Housing Pathways Research Articles

LGBTQ+ housing vulnerability in Greece: intersectionality, coping strategies and, the role of solidarity networks

This article analyzes housing vulnerability and dispossession in Greece through a focus on LGBTQ+ gender identity and sexuality. Since families often reject non-heteronormative members, LGBTQ+ subjectivities are forced into housing dispossession, displacement, and precarious living conditions. Due to lack of institutional rights or support infrastructure and the existing discrimination in regard to access to housing, LGBTQ+ people turn to coping strategies, which primarily involve support through informal, mutual aid networks. This article is based on qualitative research in Athens that included 22 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with LGBTQ+ people and solidarity networks; it explores LGBTQ+ housing pathways and coping strategies by focusing on intersectional housing vulnerability. In so doing, it further re-addresses housing precarity through LGBTQ+ agency as a generative of different narratives and articulations of vulnerability vis-a-vis traditional family networks and state institutions.

Housing pathways of female-headed households in the informal settlements of Kampala: a qualitative study

The number of female-headed households migrating into cities is increasing. Female-headed households compete for limited housing options with other households with varying socio-economic capacities. As a result, women have to choose from several housing pathways, utilising available social capital that occasionally covers inadequate financial resources. This may sometimes lead to social conflict and exploitation by landlords and brokers. This article seeks to understand the influence of women’s social capital and networks on pathways that female-headed households pursue in Kampala city. Using a snowball sampling strategy, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and document analysis, the article explores female-headed households’ pathways for housing options. Participants (n = 40) in this study were identified from the Katwe informal settlement of Kampala city. Findings indicate that the strength of social ties generated through; family attachments, friends, and socio-economic involvement influences female-headed household pathways. To a lesser extent, the use of informal brokers also may influence housing pathways. The article calls for specific legislation and guidelines to regulate the informal brokerage practice and professionalise the client-broker relationship. For adequate urban housing planning to ensue, responsible authorities could incorporate into government policy the unique preferences of residential pathways and networks that bond female-headed households together.

Alternative housing priorities for low-income migrants in Jakarta, Indonesia

ABSTRACT This empirical study suggests an alternative housing priority for the housing pathways of low-income migrants. An economic perspective has been the dominant paradigm in determining urban housing trajectories and has been cemented as the pedestal of the housing provision programme. However, this study is conducted in the highest density sub-districts of each of Jakarta’s five municipalities with mixed research method, evinces that forced eviction is one of the pivotal determinants of the housing pathway of low-income households and spatial dispersal is embedded in webs of kinship. Having lost their livelihood assets through hazard or eviction, low-income migrants move to the city to recuperate their loses by living with or near other family members. Through collective efficacy, their place attachment solidifies and confines their housing pathway to a short distance from other family and kin members.

The Housing Pathways and Experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Youth as They Transition from out of Home Care in Victoria and Western Australia

The Housing Pathways and Experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Youth as They Transition from out of Home Care in Victoria and Western Australia

Moving house in migrant narratives: the morphology of housing pathways from an anthropological perspective

Focusing on migrants’ experiences of moving house in the country of settlement, the study explores the housing pathways of Russian-speaking migrants in Japan over their life courses. This paper emphasizes the need for the anthropology of migration to consider not only the housing events but also the housing pathways experienced by cross-border migrants in receiving countries. It is argued that the act of moving from one accommodation to another plays a crucial role in how migrants develop their biographies and perceptions of self. In addition to investigating house relocation, the study borrows from the Russian formalist school of narratology to examine how migrants narrativize their experiences in stories that intertwine housing pathways and movers’ identities. The study reveals how the instances of moving—and not necessarily the physical qualities of housing—emerge as dynamic forces that initiate migrants into their desired statuses.

Meeting the housing needs of military veterans: exploring collaboration and governance

Veterans in the UK seek help from numerous, diverse organisations to navigate the housing system, in contrast to countries such as the US and Australia, which operate dedicated Veterans Administrations. Collaboration between organisations to support veterans is non-mandatory, yet influential on housing outcomes. This study utilised network governance theory to examine how local partnerships affect veterans’ housing pathways. The research approach involved five in-depth, area-based case studies across different housing contexts. The research contributes new findings on the positive impact of local partnerships and develops a conceptual model of veterans’ housing pathways, focused on collaboration. The study revealed a step change in partnership-working since the introduction of the UK Armed Forces Covenant in 2011, with the absence of mandatory collaboration requirements having nurtured trust-based network governance. The findings suggest this has been effective for veterans in housing need, but there are potential risks in terms of sustainability of voluntary partnerships and the temptation for central government of more hierarchical approaches.

