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    Complex needs in homelessness practice; a review of 'new markets of vulnerability'

    Dobson, Rachael (2022) Complex needs in homelessness practice; a review of 'new markets of vulnerability'. Housing Studies 37 (7), pp. 1147-1173. ISSN 0267-3037.

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    Abstract

    This article reviews institutional responses to adult homeless people, to argue that there is a contemporary flourishing of debates about complex needs across homelessness research and practice fields. These understand housing need as a mental and physical health issue and a care and support need, with foundations in biographical and societal events, issues and experiences, including trauma. Responses to complex needs are conceptualised as enterprising in scope; articulated as fresh, proactive, preventative and positive. The article suggests that there are a range of legislative, policy and funding drivers for these developments, from across homelessness, housing support and adult social care fields, which are distinctive to the English context. At the same time, debates about what complex needs are, and how best to respond to them, are evident in international debates about service delivery models with homeless service users in the Global Western North. ‘Complex needs’ is defined as a travelling concept, with affective qualities, which provides foundation for practice interventions, techniques and principles in different locations. The article conceptualises institutional machinations around the governance of complex needs as ‘new markets of vulnerability’. This term theorises new markets and new marketising strategies around complex needs in the context of a much larger reconfiguring of the mixed economies of welfare around markets and market mimicking devices and practices. It is argued that the intensification of activities around complex needs give insight into processes of neoliberalisation in contemporary modernized welfare ‘mixes’.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis, available online at the link above.
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): housing support, social care, interventions, markets, governance, affect
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Depositing User: Rachael Dobson
    Date Deposited: 04 Feb 2019 15:55
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:48
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/26098

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    • Complex needs in homelessness practice; a review of 'new markets of vulnerability'. (deposited 04 Feb 2019 15:55) [Currently Displayed]

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