Poverty and Homelessness During the Great Recession and Its Aftermath

Abstract

This chapter maps the multiple effects of the crisis in metropolitan areas of Southern Europe: rising urban poverty, unemployment, household over-indebtedness, the increase of children in poverty risk, deterioration of the living conditions of immigrants, and marginalisation of asylum seekers, which cumulatively exacerbate historically established patterns of poverty in Southern Europe. These effects reflect historical divisions between North and South, consequences of the housing crunch, and location in the contemporary circuits of capital and international migration. Our findings also point to a seemingly paradoxical fact: while invisible homelessness and poverty increase dramatically, there is only a moderate rise of visible homelessness. Explanations are to be sought in a complex array of solidarity practices, which, however, are often conditioned by particularistic interests and conservative norms of belonging.