Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-7lfxl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-03-29T02:14:25.820Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conditionality and Homelessness Services; ‘Practice Realities’ in a Drop-in Centre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2011

Rachael Dobson
Rachael Dobson*
Affiliation:
School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds E-mail: r.dobson@leeds.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article provides insights into the client−practitioner interaction, as understood through the eyes of those working at the front-line in a Drop-in Centre for homeless clients. Through a case-study analysis of ‘official’ techniques and informal approaches, it is argued that conditional practices are present in contemporary support practices. However, the picture is fragmented, with practitioners arguing for, but also deviating from, conditional strategies that aspire to shape client behaviour. Choices about appropriate responses are occasionally permeated by ‘top−down’ policy messages that aim to responsibilise and generate change in clients. However there is evidence of ‘bottom−up’ drivers informed by experiences of working with clients at the grassroots. These ‘practice realities’ shift an analysis of conditional tactics from just a moralising and disciplining approach, and suggest a more complex set of events at the front-line. Insights add to ongoing commentary about an apparent policy emphasis on rectifying the behaviour of citizens at the sharp end. Conclusions highlight the role of complexity for understanding therapeutic and disciplining elements in policies and practices. Such debates are especially relevant where they connect to the care and control of individuals understood by practitioners as both transgressive and vulnerable.

Information

Type
Themed Section on Exploring Multiple Exclusion Homelessness
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , October 2011 , pp. 547 - 557
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006), ‘Using thematic analysis in psychology’, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3, 2, 77–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burney, E. (1999), Crime and Banishment: Nuisance and Exclusion in Social Housing, Winchester: Waterside Press.Google Scholar
Burney, E. (2005), Making People Behave: Anti-Social Behaviour, Politics and Policy, Cullompton, Devon: Willan Publishing.Google Scholar
Cloke, P., Johnsen, S. and May, J. (2005), ‘Exploring ethos? Discourses of “charity” in the provision of emergency services for homeless people’, Environment and Planning, 37, 3, 385–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawford, A. (2003), ‘“Contractual Governance” of deviant behaviour’, Journal of Law and Society, 10, 4, 449–79.Google Scholar
Crawford, A. (2009), ‘Governing Through Anti-Social Behaviour; Regulatory Challenges to Criminal Justice’, The British Journal of Criminology, 49, 6, 810–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deacon, A. (2002), Perspectives on Welfare: Ideas, Ideologies and Policy Debates, Buckingham: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Deacon, A. (2004), ‘Justifying conditionality: the case of anti-social tenants’, Housing Studies, 19, 6, 911–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobson, R. (2009), ‘“Insiderness”, “involvement” and emotions: impacts for methods, “knowledge” and social research’, People, Place and Policy Online, 3, 3, 183–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzpatrick, S. and Jones, A. (2005), ‘Pursuing social justice or social cohesion? Coercion in street homelessness policies in England’, Journal of Social Policy, 34, 3, 389–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flint, J. (2002), ‘Social housing agencies and the governance of anti-social behaviour’, Housing Studies, 17, 4, 619–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flint, J. (2004a), ‘Reconfiguring agency and responsibility in the governance of social housing in Scotland’, Urban Studies, 41, 1, 151–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flint, J. (2004b), ‘On the new front line: social housing and the management of “problematic” populations’, Housing Studies Association, Sheffield, AprilGoogle Scholar
Flint, J. (2004c), ‘The responsible tenant: housing governance and the politics of behaviour’, Housing Studies, 19, 6, 893–909.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flint, J. (2005), ‘Key issues in housing’, Local Government Studies, 31, 3, 373–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flint, J. (2006a), ‘Maintaining an arm's length? Housing, community governance and the management of “problematic” populations’, Housing Studies, 21, 2, 171–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flint, J. (2006b), ‘Housing and the new governance of conduct’, in Flint, J. (ed.), Housing, Urban Governance and Anti-Social Behaviour, Bristol: The Policy Press, pp. 19–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flint, J. (2009), ‘Subversive subjects and conditional, earned and denied citizenship’, in Barnes, M. and Prior, D. (eds.), Subversive Citizens: Power, Agency and Resistance in Public Services, Bristol: The Policy Press, pp. 83–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flint, J. and Nixon, J. (2006), ‘Governing neighbours: anti-social behaviour orders and new forms of regulating conduct in the UK’, Urban Studies, 43, 5, 939–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, M. (1995), Housing, ‘Race’, Social Policy and Empowerment, Aldershot: AveburyGoogle Scholar
Harrison, M. and Sanders, T. (2006), ‘Vulnerable people and the development of “regulatory therapy”‘, in Dearling, A., Newburn, T. and Somerville, P. (eds.), Supporting Safer Communities: Housing, Crime and Neighbourhoods, Coventry: Chartered Institute of Housing, pp. 155–68.Google Scholar
Johnsen, S., Cloke, P. and May, J. (2005), ‘Day centres for homeless people: spaces of care or fear?’, Social and Cultural Geography, 6, 6, 787–811.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnsen, S. and Fitzpatrick, S. (2010), ‘Revanchist sanitisation or coercive care? The use of enforcement to combat begging, street drinking and rough sleeping in England’, Urban Studies, 47, 8, 1703–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, G. and Chamberlain, C. (2008), ‘Homelessness and substance abuse: which comes first’, Australian Social Work, 61, 4, 342–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemp, P. A. and Neale, J. (2005), ‘Employability and problem drug users’, Critical Social Policy, 25, 1, 28–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pawson, R. (2003), ‘Nothing as practical as a good theory’, Evaluation, 9, 4, 471–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, D. (2006), ‘Parallel Lives? Challenging discourses of British Muslim self-segregation’, Environment and Planning D, Society and Space, 24, 1, 25–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prior, D. (2009), ‘Policy, power and the potential for counter-agency’, in Barnes, M. and Prior, D. (eds.), Subversive Citizens: Power, Agency and Resistance in Public Services, Bristol: The Policy Press, pp. 17–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prior, D., Farrow, K. and Paris, A. (2006), ‘Beyond ASBOs? Evaluating the outcomes of anti-social behaviour initiatives – early findings from a case study in one English city’, Local Government Studies, 32, 1, 3–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodger, J. (2006), ‘Antisocial families and withholding welfare support’, Critical Social Policy, 26, 1, 121–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, N. (1999), ‘Inventiveness in politics: an essay review of A. Giddens, “The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy”‘, Economy and Society, 28, 3, 467–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, N. (2000), ‘Government and control’, British Journal of Criminology, 40, 2, 321–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Squires, P. (2006), ‘New Labour and the politics of antisocial behaviour’, Critical Social Policy, 26, 1, 144–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Squires, P. and Stephen, D. E. (2005), ‘Rethinking ASBOs’, Critical Social Policy, 25, 4, 517–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, K. A. and Johnson, K. A. (2006), ‘Pathways in and out of substance use among homeless-emerging adults’, Journal of Adolescent Research, 21, 2, 133–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whiteford, M. (2010), ‘Hot tea, dry toast and the responsibilisation of homeless people’, Social Policy and Society, 9, 2, 193–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yanow, D. (2000) Conducting Interpretive Policy Analysis, London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar