New team!

We are very pleased to welcome two new freelancers to MoH community to work with co-founders Matt and Jess Turtle on the Dying Homeless Project. The Dying Homeless Project is an award winning project initiated by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in 2017 and handed over to Museum of Homelessness in 2019. The project aims to capture far more detail on the people who have lost their lives than currently covered by official statistics. We aim to remember every single person who dies whilst homeless in the UK. Our online memorial to people who have died homeless can be found here: https://dying-homeless.museumofhomelessness.org/

Thanks to funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation we now have a dedicated team developing the project at this crucial time, ensuring that the truth of what's happened during COVID19 is captured and that people are remembered with dignity and love.

Miranda Keast is our new project co-ordinator. Miranda has worked in the homelessness sector for 13 years. She has specialist research and evaluation skills and is currently working towards her doctorate in social policy at Cardiff University, looking at the interactions between immigration and housing policy.  Miranda worked alongside the first Anti-Slavery Commissioner to carry out national research which was published in 2017, entitled ‘Understanding and responding to modern slavery within the homelessness sector.’ For this research she worked with around 50 organisations across the UK. Miranda holds an MPA (Master of Public Administration) with Distinction from York University. Her thesis was titled: ‘Just Say No’: The challenges for homelessness charities in London working with EU migrant rough sleepers

Miranda said "I’m really pleased to be joining MoH to work on the Dying Homeless project; while it’s a sad fact that this project is needed, it provides a crucial opportunity to build on the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s excellent work in remembering people that we’ve lost, and bringing people together to campaign for change."

Imogen Rhodes is our new special investigator. Immie is an early career investigative journalist. Immie has freelance produced for Radio 4’s The World Tonight and the BBC News platform In Plain Sight. In 2019 she conducted an FOI led investigation into buildings converted under permitted development rights being used as temporary accommodation for a Radio 4 documentary entitled ‘My Name is Immie’. She submitted over 80 FOIs to all London councils, and some outside of London. She obtained data that showed over 1/3 of London councils were using buildings converted under PDR to house homeless families. She also obtained data that told her how many children were living in PDR temporary accommodation across several London boroughs.

Immie said: "I am incredibly excited and proud to join the MoH. Coronavirus has had a huge impact on all of our lives and has particularly brought housing & homelessness to the forefront. Our investigation is essential to uncovering how the pandemic has impacted homeless & unhoused people."