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Socially excluding housing support to homeless substance misusers: two Swedish case studies of special category housing
Author(s) -
Blid Mats,
Gerdner Arne
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
international journal of social welfare
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.664
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1468-2397
pISSN - 1369-6866
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2397.2006.00385.x
Subject(s) - housing first , social exclusion , psychology , feeling , substance use , qualitative research , public housing , quality (philosophy) , supportive housing , addiction , quality of life (healthcare) , longitudinal data , social isolation , intervention (counseling) , social psychology , psychiatry , sociology , economic growth , mental health , demography , mental illness , economics , social science , philosophy , epistemology , psychotherapist
This article discusses special category housing for homeless addicts, based on case studies of two different housing programmes and using both qualitative and quantitative data. The staff and residents were interviewed about their experiences of the programmes. Longitudinal data were collected on various indicators of substance misuse and the frequency of contact with the social services at different levels. Our findings show that special category housing has positive direct effects on the housing stability of the residents and their feelings regarding their quality of life, but not on their substance misuse. However, the increased housing stability seems to be more a direct effect of their staying on the programme, rather than a long‐term effect. Furthermore, although their quality of life improves, the residents still experience a lack of belonging and feel that their lives lack meaningful content. The choice of special category housing as an intervention model thus seems to perpetuate rather than prevent social exclusion and can possibly be described as an expression of ‘institutionalised resignation’.