Homelessness and Social Exclusion: A Foucauldian Perspective for Social Workers

Social Housing in England: Testing the Logics of Reform

“…It is also consistent with the dominant framework of welfare policy now installed in the UK, which demonizes public welfare as a major factor underpinning the reproduction of poverty and places increasing conditionality on access to reduced assistance, while emphasising individual responsibility for resolving social exclusion, principally through engagement in paid work (Horsell, 2006;Levitas, 1998;Dwyer, 1998;MacLeavy, 2008, Mooney, 2007. This paper scrutinises this causal story underpinning radical reform of social housing in England.…”

“…Welfare policy in the UK is framed by a notion of social exclusion that foregrounds individual shortcomings and behavioural deficiencies and pays little attention to wider social or economic processes that might be responsible for reproducing deprivation and exclusion (Horsell, 2006;Silver, 1994). Rather than extending citizenship rights, the emphasis is on the enforcement of greater conditionality and the reduction or outright removal of rights in a bid to break the dependency on welfare provision that is perceived to cause 'the poor' to be in such dire circumstances (Levitas, 1998).…”

On the frontline or on the side-line? Homelessness care and care avoiders

“…Many authors point to homelessness as a major and growing social problem worldwide (Horsell, 2006;FEANTSA, 2009). Homelessness is dominantly seen as an important problem of poverty (Anderson, 2004).…”

Responding to People Sleeping Rough: Dilemmas and Opportunities for Social Work

“…Nevertheless, as a profession social work is well positioned to strategically challenge dominant discourses* Zufferey (2008) argued that social workers can promote socially just ends by engaging in advocacy, not simply for people who are homeless, but with them. Adopting a similarly critical perspective, Horsell's (2006) theoretical discussions warned social workers against viewing their ''homeless clients'' as objects. He showed how through case management and surveillance (also see Fopp, 1996), the expert social worker's understanding of the problem can be complicit in objectifying people without homes as the problematic ''other''.…”