Giving a Voice to the ‘Hard to Hear’ - Informing Digital Futures: Strategies for Citizen Engagement - page 92

been used to inform debate on issues such as health services, child contact
and housing. There were a number of outcomes:
• priority was established for re-housing survivors of domestic violence in
the Homelessness Bill;
• the one-year immigration rule which forced women entering the UK to
remain with a violent partner or be deported has been changed;
• the Children Act will take into account harm caused to a child of wit-
nessing domestic violence;
• the need for sustainable funding for domestic violence projects has in-
fluenced the Comprehensive Spending Review;
• the UK government has formed a ministerial group on domestic vio-
lence, to coordinate policies and to develop a comprehensive strategy to
tackle the problem.
Another important outcome of engagement in this project is that many
women who took part have been able to find and develop social support
networks. For example, a group of Bangladeshi women in Luton have set
up their own online community through Bury Park community centre. The
project has been a model for other e-democracy initiatives, such as
U-Speak launched by the Social Security Select Committee.
5.3.7 Jamie's Big Voice - The Homeless - UK
Homeless people are entitled to vote in the UK, and yet the voices of these
vulnerable and excluded people are rarely heard during elections. In the
run-up to the UK General Election in May 2005, the charity 'Crisis' was
concerned that the issue of homelessness was not being addressed by the
political parties. They sought novel ways of drawing attention to the plight
of the homeless and approached the Hansard Society to explore the possi-
bilities of using online technology to raise awareness and to stimulate
discussion and debate with the media, parliamentary candidates, and the
general electorate.
A blog (weblog) was identified as a potentially useful medium. Jamie
McCoy, formerly a homeless drug addict and now a writer and poet, was
identified as an eminently suitable author - on the basis of his personal
history (which is well-documented in the sources referenced below) and
his compelling and provocative writing style. His blog, available at
http://www.jamiesbigvoice.com, was launched in April 2005 amidst con-
siderable publicity. Before the blog began, the Hansard Society reviewed
different platforms. The free blogging service “Blogger” was chosen,
partly because as a free service it would help to keep down the costs of the