Migrant Homelessness and the Crimmigration Control System 9781032206325, 9781032206332, 9781003264484

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Migrant Homelessness and the Crimmigration Control System

Migrant Homelessness and the Crimmigration Control System offers new insights into the drivers of homelessness following migration by unpacking the housing consequences of ‘crimmigration’ control systems in the US and the UK. The book advances ‘housing sacrifice’ as a concept to understand journeys in and out of homelessness and the coping strategies migrants employ. Undergirded by persuasive empirical research, it offers a compelling case for a ‘social citizenship’ right to housing guaranteed across social, political and civil realms of society. The book is structured around the 30 life stories of people who have migrated to the capital cities of Boston and Edinburgh from Central America and Eastern Europe. The narratives are complemented by interviews with a range of stakeholders (including frontline caseworkers, activists and policymakers). Guided by the tenets of critical realist theory, this book offers a biographical inquiry into the intersections of race, class and gender and provides insight into the everyday precarity homeless migrants face, by listening to them directly. It will be of interest to students, scholars, and policymakers across a range of fields including housing, immigration, criminology, sociology, and human geography. Regina Serpa is a housing researcher and an RTPI chartered planner based in the UK. She is currently a lecturer in housing at the University of Stirling and a committee member of the Housing Studies Association. Previously, she was a Primary Investigator on a comparative, threecountry study of migrant homelessness—an ESRC-funded postdoctoral research collaboration with Leiden Law School and the University of Stirling. She obtained her Doctorate (PhD) degree in Urban Studies in 2019 from Heriot-Watt University. Regina is a consultant at a private research firm in Scotland and a guest researcher at Leiden University where her research focuses on international crimmigration law—the convergence of criminal and immigration law.

Explorations in Housing Studies Series editors: Janet Smith University of Illinois, Chicago, USA

Keith Jacobs University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia

Mark Stephens University of Glasgow, UK Explorations in Housing Studies is a series of high-quality, research mono­ graphs which aims to extend and deepen both theoretical debate and em­ pirical research in the housing studies field. The series is being introduced at a time when housing, in its various dimensions, is particularly closely in­ tertwined with the impact of demographic change, economic instability, the shaping of life chances and wealth distributions and the uncertain impacts of environmental and technological change. This series aims to engage with these and related issues from a variety of perspectives and methodologies. Neoliberal Housing Policy An International Perspective Keith Jacobs Housing, Neoliberalism and the Archive Reinterpreting the Rise and Fall of Public Housing Kathleen Flanagan Evictions in the UK Power, Housing, and Politics Joe Crawford Affordable Housing Preservation in Washington, DC A Framework for Local Funding, Collaborative Governance, and Community Organizing for Change Kathryn Howell Home Beyond the House Transformation of Life, Place, and Tradition in Rural China Wei Zhao Property, Planning and Protest The Contentious Politics of Housing Supply Quintin Bradley For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge. com/Explorations-in-Housing-Studies/book-series/HOUSING

Migrant Homelessness and the Crimmigration Control System

Regina Serpa

Cover image credit: © Andrew Aitchison / Getty Images First published 2023 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Regina Serpa The right of Regina Serpa to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 978-1-032-20632-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-20633-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-26448-4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003264484 Typeset in Sabon by MPS Limited, Dehradun

For Michael Stone, whose commitment to advancing a right to housing and ending shelter poverty inspired this work.

Contents

List of Tables Acknowledgements

viii ix

1

Introduction

2

Using Critical Realism to Understand Migrant Homelessness and Crimmigration Control

11

Three Drivers of Migration—Survival, Freedom and Opportunity

33

4

Service Provision in a ‘Hostile Environment’

56

5

Exclusion and Housing Sacrifice

81

6

Conclusion: Crimmigration, Housing Sacrifice, Citizenship and the Right to Housing

104

Postscript: The Magic of Crimmigration

118

Index

121

3

1

Tables

1.1 1.2

Interviews with housing and immigration professionals, by role and organisation type Interviews with homeless migrants, by nationality and housing circumstance

7 8

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following: Heriot-Watt University and the Economic and Social Research Council who funded this research, and the Bassi Foundation for providing editorial assistance. Tony and Michele Manzi, Maartje van der Woude, Kim McKee, Suzanne Fitzpatrick, Beth Watts, Peter Mackie and Gina Netto; all the participants in this study who shared their experiences, personal and professional; and the generous volunteers whose translation and interpretation services helped give voice and understanding to the individual stories presented in the pages that follow. I am indebted to those who supported this research by hosting and facilitating interviews. Thanks to the anonymous reviewers who guided the direction of this book. I am forever grateful to you all.

1

Introduction

This study marks a culmination of many years of housing activism, experience providing front-line homelessness services and detailed research work. In the U.S. and UK, I have worked with homeless migrant groups in different capacities and contexts (as an inner-city community organiser, an anti-eviction campaigner and housing rights advocate), and my knowledge, experience and understanding of the conditions experienced by these groups ultimately inspired this two-country study involving case studies in Massachusetts and Scotland—two localities which take a comparatively progressive approach to homelessness relative to their respective neoliberal, national contexts. As a practitioner and researcher, I witnessed the severe disadvantage experienced by homeless migrants, representing their marginalised position in American and British society. As Egoz and De Nardi (2017) assert, in most western countries, migrants generally occupy the most underprivileged position in society and are frequently confronted with a landscape permeated with prejudice and hostility. In spite of these constraints, I can also attest to individual and family resourcefulness in the face of adversity—a central focus of this book. By the nature of their experiences, homeless migrants tend to be seen as invisible and silenced. People who experience homelessness following migration are rarely encountered directly in policy and practice debates. When the issue arises as a conversation topic, debates are seldom informed by the actual experiences of those who have crossed borders and who lack a permanent or stable home. Guided by the tenets of critical realist theory, this book offers a biographical inquiry into the intersections of race, class and gender and provides insight into the circumstances facing homeless migrants, by listening to them directly. At its core, the book demonstrates the nature of social citizenship in western democracies through biographical accounts of immigration and homelessness, offering a compelling case for an unconditional right to decent, affordable housing (Bratt, 2006). This book contains oral histories of the immigration experience—and the process of deep social exclusion, as revealed in the first-person accounts of individuals confronted by varying degrees of criminalisation on two fronts: their status as a ‘migrant’ and their social standing as a person DOI: 10.4324/9781003264484-1

2

Introduction

experiencing homelessness. The punitive consequences of poverty and status are explored through the life stories of 30 people from Boston, Massachusetts and Edinburgh, Scotland; all of whom have paradoxically lost a home whilst attempting to make a new home elsewhere. Having crossed borders in search of a new life, the respondents outline their struggles and their ambitions—as Victoria, a mother of two from Belize explains: ‘I want to take all the opportunity, to make a little money, to have a future for my children. That is my dream’. The collection of voices in this book—of migrants themselves, the frontline service providers who support them, and of policymakers who legislate the regulatory terrain they negotiate—bear witness to the surprising degree of agency individuals can assert under extreme circumstances and the array of strategies used to cope with homelessness, or as Jakub describes of his experience migrating from Poland, to ‘start from square one again and to make it to square one hundred and one’. The primary motivation for this research originates from a strong commitment to combating social inequality; a purpose that has underpinned my academic and professional career. The methodology applied in this research—a biographical, critical realist inquiry—reflects my orientation towards social justice by giving expression to hitherto-silenced voices to challenge the dominant power structures that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and exclusion. Consequently, this research’s theoretical and methodological aims are: to advance an understanding of migrant homelessness through the lens of ‘crimmigration’ as a radical critique of the dominant ideology and to address common difficulties in data representation amongst marginalised communities by integrating critical realist analysis with biographical inquiry. With regards to the first aim, ‘crimmigration’ refers to the various systems and processes in place that intentionally create a hostile environment for migrants which blurs the boundaries between border and crime control, creating hybrid forms of punishment and new disciplinary procedures of exclusion through administrative processes (Bowling & Westenra, 2018). As Stumpf (2006) argues, crimmigration systems witness a convergence between two domains of law resulting in a parallel system where immigration law has absorbed the theories, methods and perceptions of the criminal justice system (Legomsky, 2007; Di Molfetta & Brouwer, 2020, p. 303). Crucially, the result is a rejection of standard procedural and normative safeguards; hence ‘drawing of moral boundaries, a traditional concern of criminal law, is performed not only through the discourse of punishment, but also through practices of banishment and expulsion’ (Aas, 2007, p. 81). Wacquant (2008) has similarly observed a two-fold ostracisation of migrants and the ‘rightward tilting of the state’—based on internal ‘extirpation’ as well as external removal. Crimmigration displaces responsibility for border control onto a range of third-party intermediaries (e.g., landlords, estate agents, bankers, airline

