Homelessness is a topical issue generating substantial attention in Western countries. While there is considerable research on the subject, little has been written on intersectional social work approaches to homelessness. Homelessness is complex and diverse because it intersects with other social issues (such as gendered violence), and with multiple social markers that include gender, class, race, sexuality and ability. As well, understandings of both homelessness and social work are contested, and vary according to different countries and organisational contexts. Complicating matters further, both service users and providers are constituted by the complex interplay of these multiple social locations.
This book is the first to promote an intersectional approach for social workers addressing homelessness. It builds upon my recent chapters in edited books on feminist research and practice in social work (see Wahab et al., 2015; Wendt and Moulding, 2016). I use a critical and social constructionist epistemology, to explore how homelessness and social work are constituted through intersecting and unequal power relations. Following the work of social work scholars Hulko (2015) and Murphy et al. (2009), I advocate for adopting an intersectional approach that incorporates reflections on both oppression and privilege. This project is not situated exclusively within a particular school of thought, such as a structural or post-structural feminism. My intersectional approach in this book combines and draws on both critical/structural and post-structural ideas and theoretical perspectives. I argue that engaging with both structural and post-structural thought enables a more comprehensive and complex analysis of the topic of homelessness. It is this multi-faceted analysis that can then assist social workers to attend to the diversities of homelessness, and to advocate for ‘the homeless’ using new knowledge, research methods and practices. I also draw on Winker and Degele’s (2011) conceptualisation of intersectionality that highlights the intersection of social structures, institutionalised organisational practices, multiple identities, cultural symbols and discursive representations of social problems. My intersectional social work approach has been developed through researching the perspectives of people from diverse social locations who experience homelessness, and of social workers who work with them, linking their subjective experiences (the micro), with social structures and institutionalised practices (the mezzo and the macro).
My argument in this book is that intersectionality provides a new way of understanding homelessness and social work research, social policy and social work practice. I examine how homelessness is constituted through unequal and intersecting power relations in social processes and social identity categorisations (or social locations), related to Indigeneity, race, ethnicity, gender, class, age, sexuality, ability and other markers of identity. I also explore how social work and responses to homelessness are constituted, by reflecting on social workers’ own positions of power and often invisible privileges (and oppressions). The social locations of social workers can relate to white race privilege, class, ability, being employed, educated or other markers of privileged identities, as well as unequal power relations in client–worker relationships and social work processes. Therefore, in this book I highlight the intersecting diversities and complexities of homelessness and social work research, policy and practice, by proposing an intersectional social work approach.
The complexities of intersectionality
The scope of intersectionality is contested and debated. Intersectional theorists have particularly drawn upon structuralist approaches to identity (or subjectivity) ‘as informed by various systems of oppression relating to race, class, gender and sexuality’ (McKibbin et al., 2015, p. 99). Intersectionality is a study of intersections between different systems of discrimination and a way of thinking about multiple identities and interconnected oppressions/privileges in both men and women’s lives (Crenshaw, 1991; Mehrotra, 2010; Hulko, 2015). This approach highlights multi-dimensional intersections related to for example, gender, sexuality, race/skin colour, ethnicity, nation/state, class, culture, ability, age, sedentariness, origin, wealth, religion, geographical locations and social development (Lutz et al., 2011). However, there is slippage ‘between structuralist and post-structuralist ontologies’ in intersectional literature, causing some confusion about ‘the relationship between post-structuralist feminism, postcolonial feminism and intersectionality’ (McKibbin et al., 2015, p. 100). Social work and feminist scholars such as Murphy et al. (2009) and McKibbin et al. (2015) take different epistemological positions towards intersectionality. Unlike Murphy et al.’s (2009) more structuralist approach, McKibbin et al. (2015, p. 101) argue for a post-structural orientation to intersectionality as a ‘discourse’. They argue that post-structural feminist orientations open up more possibilities for analyses of social problems, including men’s violence against women. However, in this book, I argue that both theoretical perspectives can contribute to social work approaches to homelessness, depending on the purpose of the political project. These contestations, including Lykke’s (2010) ‘post-constructionist’ theorising of intersectionality, are further discussed in the next chapter.
