Presentation given by Guillem Fernàndez, Associacio ProHabitatge and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain at a FEANTSA Research Conference on "Homelessness and Poverty", Paris, France, 2009

1. POVERTY, HOMELESSNESS
AND FREEDOM
“The residential well-being space for immigration. An approach from
the standpoint of capabilities”
Homelessness and Poverty in Europe
- International and European Perspectives -
Paris Friday 18 September 2009
Guillem Fernàndez Evangelista
Associació ProHabitatge – Autonomous University of Barcelona

2. PRESENTATION OVERVIEW
 FOCUS ON CAPABILITIES WHEN ANALYSING POVERTY AND
HOMELESSNESS
 THE HOME AND THE CHAIN OF SUSTAINABILITY OF HUMAN
NEEDS
 THE RESIDENTIAL WELL-BEING SPACE APPLIED TO
IMMIGRATION IN SPAIN
 CONCLUSIONS

3. SECTION 1:
CAPABILITY APPROACH
POVERTY – SOCIAL EXCLUSION – HOMELESSNESS

4. THE CAPABILITY APPROACH
(Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum)
Endowments Entitlements Satisfiers Capabilities Functionings
Based on Jurgen Schuldt (1998)
The essential concepts of the theory are mutually
conditioning, although one does not necessarily lead to the other.
4

5. POVERTY, SOCIAL EXCLUSION
IN TERMS OF CAPABILITIES
POVERTY
Poverty as capability deprivation (that is, poverty seen as the lack of the capability to live a
minimally decent life). Poverty is not only a lack of income or of goods and services. What’s
most important is the potential to achieve coverage and expansion of people’s capabilities.
SOCIAL EXCLUSION
Manifests a failing in people’s capability to achieve the desired goals in their lives. It is a
particular way of depriving one of one’s capabilities, specifically relational ones. The
importance of the concept of social exclusion is not that it is a new way of thinking about
poverty; rather, social exclusion is a part of poverty, understood as being stripped of
capabilities, and as the origin of other deprivations of capabilities. The novelty lies in
highlighting the relational roots of poverty.
FREEDOM
Freedom in terms of capabilities refers to the degree to which a person is free to choose
specific levels of functionings. The freedom of a person to choose between different
lifestyles. But also, at the same time, freedom in itself. One thing is the opportunities
offered by freedom, and another is the processes through which freedom is materialised.
5

6. HOW IS HOMELESSNESS DEFINED IN
TERMS OF CAPABILITIES?
WHAT IS A HOME IN TERMS OF CAPABILITIES?
The concept of home is a construct of each person, and it is understood as a person’s
ability to choose the type of home they value, but defined by the set of opportunities from
which to choose, i.e. the freedom that the person actually has. We understand the concept
of home based on what each person contributes when the space is “inhabited”, and also
what the habitation brings to is.
HOME AS MIDFARE
Midfare is the states of persons caused by goods.
Capabilities are viewed as “skills for certain basic things”, and in addition, “the other things
that goods can do for people besides providing capabilities”. Goods do various types of
things for people:
- They give them capabilities that can be used (or not).
- They contribute to the performance of valuable activities and to achieving desirable states.
- They prompt other desirable states directly, without the need for their beneficiaries to exercise any
capabilities.
A satisfier satisfies more than one need at a time
6

7. HOW IS HOMELESSNESS DEFINED IN
TERMS OF CAPABILITIES?
WHEN DOES A HOME NOT EXIST?
A person can find himself in different situations of homelessness when there are obstacles
to achieving the functionings that provide well-being (or a home). For example:
 Very low endowments
 Problems in the rules of access for satisfiers
 Lack of satisfiers (or of adequate satisfiers)
 Lack of capabilities
 Lack of freedom
7

8. A RESIDENTIAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE
THEORY OF CAPABILITIES
Endowments Entitlements Satisfiers Capabilities Functionings
Purchasing Housing
Power
Keeping
Legacies Housing Social Housing in Home
Rights Housing adequate
condition Homeless
Non
Discrimination Shelters
8

9. SECTION 2:
THE HOME AND THE CHAIN OF
SUSTAINABILITY OF HUMAN
NEEDS

10. THE CHAIN OF SUSTAINABILITY OF
HUMAN NEEDS (Enric Tello)
Where are the satisfaction of people’s needs sustained?
HOUSING
MARKET MARKET
POLICY AND
STATE LAWS: HOUSING
…
COMPATRIOTS
NGOs
COMMUNITY NEIGHBOURHOOD FEDS.
PERSONAL
FAMILY GROWTH
NATURAL SYSTEM HEAT, COLD, WATER,
CLIMATE
10