Introduction

3

staff, medical and educational administrators, welfare rights officers and any number of service providers in local government or ‘street-level bureaucrats’); those subject to immigration control, in addition to a host of third-parties who have professional (or personal) dealings with them, are subjected to a ‘crimmigration control system’ which imposes civil and criminal penalties for so-called immigration ‘crimes’ (Canning, 2020). Importantly, the ‘social harm’ inflicted by a crimmigration control apparatus has two targets: non-citizens subject to immigration control and the variety of harm which follows from such a subjugated position in society, and the citizenry obliged to its enforcement. Welfare service providers with a social mission, for example, those involved in front-line casework, often experience ‘burn out’ following repeated efforts to fight ‘bureaucratic banality’ on a case-by-case basis. The case of Sue, the civil servant, in Chapter 4 illustrates: ‘I get why there needs to be restrictions, that’s my brain-side speaking. But my heart-side says, this is a mother of three, what do you mean she has to go sleep on the streets tonight?’. A crimmigration perspective critiques dominant power relationships and provides a detailed analysis of the socio-legal context which facilitates inequality, injustice and discrimination. The second methodological aim of this study is to demonstrate the value of biographical, critical realist inquiry for overcoming common problems relating to data representation in the social sciences. This book provides an opportunity for research reflexivity, requiring an active consciousness of ‘power’ within housing studies (and other disciplines concerned with social inequality) and an understanding of the ways in which power features within research processes (study design, data collection, dissemination). This study’s methodological approach is specifically adopted to challenge dominant power dynamics in social research by creating a platform for seldom-heard voices. The book considers how power dynamics in research might reinforce a hegemony, which researchers might discredit and dismantle. Specifically, the ways in which poor people are represented in studies of poverty can do additional (albeit unintended) harm to marginalised communities, especially studies that assume a ‘pathological’ model of disadvantage, focussing on individual deficits (either of personal or structural origin) (Aldeia, 2013). This critique of research that fetishizes ‘vulnerability’ calls for a greater cognisance of power differentials between the researcher and study participants (or communities as investigation objects); methodological application and data presentation are particular points in the research process highlighted in this book which can offer a critical, reflexive approach to housing research. Having conducted this study over a seven-year period (2014–2021), I argue that understanding migrant homelessness within the modalities of critical realism and biographical inquiry adds ontological depth to empirical analysis by anchoring a conceptualisation of social phenomena to a philosophical account of ‘being’ and ‘knowing’. Furthermore, biographical

4

Introduction

critical realist inquiry offers a number of methodological advantages when communicating research findings to diverse audiences, such as: preserving authentic voices whilst retaining anonymity; representing accounts of disadvantage without victimisation and stigmatisation and reconstructing stories in a way that meets the expectations of academic and policymaking institutions, whilst retaining accessibility to wider audiences. Specifically, a biographical critical realist approach overcomes the standard limitations of researching the experience of poverty by explaining key (necessary and contingent) causal factors (or generative mechanisms) behind social exclusion—through the articulation of authentic ‘voices’ and a demonstration of the capacity for agency. In addition to my positionality (as a former practitioner and current researcher), I also identify on a personal level with the precarity that many people confront following migration. Having resettled in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, following a move in 2009 from Boston, I experienced (some ten years later) first-hand the operation of a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants in the UK. Briefly, I endured an avalanche of personal difficulties following a relationship breakdown (affecting my legal status and consequently my right to live and work in the UK). Due to ‘evidentiary problems’, I lost my job, my home and (almost) my sanity—within a span of six months. This experience offered a hard lesson in how a lack of ‘relevant’ documentation places severe constraints on regaining (personal, financial and emotional) stability; without evidence of legal status, I could not: keep my job or apply for a new one, get a new home as a named tenant on a tenancy agreement, manage my finances by opening my own bank account or taking out credit; nor could I access health care or mental health services by registering with a medical practice. Such is the experience of crimmigration control—once subjected to it, one finds that borders exist everywhere all at once and are not just confined to geographic boundaries. In short, my experience as a homelessness practitioner in both localities, coupled with my own experience as a migrant with a personal attachment to each study area (Boston and Edinburgh), provided additional motivation to investigate what can be done to improve the lives and livelihoods of those who have crossed borders in search of a new home. The analysis presented here is therefore informed not merely by my doctoral research, but also by my detailed knowledge and experience (both professional and personal) of the key challenges facing migrant groups (namely, to survive from one day to the next, to keep their families safe, to make a little money and to save for the future)—and importantly, their capacity and resourcefulness in coping with such difficulties. The book’s ambition is to contribute to relevant policy and practice by informing debates regarding migrant homelessness, wherever in the world these discussions are taking place. This book offers a distinctive contribution in a number of ways. Firstly, the book forges a linkage between two hitherto often distinct disciplines:

Introduction

5

housing and socio-legal studies. In making these connections, the study offers new insights into the implications of ‘crimmigration’ for contemporary housing and wider welfare policy and practice, demonstrating the value of analysing migrant homelessness through a perspective that integrates insights from different disciplines. Secondly, the book develops and expands extant empirical research on homelessness by advancing ‘housing sacrifice’ as a concept to understand extreme housing exclusion, demonstrating how households can forgo the privacy, safety and security of a home to meet other, competing needs. More specifically, this research addresses an especially large gap within American literature on migrant homelessness, as well as a gap within UK homelessness literature by providing an analysis located within the frame of citizenship and the right to housing. Thirdly, the research deepens theoretical explanations of homelessness’ causes by demonstrating how a biographically informed, critical realist approach (documenting the voices of homeless migrants) offers new insights into the drivers of multiple disadvantages amongst migrant groups and the capacity for tackling social exclusion. Finally, the book offers the potential to develop a new research agenda within housing studies, one which locates a right to housing within a broader notion of social citizenship rights.

Methodology In principle, critical realism advocates ‘critical methodological pluralism’ (Lopez & Porter, 2002) and does not favour one methodological approach over another. However, to offer causal explanations, critical realism places a premium on qualitative-intensive methods of social research. This qualitative-intensive research study attempts to ‘go deeper’ (Yeung, 1997) into the causes of migrant homelessness to reveal how crimmigration operates as a ‘generative mechanism’ that produces the conditions in which migrants become homeless. The study adopts a comparative method, based on contrasting approaches taken in the UK and the U.S., considering a sub-national scale (Scotland in the UK and Massachusetts in the U.S.) and using the case study areas of Edinburgh and Metro Boston. Specifically, the study is concerned with migrants from Eastern Europe in Edinburgh and Central America in Metro Boston. In total, 40 key informant interviews (with professional respondents) were conducted in both case study areas, and 30 in-depth interviews containing a biographical element were conducted with homeless migrants. This research compares groups from a position of similarity. The focus of the study is restricted to Eastern and Central European migrants exercising their Treaty Rights as workers (and jobseekers) in Scotland (whilst Britain was an EU member state) and migrants lacking full legal status in Massachusetts from Central America and the Caribbean. In both contexts, these migrant groups constitute the largest flow of economic migration in