Whilst acknowledging the critiques of intersectionality as providing a ‘handy catchall phrase’ (Phoenix and Pattynama, 2006, p. 187), I argue that an intersectional approach can contribute to new ways of reflecting on homelessness and social work. Intersectionality is useful for analysing the various ways in which different social divisions and power relations are enmeshed and constructed. It allows for a more complex, fluid, multilayered analysis of diverse social identities (or subjectivities) and social locations, and for a more thorough reflexive exploration of how social processes and relationships intersect and continue to uphold social inequalities (Damant et al., 2008; Lykke, 2010). Intersectionality can provide a new social work approach that makes visible the ‘multiple positioning that constitutes everyday life and the power relations’ (Phoenix and Pattynama, 2006, p. 187), and contributes to shaping the complexities of social work and homelessness. It can also be a powerful tool for social workers to examine their own privileges (and oppressions).
Similar to Hulko’s (2009, p. 52) vision for intersectionality, my hope for this book is that it will help social workers and social work students ‘appreciate that they can be both oppressors and the oppressed at the same time’. For example, we can be aware of our ‘marginal social status’ (such as Aboriginal ancestry or ethno-cultural background), yet not have considered our ‘social-class position’ (Hulko, 2009, p. 52). However, it is also important to note that some intersectional oppressions/privileges can change over time and in different social contexts. Thus, we cannot homogenise the ways political projects affect different people (Yuval Davis, 2006; 2012). In regards to homelessness, this approach would involve not sliding into essentialism, such as pointing out the characteristics of ‘the homeless’, and reductionism, such as arguing that there is one cause of homelessness.
In this book, I aim to rethink how the ‘problem’ of homelessness is understood and addressed by social workers. I am not arguing that social work is the only discipline that has a claim to the issue, as many different professions are involved in responding to homelessness. However, this book draws on my own research and expertise, which is in the field of social work and homelessness. I come to this work with experience as a social work practitioner in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams in Australia and the UK that included responding to the diversity of homelessness and other social issues, such as the wellbeing and protection of children, disability, ageing and mental health. For over 15 years I have been researching homelessness and social work, particularly in the Australian context. More recently, I have been engaged in exploring the relevance of intersectionality to social work and homelessness (Zufferey, 2009; 2015; 2016b).
There is one book on intersectionality and social work (Murphy et al., 2009) but no previous books have combined a focus on intersectionality, social work and homelessness. The assumptions that underpin intersectionality are consistent with those of social work, as they are about social change, building coalitions and working to upholding social justice and human rights. Intersectional analyses are useful in the fields of homelessness and social work by:
•placing the lived experiences of marginalised groups at the centre of the development of theory and research (Hulko, 2015), such as making visible the diverse perspectives of people experiencing homelessness;
•being ‘majority inclusive’ and thus, enabling a reflection on constructions of privilege and privileging practices (Christensen and Jensen, 2012), such as social workers’ reflecting on our own privileges (Hulko, 2015);
•exploring the complexities of individual and group identities, while highlighting the ways in which diversity within groups is often ignored and/or homogenised (Dhamoon, 2011), including by not homogenising ‘the homeless experience’;
•demonstrating how social inequality and oppression manifest in interconnected domains of power relations (Thornton Dill and Zambrana, 2009; Thornton Dill and Kohlman, 2012), including power relations relevant to social workers responding to people experiencing homelessness; and
•promoting social justice and social change, such as through social work advocacy, research, policy, practice and education (Murphy et al., 2009).
In this book I draw on these theoretical and methodological complexities, which distinguishes it from other work in the fields of social work and homelessness.
The complexities of homelessness
Homelessness is also a contested concept. Homelessness is frequently constructed as ‘rough sleeping’ or ‘houselessness’. These housing-based definitions of homelessness assume that ‘houselessness’ is the problem and housing is the solution (Tomas and Dittmar, 1995; Zufferey, 2016a). Such normative definitions and understandings of homelessness in Western countries often fail to incorporate multiple and diverse perspectives of home and homelessness (Zufferey, 2016a; 2016b). Also, the relevance of Western definitions of homelessness for developing countries has been questioned (Tipple and Speak, 2009). Whilst it is important for social workers to advocate for access to safe and affordable housing, it is also important to make visible alternative perspectives and experiences of homelessness. Homelessness is inextricably connected to intersecting sites of disadvantage and inequality, which include global and local issues, Western global domination, class elitism, unequal gender and power relations, homophobia and white race privilege. Intersectional analyses enable social work researchers, policy makers and practitioners to examine how these diverse inequalities intersect in social processes and contribute to shaping the experiences and subjectivities of men and women who are defined as homeless.
