‘We’re handing out freezies’: Climate-related professional challenge and changing social work practices in the homelessness sector

Abstract

Climate change’s disproportionate impact on people experiencing homelessness has a collateral effect on community-based organizations. Relying on the concept of ‘professional challenge’, this research is interested in: (1) the ways that social work professionals are challenged by new climate realities; (2) the tensions they navigate when their actual work differs from anticipated and prescribed work; and (3) the strategies they put in place to alleviate these tensions. We facilitated three focus groups with seventeen social work professionals from various community-based organizations working in homelessness in Quebec (Canada). A thematic and argumentative analysis shows that professionals rely on three strategies to overcome the ‘climate challenge’: the quantitative increase in services, the adaptation of practices, and the confrontation of obstacles. They illustrate how new climate realities widen the gap between anticipated/prescribed work and actual work and show that in the face of emergencies, actual work is conducted within a logic of adaptation, rather than in a transformative paradigm. Additionally, results show that the gap between anticipated/prescribed work and actual work generates teleological, ethical, and professional identity tension. To alleviate these tensions, professionals engage in emotional and discursive labor by constantly (re)negotiating guiding axiological, humanitarian, and ethical principles. Implications for practice are discussed.