6

Introduction

the 21st century. Furthermore, both broad migrant groups, in terms of nationality and ethnicity, experience similar levels of social disadvantage. Commentators on migration studies have observed the similarities between Latin America and Eastern Europe with regard to structural economic change, spurring international migration despite occupying different geo-political positions (Massey et al., 2008; Iglicka, 2001; Sipavičienė, 1997). In this book, the term ‘lacking full legal status’ is used instead of ‘undocumented’ or ‘illegal’ since documentation or legality was not always the source of disadvantage for the study’s migrants. For example, participants with ‘temporary protected status’ in the Boston case study were not necessarily lacking papers to document their legality, rather their legal status was time-limited. In a similar way, EU nationals in the UK case study were also disadvantaged with respect to Britain’s exit from the EU in 2020 imposing a deadline for regularising stays. The study also adopts a ‘maximalist’ approach towards homelessness, including participants in a wide range of circumstances, including the ‘hidden homeless’, such as those that are doubled up or living in overcrowded conditions, as well as those who are ‘literally homeless’, encompassing those who are street homeless or staying at emergency shelters (Chapter 2 provides a full discussion of homelessness definitions). The sampling frame was also not restricted further by other demographic characteristics, such as household type or gender. Because homelessness services in Massachusetts are structured around the criterion of a ‘Right to Shelter’, which is limited to households with dependent children, the majority of participants in the U.S. case study are families. In contrast, participants in the Scottish case study were a mix of families with dependent children and single males, due to recruiting from both a social enterprise and a low threshold ‘drop-in’ service for ‘rough sleepers’, or street homeless. Acknowledging the differences between family and single homelessness, the analysis takes care to distinguish between the groups within the broader category of ‘homeless migrant’. Data collection was conducted throughout 2015, and produced a total of 70 in-depth interviews with homeless migrants and key stakeholders in Scotland and Massachusetts. Fieldwork in Scotland was conducted in the summer months, the timing of which is considered in the findings, since rough sleeping is more conducive in warmer weather than during colder winter months and is significant for interpreting findings. In both case study areas, interviews with key (professional) informants preceded the fieldwork to gain a better understanding of how policymakers and service providers interpreted homelessness amongst migrants, nationally and locally, and how policies are implemented. These interviews were semi-structured and analysed the experience and causes of homelessness amongst migrants and explored possible solutions to prevent and/or alleviate migrant homelessness. See Table 1.1 for a breakdown of key informants by role and level of scale in which they operated. In addition

Introduction

7

Table 1.1 Interviews with housing and immigration professionals, by role and organisation type Scotland Level National Subnational/state Local Organisation Government/local authority Non-profit/social enterprise Emergency shelter Role Director Manager Caseworker/officer Legal services Total

Massachusetts

Total

– 6 5

7 10 12

7 16 17

5 5 1

15 10 4

20 15 5

– 7 4 – 11

21 6 – 2 29

21 13 4 2 40

Interviews with housing and immigration professionals, by role and organisation type

to 40 key informant interviews, a total of 30 in-depth interviews were conducted with homeless migrants in 2015, half of which were in Edinburgh and the other half in Metro Boston. See Table 1.2 for a split by nationality and housing circumstance.

Structure of the book The book is structured as follows. Chapter 2 provides the theoretical framework, outlining the primary approach taken—critical realism, informed by biographical enquiry—to understand the causes of extreme housing needs amongst migrant groups, rooted in crimmigration systems and processes. In Chapter 3, the drivers of migration (namely, the pursuit of survival, freedom and opportunity) are explored through individual narratives, reconstructing (and distilling) verbatim direct accounts to highlight the diverse circumstances facing homeless migrants subjected to crimmigration control. Interviews with a variety of service providers, migrant rights activists and policymakers add to the diversity of voices presented in Chapter 4 by revealing the role of third-party intermediaries in enforcing (or disabling) crimmigration control. This chapter also demonstrates the extent to which third-party intermediaries are also the target of crimmigration control and, therefore, are also subject to the ‘social harm’ of ‘bureaucratised banality’ (Abdelhady et al., 2020). Chapter 5 introduces the concept of ‘housing sacrifice’ to explain the decision-making processes used by migrant groups and to explore the policy implications of implementing a ‘hostile environment’ for migrants through the increasing criminalisation, marginalisation, and exclusion of

Boston-metro (U.S.) Edinburgh (UK) Total Circumstance Emergency Shelter/temporary accommodation Transitional housing/scattered site Cost burdened Overcrowded/substandard Street homeless Total

Nationality 1 – 1 – – – –

12 4 1 5 8 30

4 – – –

5

9 –

– – – –

1

1 –

– – – –

3

3 –

– – – –

1

1 –

– – – 5

–

– 5

– – 5 1

1

– 7

– 1 – 2

–

– 3

Belizean Dominican Guatemalan Haitian Venezuelan Polish Roma Romanian 15 15 30

Total

Table 1.2 Interviews with homeless migrants, by nationality and housing circumstance

8 Introduction

Introduction

9

these groups—within a process of ‘crimmigration’. The analysis of the accounts provided by migrants experiencing homelessness—as well as the reflections of providers who implement and manage processes, in conjunction with comments from policymakers who shape the various systems of control and support—highlight the extent to which individuals can exercise agency in the context of extreme, constrained choice, within crimmigration control systems. After identifying the various ways in which crimmigration control constrains choice, Chapter 6 consolidates the book’s findings, advocating for a new policy agenda towards ‘social citizenship’ (Marshall, 1964), a right to housing embedded within equal access to political, civil and social rights within the contemporary state.

References Aas, K. (2007). Globalisation and Crime. Sage. Abdelhady, D., Gren, N., & Joormann, M. (2020). Refugees and the Violence of Welfare Bureaucracies in Northern Europe. Manchester University Press. Aldeia, J. (2013). Investigating homelessness: In defence of a declared and concerned ontological politics. RCCS Annual Review. A selection from the Portuguese journal Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais, 5 (5). Bowling, B., & Westenra, S. (2018). ‘A really hostile environment’: Adiaphorization, global policing and the crimmigration control system. Theoretical Criminology, 24 (2) 163–183. Bratt, R. G. (2006). Housing and economic security. In R. G. Bratt, M. E. Stone, & C. Hartman (Eds.), A Right to Housing: Foundation for a New Social Agenda (pp. 14–38). Temple University Press. Canning, V. (2020). Corrosive control: State-corporate and gendered harm in bordered Britain. Critical Criminology, 28 1–17. Di Molfetta, E., & Brouwer, J. (2020). Unravelling the ‘crimmigration knot’: Penal subjectivities, punishment and the censure machine. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 20 (3) 302–318. Egoz, S., & De Nardi, A. (2017). Defining landscape justice: the role of landscape in supporting wellbeing of migrants, a literature review. Landscape Research, 42 (sup1) S74–S89. Iglicka, K. (2001). Migration Movements from and into Poland in the Light of East‐West European Migration. International Migration, 39 (1) 3–32. Legomsky, S. (2007). The new path of immigration law: Asymmetric incorporation of criminal justice norms. Washington and Lee Law Review, 64 (2) 469–528. Lopez, J., & Porter, G. (Eds.). (2002). After Postmodernism: The Challenge for Critical Realism. Athlone Press. Marshall, T. H. (1964). Citizenship and social class. In T. H. Marshall (Ed.), Class, Citizenship and Social Development: Essays by T. H. Marshall, (Ch. 3), pp. 46–85. Doubleday. Massey, D. S., Kalter, F., & Pren, K. A. (2008). Structural economic change and international migration from Mexico and Poland. Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 60 (48) 134–161.

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Sipavičienė, A. (Ed.). (1997). International Migration in Lithuania: Causes, Consequences, Strategy. Brussels: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Stumpf, J. (2006). The crimmigration crisis: Immigrants, crime and sovereignty power. American University Law Review, 56 (2) 367–419. Wacquant, L. (2008). Extirpate and expel: On the penal management of postcolonial migrants in the European Union. Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, 2 (1) 45–52. Yeung, H. W. C. (1997). Critical realism and realist research in human geography: A method or a philosophy in search of a method? Progress in Human Geography, 21 (1) 51–74.

