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In order to create effective responses that acknowledge the diversity of homelessness and its contributing factors, it is beneficial to look at extreme cases. Indigenous peoples continually rank near the bottom of nearly every US social, health, and economic indicator (Alba et al. 2003). Furthermore, data consistently indicate that Indigenous peoples remain overrepresented among the homeless population in the US. This thesis aims to explain the experiences of homelessness amongst Indigenous peoples in the US and the impact that current emergency accommodation options have on their ability to live a well-lived life. It uses Martha Nussbaum's (2011) Capability Approach - encompassing ten "essential" capabilities required to live a well-lived life - to inform the analysis of the empirical case study data presented. The thesis begins by investigating the extent to which US colonialism and historical housing and homelessness policies account for the disproportionate risk of homelessness experienced by Indigenous peoples. It moves on to examine the extent to which the currently available forms of emergency accommodation impact on the capabilities of Indigenous peoples, as understood through the lens of Nussbaum's framework. Finally, Nussbaum's capabilities are further drawn on while seeking to explain the role played by the characteristics of emergency accommodation in accounting for the decision of some Indigenous peoples in the US to sleep rough. This thesis uses a case study approach with the city of Seattle as its focus, which has the third-largest homeless population in the US, and a highly disproportionate number of Indigenous peoples affected. The fieldwork undertook a total of 14 interviews with key stakeholders and 30 interviews with Indigenous peoples experiencing homelessness in Seattle, as well as a review of local statistics and research reports. This thesis argues that centuries of colonialism, racially segregated housing, housing discrimination, and forced relocation affected Indigenous peoples' ability to accumulate generational wealth and secure housing. Other findings suggest Indigenous peoples experiencing homelessness often prioritise control over their safety and health while also giving importance to cultural identity in navigating emergency accommodation options. The environmental conditions of emergency shelters required Indigenous peoples to compromise and prioritise between capabilities and often, as a result, influenced their decision to sleep rough. Emergency shelter options in Seattle do not support physical recovery, provide safety, or support the facilitation of connecting to other necessary immediate and long-term resources and housing programmes. The thesis also argues that Nussbaum's Capability Approach should be modified by changing the definitions of specific capabilities to accommodate Indigenous peoples' experiences of homelessness.

Begging has been a feature of towns and cities across the globe for millennia and yet has been the explicit focus of surprisingly little scholarship. Limited understanding regarding the reasons people beg and the impact that begging has on them has impeded the development of effective policy responses. This study set out to add to the evidence base regarding the causes, conduct, and consequences of begging. It has done this by, firstly, moving beyond a focus on immediate triggers to explore factors over the life course that contribute to begging behaviour. Secondly, the techniques and strategies adopted by individuals when begging, and factors influencing these, were critically examined. Finally, the research considered the consequences of engaging in begging for the individuals who engage in it, specifically in terms of how begging enhances or diminishes their capabilities. Employing a qualitative design that used semi-structured interviews as the data collection method, this research analysed the insights of 26 professional stakeholders and 22 people with experience of begging across two case study sites in England, Leeds and Lincoln. Drawing from critical realism as a metatheoretical framework to guide the research process, the study was primarily framed using the capabilities approach and enhanced by theoretical contributions from scholarship on stigma. These theories highlight how the opportunities that people have and the choices that they make in life are influenced by their experiences and the context in which they are located. The findings demonstrated how routes into begging lie in the clustered experiences of compound disadvantage that can often extend back to childhood. Certain disadvantages had a particularly corrosive effect on the capability sets of some individuals, such as a history of insecure housing, experiences of trauma, and problematic substance use. At the point when begging was first engaged in, individuals were typically experiencing financial pressures from their problematic substance use but significantly had a highly constrained capability set which limited the opportunities available to meet their proximate needs. Begging was therefore an activity engaged in by people because it was viewed as the least worst option to meet these needs given the lack of viable alternatives. My analysis found that the reasons to continue begging were at times different from the motives first driving the decision to beg. Different people experienced unanticipated outcomes of begging such as having a daily routine or self-reliance which made begging difficult to desist from. I devised a new tripartite typology of begging conduct (survivalist, occupationalist, and opportunist) to conceptualise different patterns that were influenced by different primary motivations and had different temporal and spatial characteristics. The patterns were also affected by the balance between the risk of negative outcomes (e.g. abuse) and positive elements (e.g. maximising income). In addition, performative elements were found in begging conduct with people using different props or verbal techniques to engage with passers-by and elicit donations. This study considered the consequences of begging concerning the six different capabilities that were found to be impacted most, including: planning for the future; valued social interactions and relationships; physical security; access to public and private space; good physical health; and good mental health. Notably, the consequences of begging were often extremely negative across all the capabilities that were analysed, with physical health, mental health, and physical security amongst the areas most detrimentally affected. Where positive experiences did emerge through certain interactions or reducing isolation, they were fleeting and had no lasting or significant impact on capabilities. Moreover, in many instances, these outcomes fostered the continuation of begging which produced feedback loops whereby begging further degenerated individuals' existing and already highly constrained capabilities. These findings have several implications for policy and practice, especially as regards prevention through early intervention and identifying people at-risk of begging; addressing the needs of people who beg to remove the need to begging; and influencing public perception through less stigmatising communications campaigns.

