A Shelter by Any Other Name? Delivering Homeless Crisis Accommodation Services in a Hotel

Abstract

How to shelter people who are experiencing homelessness is a pressing social problem. A substantive literature critiques the congregate shelter model that is often coupled with paternalistic service delivery, bringing the relationship of service delivery and the built environment into focus. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a fast overhaul of the delivery of crisis accommodation, and saw homeless shelters replaced with commercial hotels. We conducted a 12-month ethnography in a hotel for people experiencing homelessness located in South-East Queensland, Australia. We critically analyze the implications of operating a homelessness shelter in a hotel for service delivery and residents’ experiences of living in this repurposed built environment. Our findings highlight how homeless support practices were both enabled and constrained by the built environment. We identify a tension between residents’ appreciation of single occupancy rooms as fostering dignity and privacy, and their continued experience of hotel accommodation as (yet) another shelter. We discuss policy implications of using hotels as crisis accommodation within the context of a housing crisis.