Acknowledging Existential Sustainability in Social Work

Author: Kristina Carlsson Stylianides

To be or not to be (homeless)?

Cresswell (2009) defines place as ”a specific location that has acquired a set of meanings and attachments” (p. 1). In recognizing that a place is more than an absolute geographic point and more than its locale, i.e. the material setting of the place, and a “sense of place” (p.1), Cresswell (2009) unpacks the notion of place and recognizes it as harboring an existential dimension. A place may be the harbor of sentiments, encapsulating people interacting in and with the place creating an atmosphere that is sensible to anyone entering. 

Since at least a millennium, what constitutes as (a) ‘place’ has been contested. Even the ancient Greeks, Plato, and Aristotle, theorised to some extent about the ambiguous meaning of place. Plato used the terms ‘chora’ and ‘topos’ to highlight different ways of looking at, or different aspects of, ‘place’. ‘Chora’ covered the actual making of the place, the process of the place if you like. In direct contrast, ‘topos’ captured a place, or aspects of a place that had been made and was thus considered to be somewhat ‘achieved’, more inertly changed than components in ‘process’ / ‘chora’. Since the ancient Greeks, the meaning of places has been problematised and contested back and forth across what can usefully be considered a spectrum between ‘chora’ (capturing the processual aspects of places) and ‘topos’ (capturing the more stable aspects of places), (Cresswell 2009).

Build meaningfulness

Heidegger saw the material world, and thus places, as crucial to human existence. He believed that to be human is to be human somewhere, on, in and through some place, what Heidegger refers to as ‘Dasein’. He believes that our being in the world and our building in and of the world are intimate parts of our becoming, and components of how we as human beings can build meaningfulness. A central concept for Heidegger is ‘dwelling’ and it means precisely being in the world and relating to the world in a meaningful way. A famous example that Heidegger cites is the cabin in the black forest, where he suggests that the conditions of the material environment and the people in it control each other in such a way that there is a harmonious ‘one-ness’ between people and their material environment (Cresswell 2009). 

This approach has been criticised by contemporary scholars who argue that the conditions of the material environment are determined by social orders and who relates to what kind of environment is an outcome of human power. To concretise this critique, we can go back historically and think about the Swedish estate society and how its social hierarchies determined where people lived (e.g. centrally in the city or in the countryside), how they lived (e.g. hut or castle or what clothes they were allowed to wear), and whether they owned their land. The historical examples are almost endless, but so are the contemporary examples. In a capitalist society, children are born into different types of housing with different qualities; some live in castle-like palaces while others are cramped in rented flats, to name the extremes. In today's Sweden, there are also both adults and children who are categorised as homeless - people who do not have a safe place that is stable over time. And of course, this is an outcome of how we organise Sweden; a different allocation of resources and prioritisation of interventions could have prevented the occurrence of homelessness.

Reproduces homelessness

Homelessness has long been prevalent in Swedish society, and since the 1990s researchers have criticised the social services' work on homelessness on the grounds that it reproduces homelessness (cf. Sahlin 1996, Knutagård 2009). Traditional staircase services are characterized by a system in which the ‘I’ is marginalized, if not fully reduced, when systemic, rule regulated conformity is demanded to get basic material and existential needs, as a home (think Bubers’ I-it relation), (Buber 2013). Housing First (HF) is by now a well-known method to assess homelessness and, as Padget (2007) shows, residents in the HF program do experience ‘ontological security’. HF can be explained as providing services in which the clients’ ‘I’ is illuminated and thus provides conditions where the clients’ ‘I’ can grow. In this sense HF can be viewed as an opposite of previous staircase services for the homeless.

HF was developed and implemented in New York in the 90’s. HF proved to counteract homelessness (Padgett et al. 2015). The model has since spread around in Europe and Sweden with good results (Busch-Geersema 2013; Pleace et al 2019; Benjaminsen & Knutagård 2016; Knutagård & Kristiansen 2019). The model, which stands in stark contrast to the traditional homelessness work that has emerged in the Swedish social services, is based on the idea that service users who want safe and stable housing should get it. HF is person-centred and based on the participation of service users (Teixeira & Cartwright 2020). The model does not require sobriety or similar qualifications to obtain secure housing and extensive support, usually provided by a specialised support team, is available to service users who move in. Service users will live in different places in a city and hopefully integrate into their local neighbourhood in a way that is perceived as meaningful.

Meeting human existential needs

Of course, of all the places that we as humans attach and relate to in meaningful ways, home is a special kind of place to most of us and the difference between home and housing may well be spelled out as existential. Ontological security, a mechanism meeting human existential needs, may well be a determining mechanism in HF. ‘Ontological security’ is here described as Padgett (2007) understands it using four ‘markers’ identified by Dupois’ and Thorns’ (1998, p. 29).

• A place of constancy in the material and social environment;
• A place in which the day-to-day routines of human existence are performed;
• Where people feel in control of their lives because they feel free from the surveillance that characterizes life elsewhere; and,
• A secure base around which identities are constructed.

‘Ontological security’ in this sense marks the importance of having a safe and stable home, which is provided by HF but not provided by tradition based social work with homelessness, as objectifying stair-case practices.

Henwood et al (2018) had an approach like that of Padgett (2007) when assessing experiences of permanent supportive housing among young adults and likewise found ‘ontological security’ to be a meaningful concept to understand how participants explained the impact of having a (permanent) home (having been previously homeless/in less permanent housing solutions). Interestingly, apart from the four ‘markers’ of ontological security, both studies also found participants to refer to their housing and look at the future: “What’s next?” (Padgett 2007; Henwood et al., 2018), seemingly finding themselves with their feet on the ground/ ontologically grounded, being able to look forward. A finding that further solidifies that having a secure base is connected to developing new identities. 

