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- Title
From Vagrancy to Homelessness: The Value of a Welfare Approach to Homelessness.
- Authors
Maeseele, Thomas; Roose, Rudi; Bouverne-De Bie, Maria; Roets, Griet
- Abstract
For centuries, the debate about homelessness concentrated on the ways in which the issue of vagrancy could be dealt with as a criminal problem. In recent decades, this perspective faded out and alternative approaches to dealing with vagrancy were argued for and implemented. In this article, we discuss the emerging reconceptualisation of a repressive approach into a welfare approach to the issue of vagrancy—which is called homelessness later on—as a social problem, in which social work in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) has a mandate to intervene. By means of a historical analysis of discourses and practices concerning ‘vagrancy’, we show that (i) a welfare approach was already present before the formal decriminalisation of vagrancy; (ii) the conceptual shift from vagrancy as a criminal problem to homelessness as a poverty problem was accompanied by an emphasis on a psycho-social approach to homelessness; and (iii) social work practices intervening in social problems of homelessness are made increasingly conditional, which points to questions about the accessibility of social services for homeless people.
- Subjects
BELGIUM; CRIME; PUBLIC welfare; HEALTH services accessibility; HOMELESS persons; HOMELESSNESS; LEGISLATION; POVERTY; SOCIAL case work; SOCIAL change; SOCIAL justice; SOCIAL problems
- Publication
British Journal of Social Work, 2014, Vol 44, Issue 7, p1717
- ISSN
0045-3102
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/bjsw/bct050