Welfare Regimes, Social Values and Homelessness: Comparing Responses to Marginalised Groups in Six European Countries

Abstract

This paper examines the exposure to homelessness of socially marginalised groups to understand better the applicability of, and limits to, welfare regime analysis. A vignette methodology is deployed in six European countries to interrogate and compare responses to marginalised groups at high risk of homelessness, including people with substance misuse problems, ex-offenders, young people excluded from the family home, migrants and women fleeing domestic violence. Evidence suggests that a range of values embedded in national political cultures—including familialism, social cohesion, individuality, personal responsibility and personal liberty, as well as egalitarianism—impact on models of intervention and outcomes for specific marginalised groups in ways which cannot be straightforwardly predicted from conventional welfare regime analysis.

Keywords::

• Homelessness
• Europe
• vignettes
• welfare regimes
• social marginalisation
• values

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on the Study on Housing Exclusion (Stephens et al., 2010) which was supported by the European Community Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity (2007–2013), managed by the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities of the European Commission. The study was conducted in conjunction with FEANTSA and CECODHAS, and involved six national research teams. These national research teams were Christiane Droste, Thomas Knorr-Siedow and Patricia Berndt (Germany); Jozsef Hegedüs, Éva Geroházi and Eszter Somogyi (Hungary); Marja Elsinga and Joris Hoekstra (the Netherlands); Isabel Baptista and Pedro Perista (Portugal); Lena Magnusson Turner and Jonas Hugosson (Sweden); and Suzanne Fitzpatrick, Mark Stephens and Alison Wallace (UK). The authors thank Professor Marja Elsinga, Professor Bo Bengtsson and Dr Volker Busch-Geertsema for insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Any remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors alone.

Notes

¹ The study used the ‘ETHOS’ typology of homelessness which encompasses not only ‘rooflessness’, but also ‘houselessness’ (living in homeless or institutional accommodation), ‘insecure housing’ and ‘inadequate housing’. http://www.feantsa.org/code/en/pg.asp?page = 484

² Legal and policy frameworks on homelessness now differ considerably across the four UK nations, particularly with respect to Scotland where there is now a legally enforceable right to long-term rehousing for single men such as the individual portrayed in this case (Fitzpatrick, Johnsen, & Watts, 2012, Fitzpatrick, Pawson, et al., 2012). However, all of the UK participants in this research were based in London or elsewhere in England and their comments therefore reflect the homelessness regime south of the border.

³ Although a 2009 court case has since altered practice very significantly in this regard by indicating that all homeless under 18 years in England and Wales who approach a local housing authority for assistance should have a children's services assessment [R (on application of G) (FC) v London Borough of Southwark [2009] UKHL 26].

⁴http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/population/domesticviolence/germany.dv.01.pdf