Places of Sanctuary for 'the Undeserving'? Homeless People's Day Centres and the Problem of Conditionality

Abstract

This paper is an exploration of a dilemma that is central to the place of day centres in tackling single homelessness, and raises issues for social work more generally. On the one hand, day centres provide vital services to a vulnerable group in a safe, nonthreatening and non-judgemental setting; on the other hand, in doing so, they are believed to impede opportunities for personal change. The paper draws on findings from a research study which compared and contrasted the priorities of single homeless people with multiple support needs with the priorities of support services, exploring the role of encounters between service users and agencies in either overcoming or reinforcing multiple exclusion homelessness. This paper focuses on evidence about the use of day centres. It seeks to draw on theological insights to explore day centres as 'places of sanctuary' whose largely unconditional accessibility enables them to serve as both a last refuge for the victims of multiple rejection and a safe place to confront the past. This paper will take the debate about conditionality in welfare provision beyond the field of homelessness to address one of the oldest dilemmas of social work: how to facilitate change while respecting people's free agency. 2Key words: homelessness; sanctuary; day centre; conditionality The contested world of homeless people's day centresThis paper uses evidence from research with single homeless people to explore a dilemma at the heart of day centre provision for this group. How can a service both appeal to service users on their terms and be a vehicle for change? After reviewing research into homeless people's day centres, the concept of 'sanctuary' will be advanced as a way of understanding how day centres seek to resolve this dilemma in practice. Conclusions will be drawn that shed light on one of the oldest issues for social work: how to effect change in people in ways that still respect their free agency. Thirdly, in the 'community work approach', day centres aim to foster personal change, by encouraging service users to tap into their inner resources through, for instance, skill development and work-related activity. While this is a helpful categorisation of the broad character of day centres, most manifest elements of more 4 than one of these approaches, and the dilemma identified at the beginning of this section is obscured. How can a service maintain open accessibility while pursuing personal change agendas for which service access might need to be made conditional? Day centres within broader homelessness strategiesThe criticism that day centres support the very lifestyles they are meant to challenge has become part of the folklore of homelessness policy for at least the last 20 years (Randall and Brown, 2002), and cannot be fully addressed without exploring broader urban developments and homelessness strategies. Two issues are of particular relevance: strategies of social cleansing associated with the 'revanchist' city; and the process of 'responsibilising' disruptive and anti-so...

Homelessness and social control: a typology

“…These (predominantly but not exclusively faith-based) services tend to adopt an 'unconditional' open-door approach, which aims to welcome all regardless of their personal circumstances and hold no expectation, even if they may still 'hope' , that service users will engage with support services and/or alter their lifestyle (Cloke et al, 2005;Johnsen, 2014). Most aim to foster a therapeutic environment or 'sanctuary' (Bowpitt et al, 2013) which avoids 'pressuring' homeless people to alter their behaviour, but rather focuses on supporting them to change if and when they self-identify as being ready to do so.…”

“…Likewise, a number of scholars have drawn normative distinctions between the ostensibly 'caring' approach of 'low threshold' services on the one hand, and the apparently 'callous' approach of services that deploy more 'conditional' techniques (see for example Bowpitt et al, 2013;Cloke et al, 2010;Evans, 2011;Fopp, 2002;Scanlon & Adlam, 2008). Studies illuminating compassionate or ambivalent motives underpinning both types of initiatives go some way to problematizing these accounts (see for example Deverteuil et al, 2009;Forrest, 2014;Hansen Lofstrand, 2015;Johnsen & Fitzpatrick, 2010;Laurenson & Collins, 2007;Murphy, 2009;Scullion et al, 2015), but negative portrayals of the use of social control in this field nevertheless predominate.…”

“…In offering a comprehensive conceptualization of social control mechanisms targeting street homeless people, we draw upon (but do not rehearse in detail) the findings of previous evaluations of some of the specific interventions discussed herein (e.g. Bowpitt et al, 2013;Brown, 2013;Bretherton and Pleace, 2015;Hough et al, 2011;Johnsen, 2013;Johnsen & Fitzpatrick, 2007Johnsen & Jones, 2015;Lane & Power, 2009;Randall & Brown, 2002;Sanders & Albanese, 2017;Teixeira, 2010;Watts et al, 2017).…”

Controlling Homeless People? Power, Interventionism and Legitimacy

“…In particular, it is not safe to assume that because the motives of those involved -to offer support, hospitality and sanctuary to people in needare manifestly legitimate (Bowpitt et al, 2014;Cloke et al, 2005Cloke et al, , 2010, the outcomes are necessarily ethical (Fitzpatrick and Johnsen, 2009). One key benefit of incorporating a consequentialist dimension within our framework is to allow for ethical judgements about the costs of inaction, or non-intervention, alongside those of intervention 4 .…”

Between Institutional Inclusion and Invisibility? The Case of Flemish Homelessness Care

“…Cross-European research (FEANTSA, 2010) has shown that the requirements to enter services are increasingly dependent on specific eligibility criteria. The conditionality of social services and organisations that closely guard their territory is widespread (Quilgars, Fitzpatrick, & Pleace, 2011); even in nonjudgemental and nonthreatening settings that are directly accessible, such as day centres, similar developments can be discerned, as for example, in the UK (e.g., Bowpitt, Dwyer, Sundin, & Weinstein, 2013). In search of solutions for this conditionality, several Anglo-Saxon and European countries have proposed new approaches to housing, such as the USA "continuum of care", the "staircase of transition" and the "housing first" approaches (Busch-Geertsema, 2010;Hoch, 2000).…”