HOMELESS FAMILIES IN THE CIRCLE OF CONTINUOUS CHANGE. HOUSING CRISIS IN THE SLOVAK CONTEXT

• Authors: Hlinčíková Miroslava
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Households with children, especially single-parent households and those with three or more children are the most endangered by inadequate housing in Slovakia. Even though both national and local social policies in Slovakia prioritize family protection, current housing policy reflects a general discourse on housing based on the principle of transitional housing, merit and personal responsibility, which generally results in public housing policies in Slovakia having entry conditions that are unaffordable for homeless people or those with low incomes. This text is based on the results of applied qualitative research conducted by Amnesty International Slovakia’s research team in three cities in Slovakia. Our research team conducted 111 interviews1 using the methods of semi-structured and informal interviews from May 2023 until February 2024. I will examine here what options families have if they lose housing or are at risk of losing it. I am interested in how the public social system is set up in practice, and how it can respond to the problems of individual families facing housing loss. Cities are responsible for providing social rental housing. Therefore, I will investigate the conditions and thresholds of public housing and social services providing temporary housing at the local level. I also observe this pervasive discourse of deservingness in public policies and narratives of social workers, city representatives, officials, clients of social services and tenants in municipal housing.

Keywords

EN

HOUSING; SLOVAKIA; HOUSING POLICY; HOMELESS FAMILIES

• Publisher: Institute of Ethnology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovenský národopis (Slovak Ethnology)
• Year: 2024
• Volume: 72
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 288 – 306

Contributors

author

Hlinčíková Miroslava

• Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

• https://orcid.org/000-0003-3357-7474

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/SN.2024.3.24