11. SUSTAINABILITY CHAIN ENTITLEMENTS SATISFIERS
MARKETS Purchaising pow. Housing, rooms
WELL
Capabilities
STATE
Human Rights Social housing
-BEINGOR LACK
andfunc
COMMUNITY
Reciprocal neighbourlin Mutual Support
tionnings
THERE
FAMILY Love, care...
Biased reciprocity
OF
NATURAL Property or free acces Resources Services
SYSTEMS
THE WELL-BEING SPACE MIDFARE
Social milieu enabling the
development of different
ways of designing life
11

12. PART 3:
THE RESIDENTIAL WELL-BEING
SPACE APPLIED TO
IMMIGRATION IN SPAIN

13. POVERTY TRENDS IN SPAIN. FOESSA (2008)
 Downward trend of monetary poverty from 1973 to 1990.
 Halt in the decline in poverty during the first half of the 1990s.
 This change occurs in a context of economic growth.
 Poverty in Spain continues to be high at 19.5%. ECV (2006)
 There is a segment of extreme poverty ranging from 2.6% to 4% of the population, as
considered respectively, 25% or 30% of the adjusted mean income.
IMMIGRATION
- The poverty rates among immigrants are considerably higher than among Spaniards.
- The poverty rates among non-European immigrants are very high.
- The severe poverty rates among immigrants approaches 20% of the total immigrant
households.
13

14. IMMIGRATION AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION
IN SPAIN. FOESSA (2008)
 Half of all homeless people are foreigners, although in many cases we find seasonal
workers; the profile of a destructured person is not as common.
 One out of every three prisoners is foreign. Importance of the characteristics of the
Spanish sentencing system and international criminal networks.
 A growing share of single-parent households and of women who are victims of gender
violence.
 A significant share of youths at risk of exclusion.
 Increase in mental illness as a result of the tensions generated by the migratory
process. Creation of a specific pathology: “Ulysses syndrome”.
 A majority of the prostitution in Spain comes from abroad.
 The Gypsy community has also felt the effect of immigration by the Romani
communities from Eastern Europe.
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15. MARKET
HOUSING - Housing prices are estimated to have risen
MARKET:
OWNER / RENT 86.4% from 1997 to 2001, while wages
ROOMS
MACRO LEVEL increased only 15%.
HOUSING - The number of dwellings built in 2005
POLICY AND
REGULATIONS
, reached 800,000 (FR + GR + UK).
SOCIAL SERVICES
- Between 1991 – 2001 vacant dwellings
increased 25.5%.
TYPES OF TENURE (%)
100
78,3 82
80 73,1
63,4
60 51,3 51,9
40
45,9
41,3
20 30,1
20,8 15,2 11,5
0
1950 1960 1970 1981 1991 2001
Ow ned Rented
15

16. IMMIGRATION AND HOUSING.
COLECTIVO IOE (2005)
 As opposed to the local-born population, the majority of which are homeowners,
foreign residents live mostly in rental dwellings.
OWNED AND RENTED HOUSING ACCORDING TO NATIONALITY BY
REGOINS OF ORIGIN (2001. CENSUS)
100
75
Ow ned
50
Rented
25
0
5
a
n
a
e
-1
es
ic
ai
op
ic
fr
Sp
ri
er
EU
ur
A
nt
m
E
ou
A
rn
tin
rC
te
La
e
s
th
Ea
O
16

17. IMMIGRATION AND HOUSING.
COLECTIVO IOE (2005)
HOUSING OCCUPANCY OF THE IMM IGRANT POPULATION FROM
PERIPHERAL COUNTRIES LIVING IN CITIES
4,5%
12,9%
5%
Ow ners
Indepe nde nt te nants
Sublet te nants
30,4% Em ploye r hom e
47,2% Othe r situation
 Basic utilities and appliances (electric power, running water, bath with bathtub or
shower, kitchen and refrigerator) are enjoyed by more than 96% of inmigrants from
peripheral countries. Therefore, the vast majority are covered for these basic services,
though often shared with other members living in the same household.
 The immigrant population lives in far smaller dwellings than the local-born population,
with overcrowding being far more common among the former (19%) than the latter
(2.5%).
17