Development of identities

Supporting the development of identities is shown to have therapeutic potential on people with mental health problems (Liljeholm & Beijerholm, 2019), and when asking service users with mental health problems of their main needs for recovery, having a home (NB not to confuse with housing), alongside with mental and physical health was rated among the top three (Choy-Brown et al., 2016). alongside with mental and physical health was rated among the top three (Choy-Brown et al., 2016). Watson (2011) and Mc Nautghy has even suggested that a lack of a secure base, ‘ontological security’, and a lack of actual resources of obtaining ‘ontological security’ may be what drives people to ‘edgework’, as for example substance use. Studying edgework among marginalized McNaughton (2008) have shown how “people’s resources affect their capacity to negotiate with risk” (Watson, 2011, p.7). She argues that marginalized people engage in edgework (e.g. taking drugs) to develop a more stable sense of self even in an instable situation (e.g. homelessness) with limited resources to engage their agency. Edgework of the kind, McNaughton concludes, is a search for ontological security when lacking the material means to stabilize one’s situation and thus one’s sense of self (Watson 2011).

Meaningful and relatable

The focus and importance of place is clear. Within the framework of Existential Sustainability, it is suggested that space can be turned into place by making the space meaningful and relatable. HF specifically points to ones’ home as a base for ‘ontological security’ and thus also emphasizes constancy and freedom from surveillance. Home seems to be a type of place fulfilling certain, very specific human needs, much in tune with Heideggers’ ‘Dasein’, ‘to become somewhere’. However, in HF, other kinds of places are also of importance. From what I have seen in interviews with service users in HF, integration in the local community is also important and may be very difficult if living with bodily signs of (former) homelessness (for example, lacking teeth). Thus, a diverse and inclusive neighborhood is part and parcel of this successful method. May artwork, or works of art make the abstract local space into something concrete and relatable, turning space into place? (cf. Cresswell 2009).

In much research, it is equally recognized that places can be very exclusive. Massey (1995) criticises the use of place authenticity, or the reference to the past to achieve place authenticity, as a common and problematic practice to maintain the exclusionary nature of places. The author argues that it is precisely the framing of places as ‘topos’, i.e. somewhat ready-made, where certain aspects of a place are emphasised while others are obscured and forgotten, that enables perceptions of the stable identities of places and thus makes places exclusive. Mukhtar- Landgren (2012) points to an inherent dilemma in urban planning - how is community achieved by embracing people's differences? (Cresswell 2009).

A key question

This becomes a key question for everyone involved in HF, while the question goes far beyond the model itself. One could say that HF is a kind of counter-practice, against structuring social orders that can determine who lives where and how. HF enables the most vulnerable, the previously excluded, to ‘dwell’ (in Heidegger's words), to become human in and through a place. This seems feasible, at least in terms of becoming human in and through a home as a stable and safe place. The conditions for participation in the neighbourhood may be quite different. So how can we go about building local communities where people are included and feel included? Where people relate to places as meaningful and where people can feel involved?

Sandström (2020) has examined two different sites with the stated aim of building for inclusion. These sites become living examples of how different logics can be manifested materially and how these manifestations can affect the social landscape - Jubileumsparken in Gothenburg, Sweden and Superkilen in Copenhagen, Denmark. While Jubileumsparken in Gothenburg aimed to engage the residents by doing something together in their local area (compare to Plato's ‘choros’ where the process(es) of the place are in focus), Superkilen highlighted mixed material aspects associated with different places around the world, such as a classic English rubbish bin and the "elephant" - a slide that is seemingly associated with the playground in Pripyat (an example of Plato's ‘topos’ where icons from different places together form a new place). Sandström (2020) categorises these places according to the logics of ‘learning to care’ (Jubileumsparken) and ‘learning to be affected’ (Superkilen). In relation to experiencing oneself as part of one's local area, building a meaningful context and social relations in the local area, Jubileumsparken appears to be crucially important. Perhaps ‘chora’, focusing on process, is one of the keys to integrating different people into a community.

Concluding discussion

My claim is that HF works because it implicitly acknowledges an existential dimension in practical social work. It is this (however implicit) acknowledgement that makes it possible for service users to change their lives to the better and to maintain such change over time. HF, as many other methods and interventions that have proven to work (see for example IPS, or person- centeredness in health care) build upon addressing the service user as a subject, rather than as an object, which is the case in tradition-based practices organized around the staircase. HF is a relational approach that is supposed to build on interaction determined by a human -to human- principle, ideally there is no professional status that acts out on the costs of the service user status, some kind of equality prevails whilst the wills and wants of the service user, in the life of the service user, is to be respected. The method is about connection and about connecting. About being respected as a subject and about relationally and materially becoming a subject. Practically, HF concerns having a safe and private space that one may turn into a place, a specific place, a home. HF also aims to include the right to be acknowledged as a relational subject. The method encourages and seeks to support that service users connect with their local areas in meaningful ways. In all, at the core of HF, I claim, is the existential.
 

References

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Buber, M., (2013)

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Choy-Brown, M., Padgett, D., K., Tran Smith, B., & Tiderington, E., (2016). Sorting it out: Eliciting consumer priorities for recovery in supportive housing, American Journal of Psychiatric Rehabilitation, Vol. 19:3, pp. 223-234

Cresswell, Tim (2004). Place: A Short Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell

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Watson, D., P., (2011) Negotiating Mental Health and Illness: The Recovery Process in Four Consumer-Centered Housing Programs