From vagrancy to homelessness: The value of a welfare approach to homelessness

Abstract

For centuries, the debate about homelessness concentrated on the ways in which the issue of vagrancy could be dealt with as a criminal problem. In recent decades, this perspective faded out and alternative approaches to dealing with vagrancy were argued for and implemented. In this article, we discuss the emerging reconceptualisation of a repressive approach into a welfare approach to the issue of vagrancy - which is called homelessness later on - as a social problem, in which social work in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) has a mandate to intervene. By means of a historical analysis of discourses and practices concerning 'vagrancy', we show that (i) a welfare approach was already present before the formal decriminalisation of vagrancy; (ii) the conceptual shift from vagrancy as a criminal problem to homelessness as a poverty problem was accompanied by an emphasis on a psycho-social approach to homelessness; and (iii) social work practices intervening in social problems of homelessness are made increasingly conditional, which points to questions about the accessibility of social services for homeless people.