Beyond the ‘At Risk’ Individual: Housing and the Eradication of Poverty to Prevent Homelessness

Abstract

A prevention framework represents one of the fundamental means of the Australian Government's contemporary drive to achieve permanent reductions in homelessness. Consistent with prevailing policies in the UK and US, Australia has approached homelessness prevention through identification and early intervention of individuals 'at risk' of homelessness. In this article we suggest that prevention strategies focused on the risk factors that individual pose obscures efforts to address the underlying structural factors that contribute to homelessness, or to reduce the prevalence of homelessness at the overall population level. The article examines the efficacy of increasing the supply of affordable housing to prevent homelessness, but suggests that the provision of housing alone may be insufficient to realising related well-being objectives. In turn, it is proposed that policy which focuses on poverty reduction has the capacity to achieve the sustainable prevention of homelessness ambitions.

Frugal Product Innovation in Urban Affordable Housing-With Special Reference to the Bottom of the Economic Pyramid

“…The current studies suggest that exclusion pertains to not offering consumers the products required by them as in the case of housing and that increased government intervention can provide lasting solutions to the Bottom of the Economic Pyramid (Jaiswal, 2007; Karnani, 2007).Eradicating poverty from the grass roots comprise a more lasting solution than providing more units in affordable housing, which can fall into wrong hands. (Parsell and Marston, 2012) …”

Homelessness Prevention and the Welsh Legal Duty: Lessons for International Policies

“…The once dominant models of intervention that warehoused homeless people in temporary accommodation for long periods of time are increasingly seen as obsolete, replaced by the common-sense argument that prevention is better than cure. The shift towards preventionfocussed policies has been well documented in countries such as the UK (Clapham et al, 2009;Wilcox & Fitzpatrick, 2010), Germany (Busch-Geertsema & Fitzpatrick, 2008) the USA (Culhane et al, 2011;Shelton et al, 2012) and Australia (Parsell & Marston, 2012). Of course this is not an exhaustive list: almost every country in the developed world has begun to develop prevention-focused interventions.…”

“…However, such a definition does not capture the complexity of homelessness prevention policies and practices which already exist. In recent studies, consensus appears to be emerging around a three-level categorisation of homelessness prevention: primary, secondary and tertiary (Culhane et al, 2011;Montgomery et al, 2013;Parsell & Marston, 2012). Under this categorisation, primary prevention seeks to prevent new entrants into homelessness, with interventions often universally available such as poverty reduction or affordable housing development.…”

“…Like the definitional debates surrounding the term homelessness, many pages have been allocated to debates on the definition and conceptualisation of homelessness prevention (see Culhane et al, 2011;Montgomery et al, 2013;Parsell & Marston, 2012;Pawson & Davidson, 2008;Shinn, 2004;Shinn et al, 2001) and the aim here is not to recite these valid debates, instead it is to identify key discrepancies and any convergence around a single conceptualisation. Perhaps, the most straightforward definition of homelessness prevention would be 'any intervention which results in a person avoiding homelessness'.…”

“…However, Culhane et al (2011) argue that homelessness prevention has been pursued with vigour without pausing to systematically examine how the approach fits alongside existing systems. Moreover, academics have begun to think more critically about the prevention turn, questioning its implementation and identifying its deficiencies (Burt et al, 2007;Busch-Geertsema & Fitzpatrick, 2008;Culhane et al, 2011;Parsell & Marston, 2012).…”