18. IMMIGRATION AND HOUSING.
COLECTIVO IOE (2005)
STATE
 The investment in social protection allocated to Housing and Social Exclusion is less
than half that of the European average
 Social housing in proportion to free housing declined sharply, particularly rental social
housing. SOCIAL HOUSING IN RELATION AVAILABLE HOUSING
(Finished Units)
700.000
600.000
500.000
400.000
300.000
200.000
100.000
0
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
00
01
02
03
04
05
06
19
19
20
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
20
20
20
20
20
20
Free Housing Social Housing
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19. SEGMENTATION OF THE HOUSING MARKET
- The distribution of rental housing has an
effect on the distribution of the population.
- Lower-income families cannot access home
ownership status = Concentration of economic
COMMUNITY MESO LEVEL poverty in city areas with highest rental rates.
- Rex and Moore (1967) “Housing classes”
(social classes defined by the dwellings in
which they live)
SPATIAL CONCENTRATION OF INEQUALITY IN SPANISH CITIES
Approximately one out of every four people residing in Spanish municipalities with
populations over 20,000 inhabitants lives in underprivileged neighbourhoods. That is, 4-5
million people, accounting for more than 12% of Spain’s population, live their lives in urban
areas where difficult social situations are concentrated.
RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION AND CAPABILITIES
“Residential segregation” is an element that affects the community and determines the
forms of entry and exit, both of public and market goods and services. That is, they affect
the entitlements and satisfiers of the Well-being Space, which generates signs that
Residential Segregation deteriorates community life and the collective capability for action,
being associated with violence and mistrust.
19

20. Source: IMMIGRATION AND
FAMILY MICRO LEVEL HOUSING. COLECTIVO
IOE (2005)
CAPABILITIES AND ACCESS TO HOUSING
- Legal irregularity or precariousness
- Lack of information
- Lack of support networks
- Lack of guarantees, payroll vouchers and employment contracts
- Shortage or uncertainty of income
USE OF SATISFIER DEPENDING ON ITS NATURE
Those living in subleasing or single-room rental situations have breakfast, lunch or dinner
less often at home than those with independent rental agreements or home owners. The
same occurs with sleeping hours.
WOMEN AND HOUSEWORK AS MEANS OF SUSTAINING NEEDS
70% of immigrant women state that they do household chores on a daily basis, a proportion
that approaches 100% among women who consider themselves to be “homemakers” as
their principal activity or who have under-age children. The women who do the least
housework are students (36%) and those living in subleasing arrangements (43%).
HOMELESS PEOPLE ATTENDED BY CENTRES
The population group most frequently attended were immigrants (62.7% of the total. INE.08)
20

21. LAND, WATER,
ELECTRICITY, FOOD, BASIC LEVEL
CLIMATE
 Danger. Threats or dangers that form a part of the normal functioning of natural
systems.
 Vulnerability. Expresses the exposure of human elements to dangerous phenomena.
 Situations of risk are far greater when we are in homeless situations.
 The death of people due to food-related problems is not common in European
countries, but the death of homeless people, and particular of people in roofless
situations, is not uncommon as they are more exposed to natural risks than others.
 In Spain, in the year 2009 to date at least 55 homeless people have died, 7 of them
from exposure to the cold (ENRED Indicator. 2009. Unofficial data).
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22. CONCLUSIONS
 Understanding poverty as a lack of capabilities makes it possible to study
homelessness from another perspective.
 The residential well-being space offers a very broad work space for studying
homelessness. It can become a methodological approach integrating the various
approaches currently being used.
 From the capabilities perspective (being - doing), homeless people suffer from
different degrees of lack of freedom.
 Government policy should be based on the capabilities perspective both in defining
and assessing policies, i.e. they should be as adapted as possible to the situations of
each individual.
 Immigrants have become the “new poor” in Spain and have changed the profile of
homelessness.
 The blocking of human expression capabilities of immigrants in the different links of
the sustainability chain can explain why they suffer situations of homelessness.
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23. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Associació ProHabitatge
Professor Enric Tello Aragay (University of Barcelona)
FEANTSA
European Network of Housing Research W.G
Guillem Fernàndez Evangelista
Associació ProHabitatge
Autonomous University of Barcelona
Email: gfernandez@prohabitatge.org