Moreover, power relations constitute social work processes that can reproduce social inequalities, so it is also important to research the perspectives of both people who experience homelessness, and social workers who respond to homelessness. For example, social work research, policy and educational practices often involve defining and homogenising ‘marginalised’ or ‘vulnerable’ population groups. Likewise, social work practices tend to construct ‘clients’ who experience homelessness as the homogenous ‘other’ who are in ‘need’ of social work ‘intervention’ (Zufferey and Kerr, 2004). As well, social-policy-making processes constitute social ‘problems’ (such as homelessness) in particular ways (Bacchi, 2009). Intersectional analyses can make these social processes and multiple and intersecting power inequalities more visible, expanding on how social workers engage with socially constructed problems such as homelessness.
Whilst homelessness is a complex and emerging area of research for social workers, it is not a new phenomenon. Homelessness has long been a multidimensional human rights issue. The United Nations (UN) General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 (Article 25), which states that everyone has the right to a standard of living that is adequate for their health and wellbeing, including access to food, clothing, housing and medical care. Worldwide, there are over 100 million people without shelter; at least 1.6 billion people who lack adequate housing, and one in four people who live in housing situations that can affect their health and safety (Habitat, 2015), many of whom are women and children. Global definitions of homelessness have tended to focus on people being literally homeless (without shelter), with few possessions, ‘sleeping in the streets, in doorways or on piers, or in any other space, on a more or less random basis’. 1 More recently, in 2016, the special United Nations Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, Leilani Farha, provided a three-dimensional definition of homelessness anchored in human rights and social inequality. She suggests that the first definitional dimension highlights ‘the absence of home in terms of both its physical structure and its social aspects’; the second dimension focuses on ‘systemic discrimination and social exclusion’; and the third dimension acknowledges that people are ‘resilient in the struggle for survival and dignity and potential agents of change as rights holders’ (UNHR, 2016, p. 1). Consistent with the United Nations, I also posit that homelessness is connected to systemic and structural patterns of discrimination that disproportionately affect people on the basis of gender, age, cultural background, ability, poverty, sexuality, migration and refugee status, each in different ways (UNHR, 2016). Policy definitions of homelessness are examined in further depth in Chapter Four.
Intersectional theorising acknowledges how home and homelessness is experienced differently, depending on one’s social power, privilege and social location/s. In this book I reflect on the complexities of intersectionality, social work and homelessness by drawing on a number of research projects, including my own, and by examining social work literature on research, policy and practice responses to the issue. However, social work itself has been criticised for being ethnocentric, influenced by white, Western and middle-class discourses that are embodied and performed by social workers in their professional practices. As a white, Western, middle-class social work educator and practitioner, I continually question how my own gender, class and whiteness shapes my worldview, grants me particular privileges and informs my own research and practice in the area of homelessness (Zufferey, 2013). I have found intersectionality to be most useful for reflecting on the complex power dynamics in my responses to homelessness. I suggest that this reflexivity can, likewise, enable other social workers to explore how responses to homelessness are constituted by unequal institutionalised practices, and intersecting social locations and power relations. This argument is developed further in Chapter 5.
The complexities of social work
There are a number of claims made in social work literature to define the aims and purpose of the ‘profession’. Globally, a set of universal values and ethics has been constructed to describe ‘ideal’ types of social work (Gibelman, 1999; McKay and Zufferey, 2015). Social work scholar Dunk-West (2013, p. 13) argues that whilst national policies and contemporary social and economic contexts frame social work, the profession’s identity is clear because social workers across the world share similar professional values and theory bases. These ethics involve addressing inequalities and social justice in diverse settings, in order to promote the rights of disadvantaged people. However, social work professional identity and ethical practice is contested. For example, Payne (2014) notes that social work is socially constructed and ‘clients’, ‘social workers’ and the process called ‘social work’ are socially and historically embedded within organisational contexts and institutional regimes of power that change over time and in different contexts. As Shardlow (2009, p. 37) observes, while codes of ethics are universal ideals that can offer generalised and definitive answers, ethical practice is actually ‘complex, messy and imprecise’. That is, social workers can resist social injustices, while at the same time, contribute to maintaining them. For example, in his analysis of policy and media discourses about constructions of asylum seekers, Masocha (2015, p. 7) explored the dominance of xenoracism, which is ‘a rhetorically managed type of prejudice aimed at the discrimination, exclusion and marginalisation of asylum seekers’, and found that these discourses also shape social worker’s constructions of asylum seeker’s subjectivities.
