of home as a place where a sense of self, dignity, and independence can be nurtured and thrive“
The latter bit about the meaning of home, and in particular “as a place where a sense of self can be nurtured and thrive” is probably close to how I personally feel about the concept.
I work with Culturally And Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities, in particular with the aged, so I will speak from this perspective. Also, I am from a CALD background myself.
For many older people, their home is the only familiar and safe place they have. If they are isolated from their cultural community, which many of them are, and don’t have transport and therefore mobility, which a lot of them don’t, then their home becomes a place of refuge and the centre of their universe. It also represents the heart of their cultural identity. Many CALD people decorate their homes with cultural items because these are an expression of their identity. I’m talking about migrants and refugees who can’t walk out of their front door and hear their familiar language on the street, or go to a shop and buy familiar things. What they have in their homes from their culture is often precious and holds sentimental value. These things reaffirm who they are, where they were born, their values and beliefs. To move out of one’s home into a residential care facility for example, may fill many with dread because they fear they will lose this ‘identity’. That is why it is important for us to recognise how important cultural identity and being able to express this in one’s physical environment is when distinguishing between living in ‘a home’ and living in just ‘a house’.
Home is a place where you are sheltered from the elements and feel safe. It is a place where you can express yourself i.e walk around naked, leave dishes in the sink without being chastised. Its a place where you can put an item down and know that it will be there in the same place when you return. A home in essence is MY Castle.
Pretty basic but I found when I started getting into the feelings re having family around etc I started getting into another dimension.
The meaning of home for me is about the safe space I have to get away from the world. I have travelled and lived in many different countries so home to me is about me and my husband and where we put our head down to sleep at night. It is a place that is a base for me to keep the stuff I need to enjoy my life and it is about where I come back to at the end of the day to rest.
What does home mean to me…
I think about home in two different ways. There is the physical space I grew up in on the Yorke Peninsula. I grew up with the sun setting over the sea, so many dazzlingly beautiful sun sets at night, and the sun would rise over vast expanses of gold wheat fields. Brilliant colour of lapis lazuli blue of the sea, the happiest blue of the sky and gold wheat fields can still move me to tears. And then later I moved further up the Yorke Peninsula to the reddest earth and soft grey saltbush against the most amazing cloudless sky. I grew up on flat country, everyone learned to read the sky, for impending rain or storms, for dust clouds that would let you know that visitors were coming up the dirt road, and for what the weather would be that day – and it stayed the same the whole day. In this breathtaking space there were no surprises, I knew when it was a good time to swim, when I would need to seek shelter and when I needed to go home. So the home of my childhood is very much a geographic space. I know no matter how long I am away, that I can return (as I often do) and I continue to feel connected to this place. And I hope to be buried or have my ashes scattered there. What is interesting to me is that I didn’t realise this connection until many years later when I moved to the hills and thought the world had gone cuckoo! All the turns and twists and you still haven’t progressed very far. It was like the world was backward because the sun set on the land and rose over the sea. I still get a physical reaction from that.
The other way I think about home is my children and my friends. My two sons and I have lived in 4 states, and about 16 homes over the past 20 or so years. We have needed to uproot everything and resettle so many times; we have never really connected to a physical structure. And at times we couldn’t all be together and when that happened it would bring back that uncomfortable feeling. I realised through this process that home is not about the physical space, although that can anchor people. My anchors are my friends and my boys. Friendships that have been maintained over twenty years regardless of geographic space and whether we share it. And most importantly, home – that feeling of contentment, safety and belonging – is what I share when my sons and I are together. A bit of a paradox really…
SJCS has traditionally worked with young people who are homeless or at risk and has defined home as being a place where the individual is nurtured and valued and feels safe and secure. Other supportive people obviously contribute to and make that “place”; they facilitate the sense of belonging while people are growing up and a secure physical base is important to this development.
We hope that eventually as adults we are able to fulfil this need for ourselves and also contribute to this feeling of home for others.
For me personally home is warm, comforting place that I can share with my family, friends, neighbours and my two loving dogs. It is also is a safe space to keep the wonderful collection of memorabilia from my past – photos, my parent’s furniture, grandparent’s treasured nick knacks – giving me a tangible connection to those people close to me who have passed away. Home is my garden, the array of birds that visit, a place to relax and watch the plants grow and change with the seasons. Home to me is somewhere I can enjoy my privacy or have a wild celebration with friends/family – I have the luxury of choice!
Here is my two bobs worth:
Home is a haven, a shelter, a retreat, a place for solitude, pets and sefl-reflection.
I do things at home – cook, clean, sleep, bathe, rest, play, organise, read, listen, nourish myself. I sleep and when I sleep I dream, rest and recover.
What creates the feeling of home? memories, cultural associations, expectations, feelings, thoughts, the things I do.
Is the place you live or what? It is the place I live and also is the city I live in, the state and the country. I especially feel home is the state or country when I am returning to it after being away interstate or OS. I can become swamped with sheer emotion when I see Adelaide from the air.
Home is deeply connected to my personal but also to my communal history.
Is it defined by external or internal circumstances? BOTH is my reply, a complex interplay.
Home is where I can really be me its where I invite my dearest friends and loved ones its where feel safe and loved I recharge my energies there and working in this sector every night when I get into my clean warm bed I thank God!!
Home to me is more than bricks and mortar it is where I feel safe, proud and happy.
One quick thought I had in relation to ‘what is home?’ is that it is about a sense of belonging.
(1) You can feel immediately ‘at home’ when you have moved into a new area if you feel welcomed (even though you are a new arrival, you feel safe and secure enough to have a sense that you could create long-term connections to the people and place in this new area); or
(2) your sense of belonging can be the result of your connections with people and place forged by many years of residing in the one area; or
(3) your can feel that you belong not to the place where you are housed but to a place and community etc. where you grew up and felt connected (this sense of home may still exist somewhere else, or it may only now exist in your memory and the memories of family members and friends, for example).
home is about a family… there is a happiness, make us comfort, and a place where we go from no where…
You choose the community before you choose the house. Jaŕ abul daŕ