2

Using Critical Realism to Understand Migrant Homelessness and Crimmigration Control

Introduction The purpose of this chapter is three-fold. First, this chapter outlines the main theoretical framework for the study, detailing how embedding critical realism in biographical approaches provides an ontological basis for the research, details the main causal features to be investigated, integrates structure and agency, and offers an opportunity for reflexivity and moral realism. The second main aim is to identify the specific causal features underpinning the migrant homelessness experience (based on notions of shelter poverty, choice and constraint). The final objective is to situate the study within a context of the punitive nature of the modern ‘carceral’ state, described as a ‘crimmigration’ process. I introduce the notion of the ‘carceral state’ observed within the complex interplay between multiple nested systems. Such a ‘system of systems’, referring to the number of systems that come together to turn homeless migrants into criminals or ‘crimmigrants’, is experienced more severely by migrants than other similarly marginalised groups insofar as those lacking legal status are subject to the punitive consequences of poverty and status (e.g., as a ‘migrant’, as a ‘rough sleeper’, etc.). Increasingly, migrants are the object of ‘crimmigration control’—the intentional creation of a very ‘hostile environment’ for migrants resulting from a convergence of immigration and criminal law observed more recently in western democracies. A similar process has been described by ‘zemiologists’ who outline various ‘social harms’ inflicted upon migrant groups (and third-party intermediaries) through a combination of degradation by design, corrosive control, bureaucratic banality and abject asylum (Canning & Tombs, 2021). In outlining the conceptual framework, the chapter explains how key concepts (crimmigration and shelter poverty) inform the subsequent empirical material—conducted through a combination of biographical enquiry, interviews with stakeholders and an analysis of homelessness theory. The chapter argues that using a ‘realist’ biographical approach enables an understanding of the causal features underlying social phenomena; ‘crimmigration’ helps explain the socio-legal and ideological DOI: 10.4324/9781003264484-2

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Understand Migrant Homelessness and Crimmigration Control

context for the study. The chapter argues that migrants’ homelessness experiences can best be understood through a crimmigration perspective that reveals how a (intentionally constructed) hostile environment constrains choice and forces households to make trade-offs amongst competing needs, such as housing.

The application of critical realism Critical realism’s value comes from helping to bridge the divide between structure and agency by hypothesising a stratified nature of reality, consisting of ‘real’ causal generative mechanisms which produce ‘actual’ social phenomena that exist independent of our (‘empirical’) knowledge of it (Fopp, 2008). In contrast to interpretivism, which in some variations questions the existence of ‘homelessness’ as objective fact, critical realism focuses on how contingent factors, in structured combination, have ‘real’ causal force if observed to have produced ‘actual’ homelessness at least some of the time (Easton, 2010). Unlike positivism, critical realism does not require constant conjunction or repeated occurrence in order to have real causal force (Patomäki & Wight, 2000). The concept of ‘emergent properties’ in critical realism refers to the causal forces that contingent factors have in their structured combination and allows for plural causation or the possibility that multiple (and even conflicting) explanations for homelessness can exist (Bhaskar, 2013). Both structural and individual explanations can therefore be valid without one being more relevant than the other, as both combine to create emergent properties (Fitzpatrick, 2005). One explanation does not come logically prior to another, as the structure/agency debate in social sciences suggests. As Price and Martin (2018) maintain, critical realism offers a number of opportunities for empirical, social science-based research. These benefits can be classified as follows. Firstly, by adopting a critical realist approach there is a commitment to ontology and opposition to idealism, founded on the notion that there is an independent, objective social world—albeit one which is transformed and reproduced by human action, informed by hermeneutics and what has been described as ‘epistemic relativism’. Critical realists maintain that social science can improve and refine knowledge about the real world and can offer (relatively justified) claims about reality, whilst acknowledging that such claims are historical, contingent and subject to change. A second benefit is a commitment to understanding causal factors (or generative mechanisms—as explained above). Critical realists use the terms ‘retroduction’ and ‘judgemental rationality’ to enable comparison and evaluation of theoretical explanations to determine the primary causal factors (or generative mechanisms) which underpin social phenomena such as homelessness. This book, therefore, considers the ways in which a ‘system of systems’ combines to produce constraint, and in this structured

Understand Migrant Homelessness and Crimmigration Control

13

combination operates as a ‘generative mechanism,’ referred to herein as crimmigration control. The third benefit of critical realism is its ability to effectively integrate both structure and agency (a key factor in determining policy and practice). As a crucial advantage of a realist biographical approach, Chapters 3–5 explore the importance of both individual and structural forces driving migration and subsequent homelessness, and thereby providing this book’s empirical basis. Fourthly, critical realists offer a commitment to interdisciplinarity (presenting theoretical insights from distinct perspectives—for example, legal studies, sociology, and criminology), which is considered in detail in Chapter 6. Alongside this final benefit is the application of reflexivity in social research (offering integration of theory and practice) and what can be termed ‘moral realism’ to enable an ethical dimension to the study.

Explanations of homelessness As this chapter demonstrates, critical realism allows for the explicit exploration of causation and a clearer understanding of the causes of homelessness. In the late 20th century, much of the research into homelessness sought to understand its causes and largely reflected a wider debate in social theory concerning structure and agency (e.g., Culhane & Kuhn, 1998; Kennett & Marsh, 1999; Pleace, 1998; Sosin, 1988; Stefl, 1987). In the 1980s and 1990s, specifically, much of American and European literature conceptualised homelessness as either a social problem (embracing a pathological model suggesting homelessness had its origins in individual failings/deficits) (Murray, 1984; Wilson, 1987) or a housing problem insofar as homelessness was the consequence of wider social processes (such as housing shortages and entrenched social inequality) (Anderson & Christian, 2003; Loftus-Farren, 2011; Hallett, 1993; Wright & Lam, 1987). Entering into the 21st century, a ‘new orthodoxy’ has emerged, positing that structural variables, such as housing shortages, provide the conditions which make homelessness possible, but that people with specific attributes, such as ill mental health or substance dependencies, are more at risk of homelessness. Therefore, a large proportion of the people that do become homeless have high support needs (Fitzpatrick & Christian, 2006; Bramley & Fitzpatrick, 2018). In challenging a strict individualist interpretation, Benjaminsen (2016) acknowledges that causation is multidirectional and that existing ill mental health, for example, is likely to be exacerbated by homelessness and not necessarily the causal force underlying homelessness. The new orthodoxy, therefore, attempts to integrate structural and individual accounts, whilst asserting the primacy of structural causes (Fitzpatrick, 2005). The new belief also suggests that there are forces at work that make it more likely that some people will become homeless given a certain set of

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circumstances. Building on this premise, Shinn (2007) argues that it is the combination of policy, social exclusion and individual risk factors that causes people to be the most vulnerable to homelessness. More recently, analysis of official datasets containing time series and longitudinal data on social exclusion and poverty in the UK refuted the mantra that ‘we are all two paycheques away from homelessness’ by clearly demonstrating that the incidence of homelessness is not randomly distributed across the population, but rather structured around a set of identifiable individual, social and structural factors (Bramley & Fitzpatrick, 2018). Despite reconciling apparently divergent views of ‘minimalist’ and ‘maximalist’ accounts of homelessness (the former referring to the literally homeless, and the latter generally refers to the precariously housed), the new convention arguably lacks the theoretical robustness needed to explain the causes of homelessness. Specifically, Fitzpatrick (2005) argues that the new orthodoxy is ‘practically adequate’ but lacks any clear conceptualisation of causation. The following discussion explores the ways in which social theory addresses the divide between structure and agency in its application to homelessness. Research concerned with practical/policy solutions tend to focus more on taxonomic knowledge (the categories of things) in an attempt to establish how many homeless persons there are, and who these people tend to be (Aldeia, 2013). Importantly, homelessness is a politically contested concept—how homelessness is conceived and theorised has important implications for resource distribution and public policy and has real consequences for the lives of people included (and excluded) from such resource and policy decisions. Homelessness can be described as comprising a spectrum of severity, ranging from the ‘literally homeless’, including those sleeping rough or staying in emergency shelters, to the ‘precariously housed’ which encompasses a range of circumstances such as overcrowding, substandard housing and insecurity of tenure (Toro, 2007, p. 463). Importantly, the temporality of homelessness is also considered where the duration of specific housing circumstances is used to determine who is and who is not homeless—as in, the longer someone is homeless, the more homeless they are considered to be (Pleace, 2010). Furthermore, homelessness is differentiated by characteristics, recognising that different groups of people, such as single persons or migrants, experience homelessness in different ways. This section considers the varied ways homelessness is interpreted, understood in terms of severity, temporality and the characteristics of homeless persons through a focus on migrant homelessness. The severity of housing conditions and circumstances experienced by individual homeless persons is a common frame for defining homelessness in research and policy. Using individual housing circumstances as a starting point for conceptualising homelessness has arguably polarised research, with studies broadly characterised by either using literal,

