Introduction

‘Welfare conditionality’ broadly refers to the terms to which a person must adhere in order to participate in a welfare programme. More specifically, it is concerned with individuals both satisfying particular eligibility criteria, and simultaneously complying with any behavioural expections that may determine eligibility. One function of welfare conditionality is to enforce a social contract founded on the principle of reciprocity, to restrict access to state assistance and to influence behavioural change, consistent with collectively ascribed cultural values that conform to a social norm (Barrass and Shields, 2013; Johnsen et al, 2018).

This chapter examines the ways in which welfare conditionality impacts upon homeless migrants in the UK. Legal status, eligibility requirements and behavioural controls determine access to benefits, housing and state assistance, which compounds the precarity of homeless migrants, who are situated at the interstices of multiple (and competing) systems. The chapter not only looks at the ways in which specific conditions constrain the choices of homeless migrants, but also considers how efforts at behavioural change are resisted.

Using data from a small-scale, exploratory study that examines the accounts of Polish rough sleepers in Scotland, this chapter asks:

• • To what extent is non-participation in a welfare programme a consequence of passivity or a feature of active choice?

• • Specifically, in what ways do those facing extreme precarity and constrained choice resist welfare conditionality?

This study argues that for some rough sleepers, homelessness can be a form of resistance to eligibility and behavioural conditions attached to welfare, and sleeping rough can be an act of dissent to forms of state control (see Watts et al (2018) for a useful discussion of the legitimacy of homeless interventions).

Using new data generated from interviews with Polish rough sleepers and key informants in Scotland, this chapter argues that although benefit ineligibility contributes to homelessness among Eastern Europeans in Britain, disengagement from welfare systems is not wholly explained by a lack of entitlement to assistance or inadequate information regarding welfare rights. For some rough sleepers, ‘disengagement’ is active non-participation and reflective of a ‘beat the system’ attitude (Czerniejewska and Goździak, 2014).