English This article uses the experience of reviewing the evidence on the financial support available for defaulting home owners to consider the opportunities and challenges systematic review methods present to social policy. It addresses concerns about examining the strength of given evidence, and perceptions of it being a purely technical method to review existing research. It argues that there is merit in utilising the method to provide research users with transparent summaries of the most robust evidence with minimum bias. The article outlines the challenges presented and suggests that social policy researchers have a valuable contribution to make to the developing methods.

Housing First is now dominating discussions about how best to respond to homelessness among people with high and complex needs throughout the EU and in several countries within the OECD. Whilst recognised internationally as an effective model in addressing homelessness, little attention has been given as to whether Housing First also assists previously homeless people become more socially integrated into their communities. This paper reviews the available research evidence (utilising a Rapid Evidence Assessment methodology) on the extent to which Housing First services are effective in promoting social integration. Existing evidence suggests Housing First is delivering varying results in respect of social integration, despite some evidence suggesting normalising effects of settled housing on ontological security. The paper argues that a lack of clarity around the mechanisms by which Housing First is designed to deliver 'social integration', coupled with poor measurement, helps explain the inconsistent and sometimes limited results for Housing First services in this area. It concludes that there is a need to look critically at the extent to which Housing First can deliver social integration, moving the debate beyond the successes in housing sustainment and identifying what is needed to enhance people's lives in the longer-term.

This article starts with a critique of the literature relating to the living at home/living in a home contrast. It shows this body of work to be dominated by a structured dependency paradigm which depicts residential care as exemplar of institution and home as embodying personal control and self- identity. A modification of the paradigm which gives prominence to diversity and meaning is used to analyse in-depth interviews with frail older people living at home and in a home. The analysis suggests that the prevailing account of residential care needs updating and some revision. The article concludes that the marketisation of social care has had both positive and negative effects on both care delivery in a home and at home. It also contends that there is a limited demand from older people for collective living arrangements and that institutionalisation processes affect older people in whatever setting.

Over the last decade there has been a significant growth in comparative, crossnational research and recognition of its potential significance in responding to globalisation pressures. A range of methodological approaches have been documented. However, whilst a growing literature exists on undertaking comparative research generally, less has been published on the experiences of undertaking qualitative research in a cross-national context, particularly in social and housing policy. Qualitative research provides opportunities to gain more detailed understandings of behaviour, attitudes and experiences across countries, but it also raises some of the greatest challenges with respect to interpreting data. This article utilises an eight nation study on housing security and insecurity to make transparent some of the key issues raised in qualitative, cross-national work, including the selection of locations and interviewees, interviewing and analysing material within an institutional context. It argues that further critical sharing of research accounts is required in this important area.Comparative, cross-national social research has a long history, particularly within political science and sociology, but it has developed at a fast pace in the last 15 years in recognition of what might be learnt from policies in other countries in a context of increasing globalisation processes. Whilst all social science is comparative (Doling, 1997), and international comparisons can be made at many levels (including across localities, institutions, regions and even continents), the main focus of comparative analysis has been on explaining the differences and/or similarities between nation states (Hantrais, 1999). In line with broader social science, a range of approaches have dominated comparative housing policy, most particularly Universalist/Macro perspectives that stress convergence between countries and Culturalist/Middle-range perspectives that have highlighted diversity and divergence, with an acknowledgment that studies often combine elements of both (Doling, 1997;Kemeny & Lowe, 1998;Lowe, 2004). Within both approaches, but particularly the former, quantitative research has dominated research, with this balance not being redressed with the emergence of 'micro-scale' comparative housing studies (focussing on cities or regions) utilising

This article examines the history of British homelessness research and its politicization over the past 40 years. The relationship between homelessness research and policy has been developing since the 1960s, and by the 1990s the majority of research was undertaken within the policy arena. In part, this has arisen because of the way in which research has been funded in the UK, with funding being dominated by government or those seeking to criticize its policies. To varying degrees, this is also attributable to the acceptance of a homelessness paradigm, which was ultimately no more than an ideological construct, the 'definitions' of homelessness within British legislation. Fuelled by the growth of homelessness and an increase in charitable activity, the volume of research grew during the 1980s and 1990s, but without concurrent methodological and theoretical development. Recent academic critiques of British homelessness research are reviewed, including the movement towards re-conceptualizating homelessness.

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The recent turn towards evidence-based or evidence-informed policy making has generated interest in systematic literature review techniques. Systematic reviewing is increasingly being adopted to address questions in complex social policy areas, but the methodological development lags behind. Drawing on the experience of undertaking three systematic reviews of housing related topics, as part of a project designed to empirically test the transfer of systematic review methods to social policy and social care, this paper reflects on the use of the systematic review methods in housing research and considers how our experience accords with recent methodological development of reviewing in other areas. The paper first examines wider methodological developments occurring during the course of the three-year project, before considering changing review practices in housing studies. It then goes on to examine the key methodological challenges that remain unresolved, in particular: searching for literature, quality appraising studies, interpreting old research against shifting contextual factors, and providing an actual synthesis of diverse material. It calls for a more thoughtful approach to the method and more careful consideration of when systematic reviews may be appropriate.

In the context of growing risks and expectations of greater personal responsibility, this paper presents the results of a study of the effectiveness and implications of the new pattern of safety-net provision for mortgagors in Britain which was implemented in October 1995 and which involves both private insurance (MPPI) and public provision (ISMI). The paper focuses primarily on those borrowers most likely to experience the risks associated with home ownership and least nancially able to respond to them. For these low-income borrowers, access to, and the effectiveness of, social protection is critical. The data presented are drawn from two surveys of mortgagors, one of private insurance claimants and the other of those claiming on the state safety-net. The discussion indicates that the nature of the 'new' safety-net provision in Britain is problematic. Low-income borrowers are currently least likely to take or have access to MPPI. Where they do have MPPI, they are relatively less successful than better off borrowers in sustaining a claim. For those without MPPI, the deferral period before receiving state assistance (ISMI), and the restrictions to the assistance when it is paid, result in a large minority developing mortgage arrears. The state safety-net is shown to be less effective now than it was in the mid-1990s.