Organizing Relationships to Help Homeless People: a Question of Front Line Relational Work
Objectives In a context where the rather informal ties between front-line practitioners can be conceived as a weakness to be formalized or a force to rely on, this paper explores and documents their conceptions on how they create, maintain and abandon their ties while helping homeless people. Methods Its empirical material is drawn from an interpretative case study on the liaison role of the Homeless Team (Équipe Itinérance). This case is based on semi-directed interviews with 35 practitioners (24 front line practitioners and 11 managers) from 13 Montreal organizations in the homeless sector. A thematic content analysis, mainly informed by the theoretical dimensions of relational work, was carried out on this material. Results Front-line workers report using different ways of creating (knowing each other, personalization, evaluation, organization of tasks and roles), pursuing (organization of tasks and roles, interpersonal reflection, maintenance, reparation) and interrupting (distancing, stopping, gradual withdrawal by an organization of roles and agreements) their ties. Conclusion Informal ties, allowing for flexibility and feedback, sometimes enable practitioners to carry out their tasks (quality of services, accessibility) while also dealing with the complexity of situations encountered by homeless peoples. The complexity of this relational work often makes it possible to cope with that of homelessness.