Academics put trackers on homeless people – what they learned could be a 'game-changer'

People experiencing homelessness wore trackers on the streets of London for three months as part of an innovative study to find out where rough sleepers go in a bid to help them access more support.

The ‘out there’ study – the first of its kind in the UK – saw academics from the University of Roehampton team up with charity Sutton Night Watch to track nine anonymous people who are homeless in Sutton, South London, for three months each between August 2023 and February 2024.

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Heatmaps from their movements gave researchers an insight into where people sleep on the street, areas they avoid due to the risk of theft or violence as well as how the weather changed where they went. Sutton Night Watch boss Andy Fulker described the findings as a “game-changer”.

Dr Melissa Jogie, the academic behind the research, said she was inspired to carry out the research after working with the charity during the pandemic and meeting people experiencing homelessness who were so exhausted that they could barely speak.

“Most of the research that’s done on homelessness is ethnographic, so it’s stories that people share verbally about their experiences,” said Dr Jogie.

“So this project is really innovative. It’s the first of its kind to be done in the UK where the data that I’ve collected with the trackers helps us understand the story of homelessness through motion. So places where they move, they avoid, through heat maps and getting a sense of their awareness.”

She added: “I wanted to be able to see the participants’ physical journeys to better understand how and where to provide services to help them. What became clear through my research is that the daily burden of the choices they face are complex and exhausting.

“We need to invest in more innovative research methods that make direct contact with people who are street homeless, so we can understand the challenges they face, and design better services and preventative measures to support them.” 

The study revealed the difficulties people encounter while rough sleeping, both in bedding down for the night and accessing healthcare services.

Heatmaps showed participants spent hours every day searching for quiet spaces with some travelling on foot into remote areas to find bushes, benches or islets in the river to find a place to sleep, even in extreme weather.

Interviews with participants after their spell wearing the tracker found women felt forced to sleep in high traffic areas with bright lights to maximise their personal safety. 

Some participants said they had been victimised or attacked by members of the public late at night, or by other homeless people. Academics concluded that they were also at higher risk of being targeted by criminal gangs in certain locations.

Meanwhile, participants also reported struggles in accessing support services, including being turned away from GP clinics if they could not show a postal address or photo ID. 

But the study also demonstrated the solidarity among the street homeless community in Sutton to boost survival.

During the research period, one person who had spent many years street homeless acted as a sentry to monitor the physical wellbeing of people newer to street homelessness. 

Participants also spoke of surviving through group information-sharing and supporting each other through addiction issues by collectively staying clean. 

Dr Jogie told the Big Issue that both she and the charity sought the consent of people on the streets before fitting trackers to feed into the Geographic Information System (GIS) software.

Safeguards were put in place to prevent participants’ location from being disclosed to undermine their safety.

Each participant received a weekly honorarium of £10 in cash for participating in the study. This incentive enabled the researchers to check in on the participants’ wellbeing, make sure they were comfortable wearing the tracker, and to charge the device and test its functionality on a weekly basis. 

“It is quite an out there idea. Unsurprisingly, we had a very strict process for safeguarding,” said Dr Jogie.

“When it comes to the participants, it was very important that they understood consent and what they were getting involved with and that they were comfortable with doing this.

“The feedback we got was a 90% uptake of participants who had shown interest in doing the work. They felt like they were contributing to something that would really help others, which was good. And I was very surprised to even get feedback that one participant came back and said he really enjoyed wearing the tracker, it made him have a little bit of sophistication. He felt like it was something nifty, something fun to do. So that was a really positive outcome.”

Findings from the research were turned into an interactive board game-style experience for the British Academy’s Summer Showcase, a free festival of education which took place on 12 and 13 July. The British Academy funded the research and is showcasing more pioneering thinkers, leading lights, and inspiring humanities and social sciences research changing the world for the better in its We are the British Academy autumn programme.

The interactive exhibit Another Day In Paradise? featured a number of scenarios and was set in a 3D model town of Sutton called Shelter and Shadows: A Journey of Empathy. The experience, which featured artistic design by Kryssy Gold and game rules by Jarvey Torres-Garzona, brought to life the complex problems and decisions that people who are street homeless face every day.

Andy Fulker, chief executive director of Sutton Night Watch said: “This research is a game-changer for us at Sutton Night Watch, as it will give staff valuable knowledge about where our clients spend their time on a day-to-day basis, which will help us to tailor support for them. We hope it will put us on the map in the minds of people who are homeless locally, who will know that we are there and will come to us for help.”

The research comes just a couple of weeks after it was revealed the number of rough sleepers in London hit a record-high 11,993 during 2023-24. London mayor Sadiq Khan has pledged to end rough sleeping in the English capital by 2030 – a promise the Big Issue has urged to be extended to the rest of the country.

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