Homeless women’s interpretations of women-specific social work among the homeless people

Abstract

This article explores women-specific social work among homeless people in the context of the Finnish welfare state from the viewpoint of homeless women themselves. The point of departure in the research is whether homeless women located themselves as a part of the service, i.e. whether they thought they were users of the service, and whether they considered women-specific service necessary at all. The data consists of 17 client interviews, using the concept ‘interpretative repertoires’.The repertoire ‘Suits all homeless women’ is based on an idea of the women being a homogeneous group and homeless women needing a particular gender-based service. The repertoire ‘Suits none’ is based on the welfare state idea, an idea of citizens as a homogeneous group needing the provision of universal services for all homeless people with gender playing no significance. These end points of the interpretative repertoires can be described as a general discussion on the basis of providing these services within a welfare state. The interpretative repertoires ‘Suits me’, ‘Suits others’ and ‘Does not suit me’ represent a postmodern individual interpretation of women-specific work. In these interpretative repertoires, there is an emphasis on diversity among women with individually tailored services and need-based services. The existence of five different interpretative repertoires shows that there is no single way of experiencing homelessness as a woman, there is no single way women experience a service constructed for them and there is no single perspective for organising a service that would suit them.

Keywords:

• women-specific social work among homeless people
• discourse analysis
• interpretative repertoires

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Erratum

Acknowledgement

The article is part of the research project ‘Long-term Homelessness and Finnish Adaptations of Housing First model’ funded by the Academy of Finland (2011–2015).

Notes

This article was originally published with errors. This version has been corrected. Please see erratum (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2156857X.2013.790596).

1. The literal meaning of the Finnish word ‘asunnoton’, normally used to translate the concept ‘homeless’, is ‘[a person] without accommodation’. Thus, it may be easier for Finns to study both persons ‘without accommodation’ and ‘without a home’ than in English, for example, where the standard concept already employs the word ‘home’.

2. I received permission for my research from the Ethical Board of the organisation, and the women I interviewed all signed a consent form.

3. The data extracts have been anonymised: names and all details that would break confidentiality have been changed.

4. The original Finnish texts are rendered in word-for-word translations.