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minimalist and absolute definitions of homelessness (Mackie, 2015) or adopting maximalist and relative definitions of homelessness by investigating the ‘precariously housed’ (Toro, 2007, p. 463). The former tends to narrowly focus on ‘visible homelessness’ (Nicholls, 2009, p. 74), whilst the latter includes ‘hidden homelessness’ in definitions (Fiedler et al., 2006, p. 207). Minimalist accounts of homelessness include those staying in emergency shelters or people sleeping in places not intended for human habitation, such as public spaces or disused property. A maximalist definition of homelessness includes street and shelter homelessness, but further encompasses a variety of other housing circumstances that would place households at risk of becoming literally homeless. Precarious housing can describe the situations of people living in poor housing conditions, ‘doubling up’ with friends or family not by choice, or having insecurity of tenure (Nicholls, 2009). To clarify the distinction between maximalist and minimalist accounts, other authors have employed the categories of ‘primary’, ‘secondary’ and ‘tertiary’ homelessness to refer to rough sleeping, residing in emergency accommodation and other ‘lesser’ forms of homelessness, such as couch surfing, respectively (Culhane et al., 2011; Parsell & Marston, 2012; Montgomery et al., 2013; Mackie, 2015; and Szeintuch, 2016). In addition to the specific housing circumstances of homeless people, temporality also determines how homelessness is conceived. Kuhn and Culhane (1998) suggest that there are three distinct forms of homelessness when the duration and frequency of incidences are taken into consideration: episodic, transitional and chronic. Episodic homelessness refers to when both the duration and frequency of homelessness are short, for example, when a person requires emergency shelter following a specific crisis, but is soon able to move on to more stable housing. Transitional homelessness is similar to the episodic category in that homelessness is triggered by some unexpected or one-time event, but the duration is much longer as the individual struggles to move out of homelessness. In contrast, for the chronically homeless both the duration and the frequency is much longer, where temporary shelters effectively act as permanent housing for the most extreme examples in this category (Kuhn & Culhane, 1998; Culhane et al., 2011). Furthermore, McAllister et al. (2010) argue that the timing and sequence of homelessness is also important to better understand the problem’s extent. By replicating the 1998 Kuhn and Culhane study, the authors suggest that homelessness can be better characterised by four distinct categories: temporary, structural/continuous, structured/intermittent and unstructured/intermittent. However, defining homelessness by the sequence in which it occurs has been criticised by some for failing to take into account the full individual histories which contribute to homelessness and that taking ‘selected episodes of rooflessness’, for

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example, serves to diminish the humanity of homeless persons (Somerville, 2013). The next section distinguishes homelessness by characteristic and uses a ‘whole person’ approach to understanding homelessness, directing attention to the human condition by identifying common factors which bound specific categorisations of homeless persons, whilst appreciating the diversity within these groups (Djuve et al., 2015).

The construction of migrant homelessness Much of the research into migrant homelessness acknowledges the problem of operationally defining ‘migrants’ and ‘homelessness’, particularly for comparative studies, as these concepts vary considerably between countries and jurisdictions (Pleace, 2010; Shinn, 2007). For example, in one study (Dwyer et al., 2018), a United Nations definition of international migration is used to define migrants as any person moving to a country other than their residence for a period of at least a year so that the new country effectively becomes their new residence. In contrast, a study of homelessness in Britain defined migrants as any persons born outside the UK who migrated as adults aged 16 or older (Fitzpatrick et al., 2013). Determining who is and who is not a migrant can be devised by a number of characteristics, such as country of birth, citizenship, nationality, ethnic origin, migration pathway, immigration status and various temporal dimensions (Dwyer et al., 2018). However, previous research has questioned the usefulness of ‘migrant homelessness’ as a distinct category, arguing that the features which make a ‘migrant’ vulnerable to homelessness rest purely in the length of time of establishing residence, thereby emphasising the temporal dimension as having causal force, rather than immigration status itself (Lindquist et al., 1999). Differing approaches to defining who is and who is not a homeless migrant present particular challenges for comparative studies. Difficulties arise when attempting to reconcile variations in methodology, definitions and sampling, in addition to differences in policies designed to alleviate poverty and homelessness (Fitzpatrick & Stephens, 2013). Likewise, relying on official homelessness statistics is unlikely to capture migrant homelessness in a meaningful way as this population may be less inclined to access services on which these figures are largely based (Mayock & Sheridan, 2012). Furthermore, in countries that rely on data from social housing applications, such as France, homeless migrants are likely to be conspicuously absent from official counts as this group is less likely to apply, or be eligible, than homeless nationals. In most cases, irregular migrants without documented legal status will be missing from available data sets due to this population’s need to conceal themselves for fear of being exposed to immigration authorities (Pleace, 2010; McDonald, 1998). In addition to such categorical difficulties associated with investigating migrant homelessness, prevailing research in this relatively new area of

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concern for housing studies tends to also reflect wider debates about structure and agency within social science. Such studies provide what Bhaskar (2013) might describe as isomorphic ‘surface’ knowledge—offering explanations that share the same context or configuration which gives rise to the phenomena, but with different ‘quantities’ of variables (e.g., individual and structural causes). The following offers an overview of the literature on migrant homelessness, including individual explanations for migrant homelessness and other studies which emphasise structural origins.

Individualist accounts of migrant homelessness Individualist accounts of migrants focus on personal circumstances, characteristics or preferences such as life events, cultural attainment and local knowledge, social networks, and engagement with formal support systems. Adopting a social work perspective, for example, Amundson (2018) points to the different interventions needed for migrant groups to escape homelessness, such as employment assistance, job training and help with accessing housing, to address the individual circumstances that can act as barriers to housing for migrants. Having a limited social support network has been identified as a source of precarity for migrants, which in some cases has been seen to be abated by the intervention of social work to help access housing and employment (Hersberger, 2003; Mostowska, 2011). The implication of these studies is that although engagement with formal services may be infrequent for migrant groups, particularly those lacking legal status, when these services are approached, the intervention is intensive for service providers. However, some migrants may have limited knowledge of administrative support systems (Fitzpatrick et al., 2013) and, therefore, have difficulty accessing social support. New migrants in particular might be unfamiliar with cultural norms or may face language barriers. Meda (2010) suggests that the risks posed by such initial cultural barriers abate with time as migrants build up informal support, become more familiar with the local culture, learn the local language, access the labour market and secure housing for themselves. Traumatic life events for anyone, not just migrants, can trigger a downward spiral of instability and, in the worst cases, homelessness. In a study of multiple exclusion homelessness in the UK, traumatic life events were found to be more influential triggers of homelessness for migrants than for the UK-born groups (Fitzpatrick et al., 2013). For some migrants, the process of migration itself may involve a traumatic life event, such as fleeing persecution, and may impact mental health and well-being later in life. Some studies have found that women are disproportionately more likely to experience traumatic events in their country of origin, during migration and after arriving in the host country, and consequently, are more vulnerable to homelessness (Roze et al., 2020; Mayock & Sheridan, 2012).

