Social innovation and local welfare: A comparative case study on housing first in Italy and Sweden

Abstract

Social innovation rises and grows within specific social and institutional conditions and relations, being at once an outcome and a driver of change of the contexts in which it is embedded. This paper sheds light on these processes, by studying the relationship between social innovation and local welfare configurations in the development of the same innovative practice, the Housing First model to contrast homelessness, in two different European cities: Bologna (Italy) and Stockholm (Sweden). The comparison allows us to highlight how the two local innovative practices, inspired by the same global model, have developed differently in these contexts and how they have adapted to the conditions posed by local welfare and housing configurations.