Moving Targets: On reducing public responsibilities through re-categorising homeless people and refugees

Summary, in Swedish

Categorising people and housing situations is unavoidable in research and national and local statistics on homelessness, as well as in regulating and planning for interventions and supply and allocation of suitable accommodation. Despite different motives and original functions, however, these categories and the use of them are influenced by the political discourse, especially when they travel from one policy area or level to another. This article deals with categorical change through revisions of target groups of policies to settle newly arrived refugees and accommodate homeless people, respectively, in municipalities in the south of Sweden. One conclusion is that certain subcategories of homeless people and newly arrived refugees seem to overlap, forming a specific category of non-entitled homeless refugee families, who are excluded from the target groups of settlement policies as well as homeless policies. Another conclusion is that municipalities can actively defy the general imperative of integration and housing provision through responsibilising the target group.

• Författare: Ingrid Sahlin
• Avdelning/ar: Socialhögskolan
• Publiceringsår: 2020-07
• Språk: Engelska
• Sidor: 27-54
• Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie: European Journal of Homelessness
• Volym: 14
• Issue: 1
• Fulltext: - 817 kB; Download statistics
• Dokumenttyp: Artikel i tidskrift
• Förlag: Feantsa
• Ämne: Social Work
• Nyckelord: structurally homeless, newly arrived refugees, re-categorisation; structurally homeless; newly arrived refugees; re-categorisation; local homeless policies
• Status: Published
• Projekt: Scanian homes: Reception, settlement or rejection – homelessness policies and strategies for refugee settlement
• ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt: ISSN: 2030-2762