A Game of Snakes and Broken Ladders: The Homeless Junction

Abstract

The public has generally held the view of homelessness being the result of individual choices. While it can be said that some actions of homeless individuals may enforce such a view, the limited array of choices available to homeless people remains invisible in public discussion. The rationale behind this board game-based poster is to explore alternative ways to communicate the precarious social condition of homelessness and their immobility to exit such a junction. The design of this board game-themed poster is based on semi-structured interviews and focus groups with relevant stakeholders across Auckland, Wellington, Napier and Christchurch. Variegated hazards, anthropogenic and otherwise, are mapped out across the game board to accentuate the notion of homelessness as a marginalisation congealment that cannot be traced back to a single determinant. Furthermore, this poster also challenges the linear notion of the ‘housing path’ as a lens to the homeless. Instead, this poster proposed that homelessness should be viewed as a socially constructed “junction” where people are fixated on social position through limited motility.