Lay summary
This is a Summer Studentship application and the applicant is a graduate with the intention of carrying out post-graduate work in this area in 2011. She is from Samoa. The research aims of this study are to: review research that has surveyed housing/health relations with particular reference to the wellbeing of Tagata Pasifika in New Zealand; to document how Pasifika homeless people see themselves in relation to their communities of origin and the wider public; to document the relationship between Samoan concepts of homelessness, home, and wellbeing in central Auckland; and the Summer Studentship will provide research experience for the applicant in working in an Indigenous research unit (the MPRU) at Waikato University with researchers conducting ongoing research into homelessness, and provide the basis for a Masters thesis on this topic to be conducted. The study will involve fieldwork which includes site visits, engagements with an experienced female Samoan Outreach worker at the Auckland City Mission, and working within a larger homelessness project and senior researchers. A literature review will be carried out followed by site visits. A draft report of the study will be submitted to MPRU researchers and a final copy to the HRC. The study will be complete within the 10-week timeframe.