Welfare Reform on the Web (November 2005): Social Housing - Overseas

From housing to home: reflexive management for those deemed hard to house

P. Gurstein and D. Small

Housing Studies, vol.20, 2005, p.717-735

The Portland Hotel Services Society in Vancouver aims to promote, develop and maintain supportive affordable housing for the most marginalised and excluded groups, such as drug addicts, people with HIV/AIDS, sex workers, and criminals. Their approach places the tenant's right to housing as primary. People are never evicted, however bad their behaviour. Paper argues that the housing environment for Portland Hotel residents is more than shelter and offers the comfort and security of a home. For this population, services need to be designed around people, rather than people fitting into services.