Social work authors such as Dominelli (2002) and Payne (2014) argue that social work is constructed through three dominant approaches: the ‘therapeutic helping’ or reflexive-therapeutic position; the emancipatory or socialist-collectivist position, and the individualist-reformist or maintenance position. Consistent with the social justice focus of the emancipatory social work approach, scholars in other disciplines such as women’s studies and political science point to the value of radical and disruptive aspects of intersectionality in unsettling ‘oppressive vehicles of power’ (Dhamoon, 2011, p. 230; May, 2015). Likewise, social work author Hulko (2009, p. 53) acknowledges that systems of oppression and privilege intersect within historically and culturally situated social contexts that promote racism, heterosexism and ageism. Drawing on a range of multidisciplinary scholars, I argue that an intersectional social work approach to homelessness can combine different epistemological positions and intersect individual/structural, personal/political and micro/macro approaches, in ways that contribute to the social justice project of social work. A reflexive, intersectional approach can also highlight how social workers contribute to maintaining unequal power relations, which opens up possibilities for focusing on new areas for social work advocacy.
My thinking for this book emerged from my doctoral research in which I critically examined how homelessness (and service provision) is socially constructed in the public domain (as represented in the Australian print media), and how these constructions influenced research, social policy and social work responses to homelessness (Zufferey and Chung, 2006; Zufferey, 2007). I have previously argued that three particular points are important in understanding social work responses to homelessness (see Zufferey, 2008). First, social work and social policy approaches to homelessness are culturally and historically situated within broader Western individualist discourses about social problems. Second, welfare reforms of increasingly conservative Western governments that emphasise individual self-interest and moral responsibility shape public discourses, research, policy and practice responses to homelessness. For example, in Canada, the US, the UK, Australia and Scandinavia, ‘welfare to work’ policies introduced for welfare recipients, such as single parent families that oblige sole parents to look for work, are morally driven (Pulkingham et al., 2010). Social workers who work in employment services become part of this monitoring system, and being homeless does not exempt people from the work activity test or compliance requirements, despite inherent difficulties in accessing and maintaining work. Third, socio-political agendas such as neoliberalism shape organisational contexts, and social work practice can be defined and constrained within these organisational settings (see also Gordon and Zufferey, 2013). Social workers perform their work within institutionalised practices and organisational discourses that constitute their responses to homelessness, and reflect dominant power relations between service providers and service users (Zufferey, 2008, p. 358).
This book is committed to making visible the perspectives of men and women with diverse experiences of homelessness, as well as reflecting on power relations in social work approaches to addressing the issue. However, it is also important to not fix ‘homeless’ and ‘homed’ identities, and to understand that intersecting social identities and locations are fluid and changing, and are temporally and spatially contingent on context. That is, even social workers can become homeless. As Emslie (2011) observes, youth housing workers in Australia are paid wages so low that they too experience housing affordability stress and are at risk of, or living in, conditions defined as ‘homeless’.
The lived experiences of people who may or may not define themselves as ‘homeless’ are diverse, multiple and shift across time and place. Intersectional social work approaches offer multiple ‘entry point/s for social change efforts’ and ‘reflect the socially constructed nature of reality’ (Hulko, 2009, p. 53). These approaches provide diverse opportunities to advocate for a more socially just social work. Therefore, I argue that intersectional theorising resonates with the complexities of homelessness and social work, consistent with the aims of this book, namely:
1To construct a new intersectional approach for understanding social work and homelessness.
2To provide a critical analysis of unequal power relations in social work responses to homelessness.
3To challenge how homelessness is represented and responded to in social work research, social policy and social work practice.
To illustrate, in this book I present my own intersectional research on the diverse perspectives and identifications with home/s and homelessness (Chapter 3); on social workers’ perspectives about their experiences of responding to homelessness (Chapter 5), and research that incorporates the diverse voices of people experiencing homelessness (Chapter 6).
This book has seven chapters. In this introductory chapter I have introduced the main concepts and arguments covered in this book, including definitions and debates in the fields of intersectionality, homelessness and social work. I have emphasised the complexities of intersectionality, homelessness and social work. I have also put forward my position that an intersectional approach can highlight unequal power relations that constitute homelessness and social work responses to it.