Supported accommodation, and congregate hostels in particular, remains the default form of provision for most young people experiencing homelessness, despite increasing evidence of its negative effects on residents. Existing evidence also suggests that such environments negatively impact hostel staff and thereby reduce their ability to provide effective support. The role of a keyworker in supported accommodation is to support and manage residents' behaviour. Because this behaviour is not always predictable and keyworkers operate independently, judgements cannot be universally applied and keyworkers must employ discretion in their decision making and response. However, there is a dearth of literature regarding the impact of this discretion on the keyworker role and the formation and implementation of organisational policy. This thesis aims to examine the influences on keyworkers' discretionary decision making and map the ways in which they respond to service users. It also explores how residents respond to this use of discretion, and the factors that influence their response. Rich qualitative data collected through participant observation, interviews, and focus groups conducted in three supported accommodation services within Scotland are used to examine the role of keyworker discretionary decision making in their responses to young residents. Drawing upon street-level bureaucracy, social control, and judgement and decision-making theory, this thesis develops an innovative conceptual framework through which to map out and deepen understanding of the keyworker-resident response dynamic. In doing so, it finds an irreconcilable tension within the keyworker role between: firstly, rule enforcer and, secondly, resident confidant. It argues that in conjunction with the high levels of discretionary decision making keyworkers hold, this constitutes an inherent and harmful impact of hostel accommodation for both residents and keyworkers. The thesis concludes by arguing against the continued use of the dominant congregate model of supported accommodation, while making recommendations that might mitigate the negative impact of discretionary decision making within these settings given the likely continued use of this form of provision.

The social problem of homelessness evokes strong ethical responses but the role of values in this area has been relatively underexplored. This thesis responds to calls for more normatively engaged work in homelessness and housing studies by using concepts from distributive justice to explore the different entitlements of three sub-groups of homeless households (families with children, young people, and single people) under contemporary homelessness policy in England, Scotland and Wales. This work aims to improve conceptual clarity regarding normative principles relevant to homelessness policy, generate empirical evidence of how these principles apply to and interact within contemporary policy, and develop an evaluative framework through which normative elements of homelessness policy can be critically assessed. Underpinned by the critical realist position that 'invisible' social phenomena such as normative perspectives can have a causal impact on empirically identifiable social realities, the thesis draws upon scholarship from within moral and political philosophy to identify normative grounds for affording different levels of support or entitlements to different types of homeless household. Six principles in particular emerge as relevant to different positions in homelessness policy: need, desert, vulnerability, utility, rights, and equality. The relationship between these principles and contemporary homelessness policy in England, Scotland and Wales is explored through primary empirical work, including analysis of key policy documents and in-depth interviews with thirty-eight key informants. This evidence shows how these plural values are balanced differently across the three nations, with an emphasis on responding to acute need in England, a rights-based approach in Scotland, and a distinct split between these 'selective' and 'universal' positions in Wales. The combination of national homelessness systems and UK-wide welfare policy produces three distinct household groups: families with children, whose vulnerability and 'blamelessness' underpins strong protections; young people, conceptualised as vulnerable but offered only 'patchy' support; and single adults, historically deprioritised but gaining increasing policy attention motivated by principles of equality and concern about acute need. The thesis develops three tools for evaluating the defensibility of these relationships in normative terms: assessments of internal consistency, theoretical coherence, and reasonableness in the context of pluralism. Viewing homelessness policy through these different lenses demonstrates how a normative perspective can uncover sites of conflict, reveal policy areas ripe for change, and indicate directions of travel that could resolve tensions between principles and practice. In particular, the thesis highlights a shifting and perhaps diminishing role for the principle of desert in relation to homelessness and incremental moves towards 'universalist' policy in this area. The work contributes to a growing body of scholarship applying normative ideas to homelessness. It offers novel strategies for understanding and engaging with normative issues in homelessness policy and demonstrates how this kind of normative work can aid in mapping the policy landscape, offering conceptual clarity that supports identification of themes and distinctions between positions. This forms a strong position from which to evaluate different policy approaches, comparing them against criteria such as established moral positions or consistency with the policy's stated aims, and enables practitioners and policymakers to take account of the moral and social context when determining future directions.

