Introduction

Homelessness has been a feature of the social landscape for centuries, but over the last 25 years in the industrialised countries of the West there has been a growing concern with the ‘new homelessness’. Rapid social and political change has seen the post-war settlement undermined through the end of full employment, the erosion of the welfare safety net, and the marketisation and residualisation of the welfare state. These changes have been accompanied by a dramatic rise in the number of households without adequate secure accommodation. More recently the countries of the former communist bloc have undergone fundamental political and economic transformations which have been accompanied by substantial levels of poverty and social deprivation. So it is in the context of widespread impoverishment that the phenomenon of homelessness has become a component of housing debates in Central and Eastern Europe (Esping-Andersen, 1996). Furthermore, the emergence of the new homelessness in Europe and the other industrialised countries needs to be seen in the context of the global shelter crisis discussed by Ray Forrest in Chapter Two.

It is against this backdrop that the new homelessness has often been connected with debates about other emerging social phenomena such as the ‘new urban poor’ (Room et al, 1989; Minigione, 1993; Silver, 1993), the ‘underclass’ (Morris, 1994) and ‘social exclusion’ (Lee et al, 1995; Lee, 1998; Pleace, 1998; Somerville, 1998). In popular discourse, homeless households are classified as members of an ‘underclass’ or as the archetypal ‘socially excluded group’. The complexity of the problems and the trajectory and coalescence of the social processes which result in households finding themselves homeless requires explanations with a clear focus on process. It is essential to move beyond broad labels such as ‘socially excluded’ and, indeed, ‘homeless’ to understand both the varied processes involved and the differentiated impact which these processes have on particular social groups.

The new homeless are a heterogeneous group. The increasing visibility of the young, those in retirement, and women among the homeless population is evidence of the inappropriateness of the stereotypical perception of the homeless as comprising mainly single white middle-aged males. An increasingly hostile and complex social and economic environment means that it is more difficult for households to secure adequate accommodation and to retain it, resulting in extended periods of homelessness for those who find themselves dispossessed.