Chapter 2 examines literature on intersectionality in more depth. In this chapter I note that intersectional approaches can transcend individual and structural debates in homelessness and social work literature. I discuss debates about intersectionality within multidisciplinary literature, including social work, sociology, political science and women and gender studies, and present critiques of it. In this chapter I make the case that multidisciplinary intersectional theorising can be integrated into an intersectional social work approach to homelessness.
Chapter 3 analyses social work research on homelessness (and related social problems such as intimate partner violence) and intersectionality. In this chapter I critically examine research literature in the field of social work and homelessness, including how this literature does (or does not) draw on intersectionality. By presenting some of my own ‘intersectional-type’ research, I demonstrate how intersectionality in the fields of social work and homelessness can be valuable in informing these current bodies of research knowledge.
Chapter 4, on social policy and homelessness, examines intersectional policy analysis approaches in literature. In this chapter I discuss Hankivsky’s (2012) Intersectionality-Based Policy Analysis (IBPA), and Bacchi’s (2009) ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) policy analysis frameworks. Then, I analyse definitions of homelessness in legislation, policy and service initiatives such as ‘Housing First’ in the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand and the European Union. I argue that intersectional policy development and analysis can contribute to new understandings of policy approaches to homelessness, and social work research.
Chapter 5 focuses on ‘frontline’ service delivery and social work practice responses to homelessness. In this chapter I demonstrate how an intersectional approach provides further insights into how social workers can promote practices aligned with their commitments to challenging social injustice and human rights violations (Murphy et al., 2009). To illustrate that an intersectional approach can broaden social workers’ analyses and responses to homelessness, I present findings from my research interviews with social work managers, policy workers and frontline practitioners in Australia. I argue that social workers embody intersecting power relations, and that gendered, racialised and classed social locations constitute their understandings of social work, and responses to homelessness. In the spirit of the reflexivity of my intersectional social work approach to homelessness, I provide personal commentary and a case study. The first reflection comprises my own personal and professional engagement with homelessness and intersectionality. The second case study was constructed by Dr Chris Horsell, reflecting on when he was employed in the field of men’s homelessness, working with a transgender client who identified as a woman. In this chapter I show how an intersectional social work approach can subvert dominant practices, expand social work advocacy, and make visible privilege and diverse power inequalities.
Chapter 6 highlights research and literature on lived experiences of homelessness. In this chapter, I present a diversity of perspectives and experiences of people, who are defined as ‘homeless’ by policy makers and service providers, but who do not necessarily define themselves as such. I commence the chapter by presenting my original research on ‘everyday’ lived experiences of homelessness, from the perspectives of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal male and female service users in Adelaide, South Australia. In this chapter, I argue that an intersectional social work approach can make visible complex experiences of homelessness, by intersecting at least two categories of difference (Hulko, 2015). In documenting literature and research on the ‘voices’ and experiences of service users and people affected by homelessness, I explore the effects of colonisation and racism (particularly on Aboriginal Australians), debates about race relations, gendered aspects of homelessness, heterosexual dominance, age differences (such as older people, children and youth) and migration and refugee issues. I note that the perspectives of people who experience homelessness are often ignored (or re-constructed for particular political purposes), and advocate for more service user-led research.
The concluding chapter pulls together the strands of this book about the interrelationships between intersectionality, homelessness and social work. I make the claim that intersectionality can provide a new way of thinking about homelessness, social work research, social policy making and analysis, practitioner responses and service user perspectives. As such, an intersectional social work approach is a new way of moving forward towards inclusive approaches to homelessness, which incorporate diversity and listen to the voices of people most affected by homelessness.
There is already considerable multidisciplinary literature on homelessness and intersectionality. However, there is limited scholarship on intersectional and social work approaches to homelessness. In this chapter, I positioned this book within the complexities of intersectionality, homelessness and social work. I explained my argument and what intersectionality can offer to the fields of homelessness and social work. This chapter sets the context for the following chapters in the book that: further theorise intersectionality, discuss social work and intersectional research on homelessness, highlight multidisciplinary intersectional policy approaches, reflect on social work practice and make visible lived experiences and perspectives on homelessness.
Note
1Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Sales No. E.98.XVII.8 United Nations 1998 Paragraph 1.328.
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