The overlap of issues experienced by those at the sharp end of society in conjunction with the absence of a comprehensive framework for meeting the needs of these severely disadvantaged individuals is evident in existing literature. Sporadic and uncoordinated encounters, premature disengagement, and difficult interactions between service users and support staff are commonly reported by support service providers. Childhood adversity, mental health difficulties, substance misuse and other experiences of social exclusion are prevalent within the homeless population and affect their relationship with support. This study argues that a focus on attachment can produce valuable insights into why and how people with experience of Multiple Exclusion Homelessness (MEH) relate to services in ways that can often be challenging for staff. The study set out to examine the attachment styles and relating patterns of individuals with experience of MEH when engaging with support services. It further aimed to look into staff members' emotional and cognitive responses to people with complex needs and insecure attachments. A total of 30 participants who had experience MEH were interviewed and four focus groups involving a total of 19 front-line staff members were conducted. Service users' attachment styles, the degree of insecurity, the quality of the support context and the ability to access support in times of need were assessed through a standardised interview (Attachment Style Interview). Follow-up interviews and questionnaires looked at the relationship with support services and adversity in early and later life. Finally, a vignette technique was applied to focus attention on four highly insecure attachment styles that staff members come across in their daily work. Results showed that the dual/disorganised attachment style was the most prevalent (n=22), and the support context and quality of close relationships was found to be particularly poor amongst participants with experience of MEH. Further analysis revealed that attachment processes limited the capacity for healthy functioning, whilst also being an important influence upon interactions between staff and service users. These findings highlight the potential utility of an attachment-based approach in homeless services, and indicate that understating service users' attachment styles allows for prediction of and more effective responses to likely patterns of interaction in these settings.

Faith based organisations (FBOs) have made long-standing contributions to services for homeless people. This research sought to understand how FBOs working within the Scottish homelessness sector operationalised their faith and explore whether that had an impact on the relationships they formed with other agencies and ways in which users experienced services. Three main qualitative methods were used. Firstly, literature reviews were conducted to create a robust theoretical framework. Secondly, organisational profiles were created by extrapolating data from 'grey literature' to identify how organisations operationalised faith (or not). Thirdly, the main empirical research was conducted through key informant interviews and detailed qualitative case studies of three organisations, of which one was overtly faith-based, one had previously strong, but now less obvious, connections to faith, and one was not faith-based. The concept of 'faithness' was introduced and used as the main analytical lens to investigate how faith was operationalised (if at all) in organisational characteristics. An assessment of organisational 'faithness' revealed the full extent to which faith (and secular) influences were present in individual organisations (faith and non-faith based) as well as allowing comparisons between them. By identifying the presence (and absence) of faith in organisational characteristics, the study eliminated the need to reinvent a complex organisational typology found within other research on this subject. In a more general sense, the study found that stakeholders were unconcerned about the presence of FBOs in the sector where those organisations did not emphasise their faith or place religious conditions on service users, but were cautious about those perceived as evangelistic. Service users understood that religious beliefs underpinned the values of some organisations and staff and were accepting of (voluntary) religious observances where these were present, but organisational faith affiliation did not make a difference to their experiences (even where staff hoped it might).

Homelessness, particularly amongst single people, has become highly topical in major cities in Kazakhstan in recent years, but no national strategies or programmes have been developed to address the issue. However, the Kazakh Government has increasingly been emphasising access to employment as the key means of resolving these growing problems of urban homelessness. At the same time, the concept of ‘social enterprise’ has been promoted in a ‘bottom up’ fashion by not-for-profit organisations as a potentially viable means of responding to homelessness in Kazakhstan. Perhaps surprisingly, debates regarding the potential utility of promoting employment and/or social enterprise as solutions to homelessness have occurred in a parallel, and relatively unconnected, fashion. In a very different context, the UK is internationally recognised as having an especially well developed social enterprise support structure wherein successive Governments have advocated the use of social enterprise as a tool for transforming disadvantaged people’s lives, including that of homeless people. This thesis, therefore, seeks to identify potential lessons for Kazakhstan from the UK where there is substantial experience in the use of employment-based social enterprises to address issues of homelessness. 'Empowerment' is often said to be the aim of social enterprises seeking to improve the lives of homeless people and other disadvantaged people. This thesis argues that Amartya Sen's influential ‘capability’ approach - which focuses on a person's 'substantive freedom' to achieve 'valuable functionings' in key domains of their lives - provides an appropriate means of concretising and operationalising the concept of empowerment in this context. A qualitative methodology was employed in the study, and interviews were conducted with 22 key informant stakeholders from social enterprises across the UK, and detailed case studies undertaken of four social enterprises operating within the UK homelessness sector (11 service providers and 23 (ex-) homeless service users were interviewed in site visits to these four social enterprises). The key messages to emerge from this study for Kazakhstan are as follows. First, employment-focused social enterprises can facilitate the empowerment of homeless people in a number of important respects, but a multi-dimensional approach is required to enhance their capabilities in four (independently important) domains, namely: bodily empowerment; political and economic empowerment; social and emotional empowerment; and creative and intellectual empowerment. Second, the critical ingredient in effective empowerment using employment-focused models is the creation of a supportive working environment for homeless people with complex needs: such a supportive environment is far more readily found in social enterprises with a predominantly ‘social’ rather than ‘business’ orientation. Third, and contrary to political expectations and the assertions of some proponents of the social enterprise model, homeless people appeared to derive no additional ‘empowerment’ or other benefit from the employment projects in which they participated being social enterprises rather than traditional charities; in fact, the positive impacts identified were strongly associated with those social enterprises with a 'social' emphasis that closely resembles the traditional ethos of charitable organisations.