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For a variety of reasons, migrants may be less likely to access formal support services when confronted with or threatened by homelessness, possibly as a result of the stigma attached to such services (Garapich, 2014). Migrants uncertain of their eligibility for support, particularly those with irregular migration status, may fear criminal prosecution or repatriation when using homelessness services (Pleace, 2010). Others may feel ill-catered for by official support services and are more likely to exhaust informal social networks before resorting to formal agencies for assistance (Springer et al., 2006). Similarly, some individuals reject critical services for fear of being stigmatised in their community (Taylor, 2017). However, as Stewart and Sanders (2022) argue, such avoidant behaviour should not necessarily be read as purely idiosyncratic explanations of homelessness, but instead be considered as a ‘cultivated invisibility’: referring to a ‘habitual, deeply-ingrained mode of practice through which migrants respond to and navigate their experiences’ which ‘becomes a cause of illegalisation, just as much as a response to it’ (p. 1). Indeed, there are a number of individual factors and characteristics which make migrants vulnerable to homelessness—as a peoplebased typology of migrant homelessness suggests—however, as Stewart and Sanders (2022) demonstrate, the causal link between migration and homelessness is multifaceted and multidirectional.

Structural explanations of migrant homelessness In general, immigration policy distinguishes between who is and who is not a citizen, who does and does not have the right to enter or remain and delineates the assorted rights and responsibilities associated with different immigration statuses. In the UK, for example, immigration legislation enacted within the last 20 years clearly links immigration status with rights of residence, work and welfare (Dwyer et al., 2018). Access to employment, welfare, and housing is determined by one’s immigration status and, therefore, significantly impacts the resources available at any given time. Arguably, over and above any other contributing factor, immigration policies determine the degree of vulnerability a migrant has in becoming homeless or the ability to escape homelessness. The following reviews the various structural explanations for homelessness amongst migrants. These explanations relate to the intersections between race, gender and class in the production of precarity. As this research demonstrates, migrant homelessness is structurally located within neoliberal ideologies that govern welfare policy (e.g., in policy agendas stressing austerity imperatives) and within a deepening orientation towards populism, isolationism and nativism in immigration policy seen across western democracies with the creeping expansion of crimmigration. Crucially, in times of crisis—such as the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and, more recently, the global pandemic beginning

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in 2019—crimmigration control measures have intensified, effectively ‘locking out’ migrant groups from the labour market (Briggs et al., 2021; Juul, 2022), emergency housing (Barbu et al., 2021) and lawful residency vis-à-vis deportations as a consequence of engaging formal support (Serpa 2021; Morgan, 2021). In focussing on the importance of the welfare state in ameliorating (and producing) housing problems, Mayock and Sheridan (2012) argue that understanding how welfare regimes intersect with immigration law is critical for understanding migrant homelessness—given that immigration and welfare policies tend to be mutually reinforcing. Without income from wages or benefits, migrants lacking legal status must rely on alternative sources of income such as money from charities or friends and families. Destitution is arguably more common for homeless migrants as, depending on the source of funding, public services for homeless people are not always accessible to those lacking full citizenship (Le Méner & Oppenchaim, 2012). Additionally, race and racism impact the housing outcomes of migrants both directly, in the form of discrimination in housing and labour markets, but also indirectly, in the differential treatment of people from diverse nationalities in welfare and immigration systems. The formal operation of social security is, in theory, racially blind in both the UK and the U.S., yet inequality persists between different ethnic groups within the system. Hiebert (2009) for example, observed a similar pattern of racial inequality in North America where the proportion of immigrants in precarious housing situations drops significantly in the early settlement period, but notably, this trend does not apply to Black and Middle Eastern immigrants. Related to race and racism, segregation is also an important explanatory factor in migrant homelessness whereby increased spatial isolation causes the social exclusion of entire groups of people (Meert et al., 2006). Fiedler et al. (2006) observed that where recent immigrants are concentrated in poor areas, isolation is likely to worsen their situation and exacerbate social dislocation and exclusion. Similarly, Nordfeldt (2012) argues that segregation is an important explanation for migrant homelessness and that income, education and occupation alone cannot explain the extent of disadvantage experienced by new migrants. Maloutas (2012) contrasts American urban deprivation with that experienced in Europe by emphasising the role comparatively lower residential mobility plays in segregation and social exclusion. Class, as marked by one’s status in the labour and housing market, also provides an additional structural explanation for migrant homelessness. For example, varying restrictions on accessing public support and employment combined with existing individual disadvantage places many new migrants in a precarious financial position. Several studies of migrant experiences in North America document the level of ‘shelter poverty’—which Stone (1993) describes as foregoing one or more major

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necessities, such as food and fuel, so as to maintain and afford accommodation—often characterises the early re-settlement process. Hiebert (2009) explains that shelter poverty is most prevalent amongst low-skilled workers due in large part to being more likely to be in singleperson households and therefore least able to pool costs. Similarly, Teixeira and Halliday (2010) found that new migrants to Canada viewed temporary overcrowding as an acceptable trade-off to be able to afford housing and that many new migrants used doubling up, subletting and couch surfing as a strategy to avoid shelter poverty and homelessness. Compounding a lack of personal resources to secure a sustainable home, the re-settlement process is made more difficult by a lack of affordable housing available to migrants either as a matter of supply in general or due to restricted access—or both. For example, compared to the U.S., the UK has a sizeable supply of social housing, but these units may not be available for migrants due to legal status. However, in North America, there is less restriction on migrants accessing public housing in principle, but there is a smaller pool of homes for social rent and, therefore, greater competition (Hiebert, 2009). Given the precarious position many migrants occupy in the housing market, Preston and Murnaghan (2005) argue that, barring income improvement or an increase in affordable housing, many migrants will continue to be at risk of homelessness. Gender is another factor that explains structural constraints vis-à-vis the influence of patriarchy upon migrant communities. Towards the end of the 20th century, several commentators noted the changing profile of homelessness and how increasingly the homeless population no longer overwhelmingly comprised single, older, white men. Dubbed the ‘new homeless’, this heterogeneous group included women and children, minority groups (Stefl, 1987), those in retirement and young people with no job experience (Kennett & Marsh, 1999). Nordfeldt (2012) explains a rise in female homelessness is a logical extension of the general trend towards a ‘feminisation of poverty’. Female migrants may not only be disadvantaged by gender but are also confronted with what Bürkner (2012) describes as ‘triple oppression’ on the dimensions of race, class and gender. Ruiz (1987) adds citizenship to this oppression model to describe a ‘quadruple whammy’ faced by female migrants. Disproportionately affected by gender-based violence, this further adds to the marginalisation of migrant women, with those fleeing abusive relationships being particularly at risk of homelessness and destitution (Anić & Trbojević, 2022; Bretherton & Mayock, 2021). Migrants, therefore, may constitute a unique group with regard to the predominance of structural over individual causes of homelessness, when compared to other categories of homeless people. For example, the lower incidence of multiple exclusion homelessness experienced by homeless migrants perhaps suggests that the inability to access welfare, housing or labour systems is the primary contributor to their situation as opposed to

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any ‘deviant’ behaviour (Fitzpatrick et al., 2013). Elsewhere, economic conditions were found to be the dominant risk factor for migrants in Sweden (Nordfeldt, 2012); and in Spain, migrants were more susceptible to homelessness despite having higher educational backgrounds and stronger work histories due to restricted access to benefits (Meda, 2010). Similarly, migrants in Denmark were found to be overrepresented in the shelter populations despite having a much lower prevalence of ‘comorbidities’, such as substance dependencies and ill mental health, compared to non-migrant groups (Benjaminsen, 2016). Individual characteristics, including behaviours or attitudes, alone cannot account for housing difficulties amongst migrant groups—although such idiosyncrasies might make one more or less at risk. As the following section reveals, homelessness and destitution are intentional consequences of a crimmigration control system embedding bordering practices within housing and welfare systems.

