Health Promotion and Homelessness in Germany. Co-defining Challenges, Co-designing Methods, Co-creating Solutions

For people experiencing homelessness, shelters and public restrooms are often the only option to access drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services to promote their health. Despite the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6 call to “ensure water and sanitation for all” in order to promote health and reduce exposure to infectious disease, and despite the Human Right to Water and Sanitation, the needs of homeless people are not met; WASH inequalities and the resulting burden of disease remain hidden and under-researched in official statistics.

This ongoing exploratory project in Bonn, Germany, in collaboration with the City of Bonn, Caritas and Verein für Gefährdetenhilfe aims to i) understand the challenges that people experiencing homelessess in urban areas face with regard to WASH insecurity, by ii) involving people experiencing homelessness as key stakeholders to co-design methods and techniques most suitable to capture the challenges they are facing, and ultimately iii) jointly identify suitable interventions through participatory inclusive mapping.

Different activities are being undertaken and include in-depth walking interviews with people experiencing homelessness; joint inspections and spot checks of WASH infrastructure (in)accessible to people experiencing homelessness; mental mapping and participatory mapping; focus group discussions with different relevant stakeholders such as representatives of homeless associations, authorities and social workers supporting and working with people experiencing homelessness.

Preliminary findings, the research approach to a high risk, high gain project, challenges faced, and their implications on the progress of the project will be introduced.