8 Simon Communities of Ireland SECTION 2 Literature Review 2.1 A definition of homelessness The 1988 Housing Act defines a homeless person as somebody who has no reasonable accommodation to live in or lives in a hospital, institution or night shelter and cannot provide accommodation from their own resources because of a lack of home. This definition, while widely used, is not without its critics particularly in the voluntary sector who believe it is too narrowly focused, developed as a response to the need ‘to be able to draw clear boundaries and make distinctions around who is entitled to what share of state-provided goods and services, rather than recognising the realities and complex needs of people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness’ (Harvey, In Downey (eds.) 2008: p59). The European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA) define homelessness as ’the absence of a personal, permanent, adequate dwelling. They identify people who are homeless as being ‘unable to access a personal, permanent, adequate dwelling or to maintain such a dwelling due to financial constraints and other social barriers and those people who are unable to access and maintain such a dwelling because they are unable to lead a fully independent life and need care and support but not institutionalisation’. FEANTSA has developed the ETHOS typology of homelessness and housing exclusion based on the conceptual understanding that there are three domains which constitute a “home”, the absence of which can be taken to delineate homelessness. Having a home is defined within the typology as having an adequate dwelling (or space) over which a person and his/her family can exercise exclusive possession (physical domain); being able to maintain privacy and enjoy relations (social domain) and having a legal title to occupation (legal domain). See Table 2.1 for details of this typology. The typology classifies people who are homeless according to their living situation: • rooflessness (without a shelter of any kind, sleeping rough) • houselessness (with a place to sleep but temporary, in institutions or shelter) • living in insecure housing (threatened with severe exclusion due to insecure tenancies, eviction, domestic violence) • living in inadequate housing (in caravans on illegal campsites, in unfit housing, in extreme overcrowding).
Homelessness, Ageing and Dying
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