Migrant homelessness and the emerging crimmigration control system In North America and Europe, the ‘securitization of migration’ in the 21st century has grown, with immigration increasingly represented as offering a threat to national security (Huysmans, 2006; Bigo, 2005; Bourbeau, 2011; Barker, 2012; Aas, 2013; Guia, 2013). Given this context, such approaches to migration contrast with earlier, more liberal approaches; for instance, the U.S. has historically offered sanctuary to immigrants (reflected in Emma Lazarus’ famous lines ‘give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses’, inscribed on the Statue of Liberty at Ellis Island). Similarly, the UK upheld the free movement of persons for at least a generation following accession to the European Union in 1972 with the Treaty of Accession of Denmark, Ireland, and the United Kingdom—at least until Britain’s exit from the EU in 2020. Yet, in these countries (and indeed in other western democracies), immigration is increasingly portrayed as a threat to state security, economic stability and national identity, accompanied by an exclusionary and repressive political and social discourse (d’Appollonia & Reich, 2008; Koulish, 2010; van der Leun & van der Woude, 2013). In the U.S., a series of legislative reforms concerning immigration, national security and welfare (since 1996) has established a programme of ‘crimmigration’, or the convergence of criminal and immigration law (Stumpf, 2006; García Hernández, 2013). More recently (in 2012) in Britain, former Prime Minister Theresa May introduced a suite of social policy reforms to create a ‘hostile environment’ (Bowling & Westenra, 2018) towards immigrants (documented and undocumented) which served to blur immigration and criminal law in the constituent countries of the UK (Virdee & McGeever, 2018; Goodfellow, 2019). The emergence of an observable crimmigration control system in the neoliberal

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regimes of the U.S. and UK has important implications for social citizenship (in civil, social and political realms) in an era marked by globalisation, austerity, populism, punitive welfare systems and rising farright extremism (Marshall, 1963; King & Waldron, 1988; Room, 1999; Ketola & Nordensvard, 2018). This study, therefore, seeks to establish the relative importance of ostensibly (neo)liberal welfare regimes (Esping-Andersen, 1990) through a comparison of migrant homelessness in the U.S. and the UK. As an emerging area of crimmigration law was established in the U.S. at the end of the 20th century, and in the UK some two decades later, migrants in both countries (and, arguably elsewhere in North America and Europe) have experienced increasing social exclusion and marginalisation, alongside a reversal of civil and social rights accompanying the extension of crimmigration control across multiple domains of social life. Specifically in the UK, the growing economic and social precarity of migrants at the start of the 21st century has been an increasingly important focus of public policy—following the enlargement of the European Union in 2004 and 2007; and later in 2020 with Britain’s exit from the European Union. Greater freedom of movement across Europe has increased the number of migrants to the UK, and, relatedly, a greater number of migrants across Britain have experienced homelessness upon being confronted by a number of systemic barriers to achieving a stable home in Britain (Dwyer et al., 2018; Edgar et al., 2004; Fitzpatrick et al., 2013). For some migrants, the interaction of several systems, such as immigration, labour, welfare and housing markets, creates a reinforcing cycle of poverty that, once trapped inside, is difficult to escape (Dwyer et al., 2018). Found in a ‘Catch-22’ situation, systematically excluded migrants become unable to afford housing due to low pay or no income, which in itself is a barrier to securing employment (e.g., due to travel/commute costs) that is needed to pay for accommodation (Mayock & Sheridan, 2012). This situation is made more complicated for those who have limited or no entitlement to welfare assistance (Le Méner & Oppenchaim, 2012). Migrants facing work and welfare restrictions due to their immigration status have few housing options and, in extreme cases, this can result in homelessness and destitution as the following sections of this chapter outline. Immigration policies have thus become a highly contested field of ‘symbolically shifted dynamics’ which serve to reinforce social norms and values, preserve national identity and remind people of the worth of citizenship (Di Molfetta & Brouwer, 2020). As Stumpf (2006) argues, crimmigration sees a convergence between two domains of law, resulting in a parallel system in which immigration law has absorbed the theories, methods and perceptions of the criminal justice system. Significantly, as Di Molfetta and Brouwer (2020) maintain, blurring the boundaries between migration and crime control involves a rejection of standard

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procedural and normative safeguards—‘drawing of moral boundaries, a traditional concern of criminal law, is performed not only through the discourse of punishment, but also through practices of banishment and expulsion’ (Aas, 2007, p. 81). Consequently, the criminal apparatus is turned towards control of unwanted mobility and territorial exclusion (Aas, 2013). The value of crimmigration is to illuminate ‘legally hybrid pathways to punishment’ (Beckett & Marakawa, 2012, p. 223) and the notion of a ‘bordered penality’ (Di Molfetta & Brouwer, 2020) as a deeply exclusionary mechanism that erects territorial and social barriers between ‘us’, the citizens, and ‘them’, the foreigners (Aas, 2013). Furthermore, crimmigration notices the onerousness and coerciveness of administrative measures (Di Molfetta & Brouwer, 2020, p. 315) and the operation of what has been termed a ‘censure machine’ (Simester & von Hirsch, 2011) whereby administration measures (traditionally designed as preventative) can be seen as part of a social exclusion project and a reaffirmation of citizenship’s worth. Hence: ‘Feelings of shame, stigma and exclusion are all part of the censure machine set in motion by punishment and should be seen as a crucial earmark in unravelling the “crimmigration knot” and drawing the boundaries between criminal and administrative measures’ (Di Molfetta & Brouwer, 2020, p. 315). Punishment can be seen as an expressive measure of condemnation—performed through the stigma of breaking community norms and values. Hence, we can witness measures such as deportation which may not legally qualify as punishment per se, but nevertheless, reproduce the same message. There has been considerable work done on theorising crimmigration in legal scholarship and criminology, but to date, the literature has limited engagement with wider sociological theory (Weber & McCulloch, 2019; Mythen & Walklate, 2006; Bosworth & Guild, 2008) and the work of Bourdieu appears largely absent from much of the discussion (except in Jiang and Erez, 2018). Bourdieu’s (2014) work is important in framing the concept of ‘symbolic violence’, in terms of the state’s ability to classify through the power of naming and categorisation and the ability to create meaning, status and legitimacy. Wacquant’s (1999) idea of the ‘rightward tilting of the state’ provides a useful framework to understand the way that migration and criminalisation have become intertwined. His analysis of neoliberalism is influenced by the work of Bourdieu (1998)—particularly the concept of the ‘rightward titling of the bureaucratic field’. Wacquant’s ideas have three main components. The first element of his argument is that neoliberalism is ‘not an economic regime but a political project of state-crafting that puts disciplinary “workfare”, neutralising “prisonfare” and the trope of individual responsibility at the service of commodification’ (p. 66). The second component is that neoliberalism ‘entails a rightward tilting of the space of bureaucratic agencies that define and distribute public goods

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and spawns a Centaur-state that practises liberalism at the top of the class structure and punitive paternalism at the bottom’ (ibid.). The final element is that ‘the growth and glorification of the penal wing of the state is an integral component of the neoliberal Leviathan, such that the police, courts and prison need to be brought into the political anthropology of neoliberal rule’ (ibid.). The idea of ‘state crafting’ is used to depict the trajectory of change involving the ‘broader redrawing of the perimeter of responsibility of the state operating simultaneously on economic, social welfare and penal fronts’ (Wacquant, 2012, p. 255). Wacquant (2008) has written about the experience of migrants in Europe, arguing that there has been a twofold ostracisation of migrants based on external removal (‘expulsion’) and internal ‘extirpation’ (via incarceration). Wacquant (ibid) comments that policy changes are not the result of any hostility to migrants but rather the ‘vastly greater capacity and propensity of the state to deploy its penal resources at both the national and the supranational levels’ (p. 51) (although one could argue that the consequences of such deployment constitute a targeted hostility). The role of the state in generating ‘advanced marginality’ (Wacquant, 2009) is central. For Wacquant, what is new about neoliberalism is not a withdrawal of the state but the ‘remaking and redeployment of the state as the core agency that actively fabricates the subjectivities, social relations and collective representations suited to making the fiction of markets real and consequential’ (2012, p. 68, emphasis in original). Wacquant’s work on the ‘penalisation of poverty’ combines the concept of ‘the iron fist of the penal state’ with the ‘invisible hand of the market’, in conjunction with the ‘fraying of the social safety net’ (2012, p. 67). As Wacquant contends, the ‘institutional core’ of neoliberalism consists of an ‘articulation of state, market, and citizenship that harnesses the first to impose the stamp of the second onto the third’ (p. 71, emphasis in original). The state’s role in generating ‘advanced marginality’ and the precarity of migrants is therefore crucial. These ideas have clear relevance to the management of migration (see, e.g., Crawford, McKee, & Leahy, 2019) and demonstrate how the services provided by public and third-sector agencies can be co-opted in the service of neoliberal governance, resulting in the ‘criminalisation of status’ (p. 238). However, as Crawford, McKee, and Leahy (2019) reveal, the state is ‘not a neutral monolith but a site of perpetual struggle and contestation’ and this book examines the tensions and contradictions in migration’s governance.