Deprivation-based squatting as a choice from necessity: The housing pathways of low-income squatters in public housing in Naples, Italy

In this study, I investigate a unique sheltering strategy employed by the urban poor to satisfy their housing-related needs – an individualistic squatting in public housing (Esposito & Chiodelli, 2021). People with low income and no connection (or partial) to social movements or housing activists frequently engage in this practice. Such occupations are among the forms the most recent literature has defined as ‘deprivation-based’ or ‘survival’ squatting, stressing housing precarity/desperation as the main driving force. To enrich the existing debate on the latter phenomenon and by exploring a deep ethnographic work in a public housing neighbourhood in Naples (Italy), I propose that individualistic squatting can be a routinised housing option among others. In some cases, squatting is not the last-resort strategy of the urban poor who choose to squat, aiming at materialising long-term solutions within a highly unstable housing context.

What Does International Research Identify as the Best Practice Housing Pathways for Young People Transitioning from Out of Home Care?

Young people transitioning from out-of-home care (often called care leavers) are globally a disadvantaged group who can be particularly vulnerable to experiences of housing instability and homelessness. This article presents a scoping review of international scholarly literature pertaining to housing pathways for care leavers from 2015–2020. The 15 publications identified were analysed according to location, methodology, sample accessed, key findings regarding housing pathways and outcomes, and recommendations for policy and practice reform. Our findings suggest that good transition planning, continuing support from responsible adults, the availability of safe and affordable housing and extended care till at least 21 years should enable more positive housing transitions.

The relationship between the sequential sharing of rental homes and the unpredictable housing pathways of kampung residents in Jakarta

Buying a home is becoming more difficult in urban areas across the globe, including in Indonesian cities. However, some rental housing remains relatively affordable. Although affordable rental apartments for low-income individuals are being built on many parts of the Indonesian archipelago, the housing supply cannot satisfy escalating demand. Many municipal governments limit tenancy duration to enable more low-income individuals to find housing. However, this policy encourages renters to share rooms. Qualitative content analysis shows that the tenancy durations of low-income renters are longer than the limit established by municipal governments, which indicates that volatile life-course events do not necessarily drive housing pathways. The heads of households conduct a Community Economy Collective in the form of rental home sharing with relatives in a series of rental tenancies in high-density kampung settlements. These findings help identify additional determinants of low-income residents’ unpredictable housing pathways, which implicate the duration of tenancy for their sequential home sharing in the city.

Navigating transition: post-disaster housing pathways of households

Navigating transition: post-disaster housing pathways of households

Finding home online? The Digitalization of share housing and the making of home through absence

ABSTRACT Economic pressures, demographic changes and digital technologies are reshaping housing pathways as rented, shared and digitalized. In Australia, a growing proportion of adults are renting in the private market, often in shared accommodation. We know little about shared housing because the shared rental sector remains largely “hidden”. Online shared housing platforms offer insights into how people seek homes in a market where personal attributes are marketed alongside properties and rent. We use over 9000 Flatmates.com.au listings to identify the demographic features of shared households and potential tenants, with a smaller subset used to illuminate the characteristics that are sought after and marketed by people searching for a shared home. Our analysis reveals that the “ideal flatmate” is one who contributes to social relations in the home while rarely being at home. These insights highlight the limits of shared housing markets for long-term tenure because ofconstraints on home-making practices.

Job and home dilemma: housing pathways of urban migrants in China

ABSTRACT China’s rapid industrialization and urbanization have been accompanied by massive internal population migration over the past decades. These immigrants experience various housing disadvantages along their migration journeys. Using longitudinal survey datasets from China Family Panel Studies, this paper identifies the housing pathways adopted by the Chinese urban migrants, including moving into homeownership, moving out of homeownership, and non-homeownership mobility. Job changes and institutional forces are the most significant mobility triggers, while family life cycle events are vital predictors of moving into homeownership. The dilemma of job-induced migration versus family-centred homeownership attainment has resulted in various social issues. This paper suggests that policies should be systematically designed for industry convergence from an overall urban planning perspective to promote township urbanization, including industrial relocation, rural economic revitalization, and institutional reforms of rural-urban disparities.

