Full Description
This incisive book examines the rise of homelessness in affluent societies and assesses the policies attempting to solve this crisis. Presenting rich empirical case studies from Europe and the Americas with cutting-edge policy examples, it illustrates how local policymakers and third sector organizations try and, in numerous instances, fail to prevent and overcome homelessness and what could be done differently.
Using a novel theoretical framework contributing authors analyse individual, spatial-structural and institutional contexts of homelessness. They evaluate how homelessness emerges, such as the failure to protect women and migrants, and how it can be combatted, including through social work and shelters. The book advances existing scholarship on homelessness and highlights practical examples of action that can be applied to reduce the crisis in the future.
Homelessness in Affluent Societies is a crucial resource for scholars and students of sociology, politics, social and public policy and urban geography. Policymakers, social workers and policy advocates seeking a deeper understanding of this urgent social challenge will also benefit from the insights in this book.
Contents
Contents
1 Introduction: theorizing homelessness in affluent societies 1
J. Timo Weishaupt, Jan Weckwerth and Christian Hinrichs
2 Vulnerable women, precarious safety nets: unpacking when
and why the welfare state fails to protect women from and
during homelessness 32
J. Timo Weishaupt
3 Navigating institutional logics and mediums of social control:
the embodied visibility of women experiencing multiple
exclusion homelessness in public spaces 47
Heather Williams
4 Variegated strategies to cope with homelessness and
precarious housing in Santiago de Chile: the relevance of
gender in housing pathways and political participation 64
Mauricio Lara Martínez
5 Crossing borders, losing ground: exploring the links between
homelessness and migration in contemporary Europe 81
Christian Hinrichs
6 Shelter from the storm: exploring the role of third-sector
organizations in addressing migrant homelessness in Italy 96
Senyo Dotsey
7 Theorizing the links between precarious housing and
homelessness: effects of territorial stigmatization and microspatial polarization 113
Jan Weckwerth
8 Lack of housing or 'dwelling paradox'? Housing, social
norms, and commodification of services as sites of unhoused
persons' struggle for infrastructure access 131
Andrea Protschky
9 Voices from the margins: participatory research in
homelessness studies 147
Jochen Sawilla
10 Exploring homeless people's identification with the city
through visual and discursive narratives 164
Veronica Polin
11 In the streets of the Bronx: can unsheltered homelessness be
reduced in NYC's poorest borough? 184
Noel Concepción, Juan P. Rivera and Allyce Morrissey
12 Doing Housing First: perspectives and experiences of social
workers and new tenants from pilot projects in Northern
Bavaria (Germany) 204
Anna Xymena Tissot, Frank Sowa and Nora Sellner
13 Evaluating trials on basic income and homelessness using the
Polanyian capabilitarian framework 218
Verena Löffler
14 Conclusions: understanding homelessness in affluent societies 234
J. Timo Weishaupt, Jan Weckwerth and Christian Hinrichs
