When political values and perceptions of deservingness collide: Evaluating public support for homelessness investments in Canada

Citizen attitudes toward welfare state investments are often explained by their ideological values and their perceptions of deservingness of welfare recipients, yet recent experimental research has led to the theorization that clear deservingness cues can overwhelm otherwise strong ideological beliefs. We tested these claims with respect to homelessness in Canada using a vignette survey experiment and found evidence that citizens with very different political beliefs can support similar government investments, indeed from a shared sense of deservingness as suggested by recent experimental studies, but that support is anchored by rather different reasons. Key Practitioner Message: ? Citizen support for homelessness investments is jointly mediated by ideology and a sense of the “deservingness” of the beneficiary. ? Emphasizing the broader cost savings to taxpayers from “Housing First” does not make conservative‐leaning citizens more supportive of investments. ? Emphasizing the personal attributes of persons experiencing homelessness rather than abstract statistics may unite progressives and conservatives on “deservingness”.     

Built community: architecture,community, and participation in a permanent supportive housing project

Housing and the social processes that create it are an important part of a better world. The permanent supportive housing movement holds that housing, in addition to a variety of human services, is the most dignified and effective way to help people without homes. But the design of such initiatives matters. This community-based, qualitative research project investigates the connection between space, participation, and community. It draws on the experiences of residents of an innovative housing organization on Skid Row in Los Angeles, California. Residents of the program find community space to be both promising and contested. Their experiences also reveal the way that institutional space can be trauma-informed and impact their overall wellbeing and opportunities for interacting with others. However, their feelings of being a part of the community and their involvement in activities are not always connected, as identity and social context can cause residents to identify or dis-identify with their community despite how involved or uninvolved they are. Intentionally designed community spaces in permanent supportive housing units can respond to trauma and set the stage for interaction, but they cannot solve all problems.     

Changes in the health status of newly housed chronically homeless: the Alaska Housing First program evaluation

The Housing First (HF) model is an evidence-based supportive housing initiative that provides permanent housing for the homeless without preconditions such as sobriety or treatment compliance. This three-year longitudinal study investigated the effects of Alaska's inaugural Housing First projects in Anchorage and Fairbanks on local service usage, costs and tenant quality of life (QoL). A total of 94 tenants participated at baseline in the QoL study and 68 continued to follow-up. Cost data was collected from local municipalities, Alaska Department of Corrections, and local hospitals, health care clinics, behavioral health providers, and detox facilities. Emergency services use by tenants decreased from the year before moving into Housing First to the year after. Changes in health care costs were more variable depending on site and type of service.     

Towards Critical Intersections of Ageing,Housing and Well-Being

ABSTRACT

Across the life course, far-reaching socio-demographic and health related transformations are influencing the meaning of home in the UK. The collection presented in this Special Issue of Home Futures critically interjects into the ‘where and when’ of dwelling during the process of ageing with key concepts explored within this introductory article. It argues that, change is seen through the disruption of conventional ideas of ageing ‘at home’, traditional understandings of ‘the older person’ and its corollary social imaginaries, alongside the relationship between care practices and homes. Many of these shifts are being addressed through a range of emerging housing (and collaborative) alternatives. The article concludes by considering how discussions in this special issue disclose the home, from a range of social and material angles, as a diverse process and experience of meaning making over time, deeply entangled with health and well-being, disrupting traditional understandings of ‘place making’ in later life.     

Conditionality in the context of housing-led homelessness policy: Comparing Australia’s Housing First agenda to Scotland’s “rights-based” approach

Homelessness services and policy have historically tended to be organised by an explicitly conditional logic, wherein people experiencing homelessness must prove their “housing readiness” before accessing settled housing. This model has been robustly challenged in recent decades by “housing-led” approaches that ostensibly eschew conditionality and prioritise the rapid rehousing of people experiencing homelessness. Various countries now include housing-led approaches in the national policy frameworks, including Australia, which overhauled its approach to homelessness in 2008, and Scotland, where a housing-led approach is supported by a legal right to housing for homeless households. Notwithstanding this policy shift, conditionality remains an enduring feature of responses to homelessness in both jurisdictions. This paper sheds light on this phenomenon by comparing the Australian experience with that of Scotland. We demonstrate how conditionality remains a feature of both jurisdictions; however, there is greater effort in Scotland to identify and minimise conditionality, whereas in Australia it is able to persist relatively unchallenged. We conclude with some reflections on what Australia can learn from Scotland’s relative success, highlighting the importance of a national-level policy framework and an adequate affordable housing supply.     

商品房空置的现状、成因及解决对策

商品房的大量空置严重地阻碍了我国房地产业的健康发展.本文阐述了商品房空置的现状及其三个显著特点,分析了形成空置的原因在于开发企业的投资经营决策不科学,政府的宏观调控力度不够,金融机构的住房消费信贷政策不到位,住房二级市场不完善等,并且从政府、企业、银行的角度提出了消化空置商品房,推动房地产业良性发展的具体措施.     

房改攻坚:住房保障制度的构建

在住房资源配置效率已从制度上得以基本保证之后,加快构建住房社会保障制度以解决住房领域中的公平问题,成为下一轮房改攻坚的主要内容.为此,有必要从理论上对构建我国住房保障制度的基本思路及相关的政策措施加以认真研究.     

Sheltered Housing and Community

This paper considers the role of sheltered housing following the introduction of new community care arrangements in 1993 and examines the continuing uncertainty about its exact role as community care continues to develop. It reports on a study conducted in Shropshire, using a postal survey and interviews with older people and service professionals. The study highlights the importance of sheltered housing for older people, particularly in relieving them of concerns about maintenance and repairs, social isolation and security. These factors were crucial for their overall peace of mind and quality of life. While only a small proportion of tenants received help under social services' community care arrangements, the additional support, monitoring and service coordination provided by wardens helped some of them to remain in sheltered housing when residential or nursing home care might otherwise have been necessary. Sheltered housing was overwhelmingly popular with older people — but their satisfaction was closely associated with the availability and quality of the warden service. Although sheltered housing is not currently in vogue in housing policy, the paper argues that it plays a vital role in local provision for older people and needs to be more closely integrated into community care policy, while at the same time preserving the characteristics that make it popular with its residents.     

我国住房抵押贷款二级市场的构建

住房贷款抵押一级市场是抵押贷款活动的创造过程,二级市场是指销售抵押和转售抵押.二级市场可以为一级市场提供稳定长期的资金来源.缺少二级市场的住房贷款抵押市场永远是不完整的市场.我国目前基本具备了建立住房贷款抵押二级市场的可行条件,要建立的住房抵押贷款二级市场有三种方式可以选择.     

政府与市民关系的社会工作介入——一个香港社区工作案例的后现代主义观察

香港特别行政区成熟的社会政策及社区工作经验,对中国内地处理城市发展中各种问题具有重要的借鉴价值。本文以香港一项新的房屋政策出台后相关群体的利益受损问题为背景,描述了香港社区工作者在帮助政府解决利益受损群体过程中的积极做法,并从后现代主义的视角对这个过程做了解释,希望给内地社会工作者在协助政府解决城市改造中的问题提供某种启迪。