Two houses, one family, and the battlefield of home: A housing story of home unmaking in rural Punjab

This article investigates the lived experience of a family house as a battlefield between contrasting views, emotions, cultures and practices of home. It aims to make sense of the underlying tensions as a matter of home unmaking – a process of disruption of the normative, relational or physical bases of home – within the housing pathway of an extended family in semi-rural Punjab, India. Building on in-depth interviews with family members and on participant observation of their dwellings, we explore the causes and consequences of home unmaking from without (due to environmental factors) and from within (after deep-rooted intergenerational tensions). By looking at people’s ongoing relations with particular domestic spaces and objects within a traditional house(hold), we highlight the negotiation of gender and generational roles and the attendant family transformations. Home unmaking, as a process with multiple sources, temporalities, and entanglements, provokes a range of reactions and counter-reactions in such settings. We capture them, and propose a framework for their comparative analysis and understanding, by embedding people’s narratives in their family and housing circumstances. This is necessary to advance further, and beyond the scope of Western countries, research into the unmaking of home, both in and out of one’s dwelling.

Women on the Border between Home and Homelessness: Analysing Worker–Client Relationship

Housing First, as implemented in Finland, offers two housing options for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. In this context, permanent housing refers to a scattered‐site rental flat or a community‐based housing unit in accordance with the Housing First principle. The focus of our study was on worker–client relationship and its diverse meanings at different stages of women’s housing pathways. Our data consisted of narrative thematic interviews with nine women who lived in scattered housing and three workers of a housing unit. The narratives of the housing unit workers were related to a deep concern for the women who have the most limited choices and who do not always see the housing unit as home. The workers felt frustrated with the inconsistency of care pathways in substance abuse care, psychiatric hospital care as well as gerontological services. Women in scattered housing had received sufficient support at critical stages of their housing pathway from the public service system, which is an integral part of the Finnish Housing First model. In their cases, homelessness and problems with housing had been addressed as part of a holistic effort to improve the quality of their lives either through adult social work, child protection aftercare or psychosocial services. Getting sufficient support in a vulnerable situation in a trust‐based worker–client relationship was a unifying theme of this dataset of women. Our study also challenges the development of services from the perspective of women whose housing pathways are characterised by numerous losses and exclusions, and for whom many services remain out of reach.

‘When housing is provided, but you have only the closet’. Sexual orientation and family housing support in Athens, Greece

ABSTRACT This article explores the impact of sexual orientation on the housing practices of individuals self-identified as LGB+ in Athens, Greece. In Greece, welfare state was always inadequate to cover people’s social needs. On the contrary, the family proved to be resilient as a welfare agent covering also the housing needs of its members by employing related strategies. The support comes ‘with strings attached’, and this includes parents’ demands and wishes upon the lifestyle of the dependent children. These demands have strong gender and sexual connotations imposing a heteronormative life trajectory, which may clash with the desires of LGB+ family members. In order for them to continue receiving support they are ‘pushed’ to employ strategies regarding their ‘coming out’ or sexual identity’s concealment process. In this paper, 16 semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with a double focus: a. the housing pathway of the respondents, and b. the strategic decision of coming out or staying in the closet to benefit from the family welfare.

Homeownership out of reach? Intergenerational transfers and homeownership reproduction in middle class families in Rome, Italy

Access to homeownership for young adults is becoming more and more difficult. Italy – where homeownership rates for young adults are steadily decreasing – is a case in point. In the recent past, becoming homeowner was an obvious housing pathway for Italian young adults, even from lower-middle class families. If your parents were homeowner, you became homeowner as well, often with the help of intergenerational transfers. However, the Italian reproduction of homeownership is under severe pressure, as a result of the economic crisis and the subsequent austerity measures. Through in-depth interviews with young adults and their parents, this paper shows how deeply ingrained social expectations and aspirations surrounding homeownership – together with an objective lack of rental options – result in young adults staying longer in their parental home and becoming independent at a later age. This may have a negative impact on the social and economic dynamics within Italian society.

