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Doorways: Women, Homelessness, Trauma and Resistance
Doorways is an expansive, layered and self-reflexive anthology exploring the personal stories of one of society’s most marginalised groups – women experiencing street homelessness. Growing out of the extreme personal experience that informed the sound and photographic works of artist Bekki Perriman’s The Doorways Project, Doorways combines personal testimonies with new essays and commentary by renowned academics, activists, journalists, therapists and practitioners, exploring the cultural, social and political dimensions of homelessness, as well as the role of artists and institutions in challenging it.
- GenresArtNonfictionEssays
153 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 16, 2026
not so good at writing reviews but this has so few & deserves to be championed.
wide-ranging, informative, moving & deeply humanising. centred around the work of Bekki Perriman, & her own experiences of “street life”, with alternating essays around the topic & interviews with women with experience rough-sleeping.
this book provided me with a lot of clarity & certainty on my own convictions, & lots more motivation to do better. among other themes, this discusses: the systemic failures that Keep people homeless; the specific challenges and failures facing women who sleep rough; property speculation & private-public space; gentrification projects & their appropriation of “dying” local voices to legitimise social cleansing; the impact & ethics of giving directly to rough sleepers vs charities for homelessness; complex trauma & how it is compounded by homelessness both through New trauma & the trauma of ineffective/inaccessible care.
the interviews spread throughout ensure this stays grounded in real people & world experience, rather than floating off into “pure” theory and economics and psychology. you cannot at any point forget or turn away from these individuals or homogenise their experiences, although many common themes arise. systemic failures crop up again and again, and yet this offers solutions, not just criticisms.
personally found the Anna Minton essay especially interesting re. privately-owned public spaces, as I am currently (uncomfortably) employed in a very heavily securitised enclave in central London that allows members of the public to use its private gardens and paths - but the “wrong” members of the public are quickly escorted away. has long felt ethically dishonest to work here but am especially glad to be moving on after reading this. I also apparently knew very little about property speculation & its consequences. and e.g. how all London planning has to go via the MET who intentionally make spaces more hostile.
but the individual testimonies are the truly unforgettable part of this. & i think you cannot come out the other side of this book unchanged.
wide-ranging, informative, moving & deeply humanising. centred around the work of Bekki Perriman, & her own experiences of “street life”, with alternating essays around the topic & interviews with women with experience rough-sleeping.
this book provided me with a lot of clarity & certainty on my own convictions, & lots more motivation to do better. among other themes, this discusses: the systemic failures that Keep people homeless; the specific challenges and failures facing women who sleep rough; property speculation & private-public space; gentrification projects & their appropriation of “dying” local voices to legitimise social cleansing; the impact & ethics of giving directly to rough sleepers vs charities for homelessness; complex trauma & how it is compounded by homelessness both through New trauma & the trauma of ineffective/inaccessible care.
the interviews spread throughout ensure this stays grounded in real people & world experience, rather than floating off into “pure” theory and economics and psychology. you cannot at any point forget or turn away from these individuals or homogenise their experiences, although many common themes arise. systemic failures crop up again and again, and yet this offers solutions, not just criticisms.
personally found the Anna Minton essay especially interesting re. privately-owned public spaces, as I am currently (uncomfortably) employed in a very heavily securitised enclave in central London that allows members of the public to use its private gardens and paths - but the “wrong” members of the public are quickly escorted away. has long felt ethically dishonest to work here but am especially glad to be moving on after reading this. I also apparently knew very little about property speculation & its consequences. and e.g. how all London planning has to go via the MET who intentionally make spaces more hostile.
but the individual testimonies are the truly unforgettable part of this. & i think you cannot come out the other side of this book unchanged.
May 6, 2024
An incredibly moving and emotional account of the reality of living as a street homeless woman in 21st century Britain. The dark-edged pages of the book are transcripts of Perriman's interviews with women living in the streets, all of whom report (not graphically) sexual harassment and rape by men with homes to return to, and the common degradation of being urinated on by drunken clubgoers 😮💨
The contributors are keen not to present homeless people as "the homeless", a homogenous mass of victims or scapegoats fitting easily stigmatisable categories, but as individual human beings with the same complex histories and needs as the rest of society.
Really thought provoking, challenging and emotionally intense.
The question of whether to give money directly to a homeless person or to support a charity was argued in a couple of articles which make for interesting ancillary reading. I don't think they need to be mutually exclusive, and I tend towards the "give directly" argument. Links to articles:
Matt Broomfield "Why you should give money directly and unconditionally to homeless people":
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics...
Jeremy Swain's reply as former director of one of the charities, Thames Outreach, criticised in Broomfield's article:
https://www.endinghomelessness.uk/201...
The contributors are keen not to present homeless people as "the homeless", a homogenous mass of victims or scapegoats fitting easily stigmatisable categories, but as individual human beings with the same complex histories and needs as the rest of society.
Really thought provoking, challenging and emotionally intense.
The question of whether to give money directly to a homeless person or to support a charity was argued in a couple of articles which make for interesting ancillary reading. I don't think they need to be mutually exclusive, and I tend towards the "give directly" argument. Links to articles:
Matt Broomfield "Why you should give money directly and unconditionally to homeless people":
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics...
Jeremy Swain's reply as former director of one of the charities, Thames Outreach, criticised in Broomfield's article:
https://www.endinghomelessness.uk/201...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews