358P
CHAOS LIVES OR HIDDEN NETWORKS? AN ANALYSIS OF CARE SEEKING STRATEGIES IN FOUR GROUPS OF MARGINALLY-HOUSED PERSONS AT RISK OF CONTRACTING HIV
C Patton1, D Culhane2, I Goldstone3, O Hankivsky,4, S Kama5, M Petty6, J Sommers7, M Tyndall8
¹Canada Research Chair in Community, Culture, and Health, Simon Fraser University; 2Department of Anthropology, Simon Fraser University; 3BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS; 4 Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University; 5Simon Fraser University; 6Social Work Department, St Paul's Hospital; 7Strathcona Research Group; 8BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study (VIDUS), Vancouver, British Columbia
Service providers often describe their impoverished, marginally-housed clients as leading chaotic lives. While a visit to a poor urban neighborhood on a "welfare Wednesday" confirms that individuals have unpredictable days, rapidly changing housing arrangements, little planning for the next days or weeks, this layer of chaos masks the care networks that play an important role in enabling marginally-housed persons to attain some level of health care access.
Objective and Methods: This paper analyzes four sets of interviews in four different "care networks" among people at risk of contracting HIV living in Vancouver's poverty-stricken downtown eastside (a "recovery" network, female sex worker network, youth network, and older men's network). Open-ended interviews were conducted and analyzed to identify the capacity and limits of mutual care and referral to formal HIV services.
Conclusions: Instead of documenting deficits in "chaotic" lives, our ecological approach suggests ways to support functioning systems of mutual care. This approach also helps planners identify functionalities in order not to duplicate or disrupt organically occurring care systems.