Housing transitions of Taiwanese young adults: intersections of the parental home and housing pathways

In the global context, studies have found that young adults are facing increasing difficulties in accessing homeownership and delaying home-leaving. While the Western literature on housing circumstances among younger generations indicates the importance of family support, in an East Asian context, the family is particularly intertwined with housing arrangements given the cultural heritage of filial piety. To elucidate the dynamics of housing transitions, this paper adopted a holistic approach and used sequence analysis to establish distinct housing pathways in a less studied social context, Taiwan. Drawing on data from the Panel Study of Family Dynamics, apart from providing empirical evidence on the emergence of the private rented path and a decline in homeownership associated with housing inequality, this paper explored the diverse housing pathways associated with the principal platform of family support, i.e. the parental home, and found that it may function as both a familisation instrument for young adults seeking independence and negotiating leverage sustaining the filial reciprocity.

How did the great transformation shape housing pathways? The case of older women living alone

After the demise of state-socialism in Poland, the ‘great transformation’ brought about the marketization of housing. From a housing consumption perspective, these changes opened new housing opportunities for some households, while creating new housing constraints for others. Applying Clapham’s housing pathways framework, we explore how the transformation, as well as its legacies, were experienced by fourteen older women living alone in Poznań, a big city in Poland. Through in-depth interviews with a carefully selected and relatively diverse sample, this paper attempts to present a nuanced view of the impact of the transformation on the women’s housing pathways over time. We identify four pathways related to changes in housing consumption: self-made homeowners, accidental homeowners, pushed in precarious private renting, and ‘saved’ by municipal senior housing. By examining these women’s pathways, we aim to make sense of their unique experiences while providing a benchmark for evaluating transformations of housing systems.

My home in later life: A phenomenographic study of older adults' experience of home

Home environments are especially important for older adults whose lives are more home-based than earlier life stages. Despite a focus on ageing in place, there often remains a mismatch between housing options prioritised by government and industry, and the needs and preferences of older adults. This paper considers the breadth of home environments experienced by diverse older Australians and highlights the varied ways they use and think about their homes. Data from three national online focus groups (n1 = 33, n2 = 37, n3 = 33) with people aged 50–92 were analysed using phenomenographic approaches to explore the different ways older adults perceived their home environments, resulting in four hierarchical conceptions. People displayed vastly different lifetime housing pathways (Clapham, 2005), leading to diverse perceptions about the place and experience of home in their later lives. In assessing the suitability of their housing, older people considered a large number of household members: current, expected or desired co-residents; transitory, short, medium and long-term residents; near and extended family, friends and dependents. This has important implications for policy and design responses on older adult's homes, which are typically focussed on occupancy by one or two individuals. To avoid assumptions about household makeup and usage based solely on the chronological age of residents, the perspective of older adults must be embraced in designing their future housing.

The housing experiences of immigrants in a 'new immigrant gateway': an exploration of process in an era of ‘super-diversity’

Driven by restructuring economies, decentralising cities and the growth of suburbs and rural regions as employment centres, as well as State policies dispersing immigrants seeking asylum to rural regions, ‘new immigrant gateways’ now conceptualise the new population centres and rural areas to which immigrants are migrating. Gateways differ from earlier sites because they are ethnically and socio-economically diverse, with no one group dominating, and because immigrants move directly to rural areas rather than ‘spring-boarding’ from urban centres. This paper examines the housing pathways of immigrants based on data collected through the conduct of in-depth qualitative interviews with a diverse sample of immigrants who migrated to a rural town on the Western periphery of Europe. Situated in one such ‘gateway’ in Ireland, this quasi-ethnographic study mobilises the metaphor of the housing pathway. The findings demonstrate the interplay of employment status, gender and ethnicity as participants moved through housing, and as relationships and family life were subject to change. Employment brought options and fluidity, unemployment created barriers and constraints, and relationship breakdown negatively affected housing stability. Thus, while immigration status influenced their housing options, it was one factor among a number of others that shaped their housing pathways.