Social and Demographic Change and Homelessness - Autumn 2007

In this Issue

Editorial
Page: 2

Homelessness in Sweden - multiple faces, multiple responsibilities
Page: 3
By: Jönsson, Ann; Remaeus, Annika; Boustedt Hedvall, Maria; Bohman, Christina

Description:
In June, the National Board of Health and Welfare presented a plan on behalf of the government for how the work to combat homelessness is to be conducted in the next three years. Collaboration between different stakeholders and viewing homelessness in a broader perspective are essential components of this plan.

Migration and Homelessness in Cork, Ireland: The impact of European Union labour Mobility
Page: 5
By: Sheehan, Paul

Description:
A new landmark building in Cork opened its doors for the first time in early September 2007. The Cork Institute of Technology School of Music, a €60 million development, reflects a city that continues to grow in confidence and stature. In their winning submission in 2001 to build the project, architects Murray O’Laoire described Cork as “a city of light, water and landform, fusing with mellifluous cadences of language and musical accent.” While at the time that description of the city might have seemed somewhat grandiose, in the intervening years, life may just have imitated art. Light and landform have been combined to great effect, to the extent that the city now boasts impressive new streetscapes that have a continental feel; old dockland and warehousing districts have been transformed into modern highrise hotel and office blocks; new apartment blocks have sprung up across the city. A stroll through Cork’s main thoroughfare serves up a multicultural feast for the ears: scores of accents and languages blend naturally with the rhythms of a diverse mix of street entertainers and musicians, a by-product perhaps of the city’s status as European Capital of Culture in 2005.

Migration and homelessness in Paris
Page: 8
By: Horréard, Jean-Philippe

Description:
Since last winter’s Saint Martin Canal crisis which saw a near-300 tent city set up in Paris to give shelter to homeless and under- housed groups, France has brought in a line-up of legal instruments establishing a right to housing or temporary accommodation enforceable against the State.Of the 300 people identified as being in crisis, however, more than 50 were undocumented immigrants and therefore had neither any claim to the new scheme nor any prospects of integration in France.

Demography and housing deprivation
Page: 11
By: Avramov, Dragana

Description:
There are no cause-effect-interactions between demographic trends, population structures and demographic behaviour on the one hand and homelessness on the other hand. At the turn of the 21st century in Europe there is no causal relationship between population dynamics and trends in poverty and social exclusion. There is however, the interweaving of demographic with social phenomena and challenges in the field of social protection are deeply rooted in demographic dynamics, particularly population ageing and family formation and dissolution.

Older homeless people in the United Kingdom: continuities and changes
Page: 13
By: Crane, M.; Warnes, A. M.

Description:
Older homeless people are a substantial minority of single homeless people in many western countries. Although there are reports of rising numbers from several cities in Canada and the United States, there are no reliable figures of the number of older homeless people in the United Kingdom (UK), nor about the temporal trend. It is possible, however, to describe some of the ways in which social and demographic changes over the last three decades have altered the profiles and circumstances of contemporary older homeless people in the UK, including the effects of changed accommodation services. The paper draws on evidence from several studies of older homeless people since the early 1990s and from official reports.

Child homelessness as a European social reality: Time to face the facts
Page: 16
By: Gosme, Liz

Description:
Homeless children in a prosperous European Union? We have to face the facts: rough sleeping is only the tip of the homelessness iceberg, and below there are not only adults but many children also experiencing hidden forms of homelesness and housing exclusion rather than living in safe childhood homes giving them a good start in life. A stocktaking of children experiencing homelessness in Europe conducted by FEANTSA highlights some of the current trends

Homelessness and social transformation in Russia
Page: 19
By: Stephenson, Svetlana

Description:
Since the start of market reforms in the early 1990s, the figure of a street homeless person has become an almost omnipresent sight in Russian urban areas. Homelessness did exist in the Soviet Union, but it was more or less hidden from public view. Vagrancy, begging and ‘parasitic way of life’ – all three often being signifiers for homelessness – were subject to criminal punishment. From the beginning of the 1990s, persecution of beggars, vagrants and ‘parasites’ stopped. At first, many homeless people on the streets could be said to be the product of this ‘uncovering’ of the suppressed Soviet social problem. The large part of the ‘old’ homeless were ex-prisoners, who had been the victims of anti-homelessness criminal legislation or other ex-convicts, who had been deprived of their public housing while in prison and were not allowed to settle in many areas on release.Other vulnerable people, who lost housing through a variety of personal risks – disabled individuals, women escaping from domestic abuse or unemployable alcoholics – were now ‘free’ to roam the streets.

Publication Date: 
2007
Volume: 
2007
Issue: 
20/12/2007
Location: 
Brussels, Belgium, Europe