01 October 2026

The Stigma of Homelessness in Rural Communities: Why Hidden Homelessness Is Harder to See and Harder to Fix

This post summarises the first episode of the second season of our Rural Homelessness Podcast, where host, Matt McChlery, speaks with Keith Smith (HOmeless Link Consultant) and Dr Karen Tunaker (Senior Lecturer of Law - Kent University) about the stigma of rural homelessness.

Listen to the podcast here

Homelessness in rural areas is often invisible, but that does not make it any less serious. In fact, as this conversation on the stigma of homelessness in rural communities makes clear, stigma, isolation, transport barriers, and assumptions about what “homelessness” looks like can make rural homelessness harder to spot and harder...