Conclusion In outlining the understandings, explanations and experiences of homelessness, this chapter demonstrated how homelessness can be defined: in

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terms of the circumstances of homeless people (severity), the duration and timing of homelessness (temporality) and the categorisation of people affected by homelessness (characteristic). The ways in which homelessness is defined follow from theories and assumptions about the causes of and solutions to the problem. Homelessness research broadly falls within two camps, one which conceives homelessness as a social problem, and the other viewing it as a housing problem. Those believing homelessness primarily to be a social problem generally argue that some character trait or personal deficit is the cause of homelessness (Radu, 2012) and, therefore, the appropriate policy response is to treat the afflicted person with a gauntlet of services and institutionalisation or, worse, punish them with sanctions, expulsion and incarceration. This camp tends to focus its research on the literally homeless, those living on the streets or in emergency shelters, often coming from a clinical psychology or criminal justice perspective (Fitzpatrick & Christian, 2006). In reaction to early pathological explanations of homelessness, the latter camp rejects the notion that people cause their own hardship, either deliberately or as a function of a cultural flaw, and instead argues that widening income inequality brought on by free market capitalism and neoliberal policies creates severe destitution for the classes at the bottom of society. In this way, homelessness is an extreme result of housing market flaws and, therefore, the logical response is to intervene and increase the supply of affordable housing (Fiedler et al., 2006). More recent research into homelessness (from the start of 21st century) has acknowledged the shortcomings of a stark division between individualist and structuralist accounts of homelessness and instead arrives at a new orthodoxy that seeks to bridge the two divergent and opposing debates. This hybrid of the two theoretical camps within social thought challenges the pathological view by recognising the correlation between rising income inequality and a deepening housing need, but also questions structural explanations of homelessness by refusing to dismiss the sizable proportion of homeless households, especially the literally homeless, with support needs. Proponents of this ‘new orthodoxy’ would argue that certain attributes make one more or less vulnerable to structural forces, which make homelessness possible (Fitzpatrick & Christian, 2006, p. 316). The value of critical realism is in adding an interpretive dimension to homelessness and, consistent with the ‘new orthodoxy’, in enabling an investigation of causal forces giving equal attention to both structure and agency. The ability to examine the importance of agential factors within the context of systemic constraints by unpicking which factors at its minimum contribute to homelessness from those which have causal force but do not require constant conjunction, allows for a deeper understanding of which factors contribute to homelessness and to what extent they may be a determining factor.

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As homelessness research has developed, the understanding of the problem has evolved from that of an exceptional malady affecting a narrow segment of the population (namely single roofless men with unmet support needs) to that of a variously manifested social phenomenon affecting a wide spectrum of society. With this reinterpretation of homelessness as a much more complex problem than hitherto suggested, greater attention has been given to understanding the influence of wider social processes and their interaction in creating the conditions that contribute to homelessness, whilst providing a greater understanding of how and why different groups experience homelessness in varying ways. By combining a critical realist philosophical approach with biographical enquiry, this study enables an authentic voice to emerge from a group that has been largely marginalised from debates about homelessness. As this book argues, migrant groups are a special case for homelessness research as they are subject to additional constraints imposed by the ‘crimmigration control system’ (Bowling & Westenra, 2018). As discussed in earlier sections, critical realism points to the importance of multiple nested systems to explain homelessness (none of which come logically prior) and draws attention to the manifold ways in which a ‘system of systems’ combines to constrain choice. However, as this book will reveal, such a ‘system of systems’ is experienced more severely by migrant groups (compared to other similarly constrained households). By adopting a crimmigration perspective in which to analyse migrant homelessness, the research demonstrates how the legal structures of converging areas of administrative and criminal law are activated within a ‘system of systems’ through the introduction of civil penalties for immigration ‘crimes’ (such as forcible detention or deportation without due process, or equal protection afforded to citizens). Crimmigration scholarship can therefore address gaps in explanatory knowledge around migrant homelessness by accessing the empirical level of the experience of a very ‘hostile environment’ for migrants dealing with not only poverty’s punitive consequences, but also status (immigration/legal). The following chapters explain more fully the ways in which individuals and families cope with extreme housing needs (and crimmigration control more broadly) following their experience of migration.

References Aas, K. F. (2007). Globalisation and Crime. Sage. Aas, K. F. (2013). The ordered and the bordered society: Migration control, citizenship and the northern penal state. In K. F. Aas, & M. Bosworth (Eds.), The Borders of Punishment. Migration, Citizenship, and Social Exclusion, (pp. 21–39). Oxford University Press.

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Three Drivers of Migration—Survival, Freedom and Opportunity

Introduction The strength of crimmigration as a theoretical frame for interpreting migrant homelessness lies within its explanation of how the border of nations reaches inward, beyond territorial boundaries and deep into civil society, to produce constraint and ‘advanced’ marginality amongst migrant groups. Within crimmigration scholarship, however, there is a limited empirical base offering the lived experience of crimmigration control from either the perspective of migrants, or third-party intermediaries responsible for bordering practices in civil society (notable exceptions include Leyro & Stageman, 2018; Ogg, 2019; Franko, 2019). Furthermore, attention is generally limited to the resettlement stage of migration, lacking consideration for processes and events preceding migration beyond contextual information which provides the basis for determining legal status in the receiving country. This chapter addresses these lacunae through the introduction of realist biographies—‘life story’ accounts of migration from men and women who have moved across borders (for example from Central America to the U.S., and from Central Europe to the UK), to better understand why people take such risks and make sacrifices. By unpicking the various reasons and emphasising the ‘social situatedness that differentiates migrant experiences’ (Lawson, 2000, p. 186), this study examines the entire migration process and does not just focus on what happens post-settlement. A better understanding of the various priorities, preferences and values which underlie the migration experience helps determine the linkages between migration and homelessness by contextualising the coping strategies adopted by migrants in response to homelessness, whilst bringing attention to wider forces that give rise to migration, namely global inequalities and uneven development. This chapter begins with an introduction to the ways in which the drivers of migration can be understood to provide a historicised and contextualised interpretation of why people migrate within a postcolonial perspective. This approach is counterposed with other insights into what compels people to decide to move to a new country, the aim DOI: 10.4324/9781003264484-3

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being not necessarily to analyse the causes of migration per se, but to locate where a realist biography approach fits within the contemporary understanding of mobility. The chapter then introduces the study participants by exploring individual stories of migration, along broad themes of survival, freedom and opportunity, so that consideration of economic processes and structural inequalities are ‘materialised’ in the foregrounding of migrant experiences of migration.

Theorising mobility Explanations of migration are frequently characterised by bifurcations; migrants are either voluntary or involuntary, economic or humanitarian, compelled by ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors, are legal or extra-legal, temporary or permanent (King, 2012). However, these dualities inadequately account for the human reasons for and circumstances surrounding migration, which are varied and complex. As this chapter demonstrates, such broad delineations are used to determine immigration status, and therefore one’s rights and responsibilities. As discussed in Chapter 2, these classifications are drawn from state power to categorise and confer status in order to deploy penal power—very rarely does a person cross borders for a single reason (as an imagined ‘economic’ migrant in search of a job), but rather by a catalogue of pursuits—such as love, excitement, enrichment, novelty—as well as work and family. Conceiving migration in such black and white terms tends to essentialise and exclude, supporting a preoccupation with the ‘problems of integration in the society of immigration’ (Samers, 1997, p. 59) rather than supporting a focus on the production of emigration. In response to apolitical and ahistorical depictions of migration, postcolonial perspectives draw attention to the socio-economic, cultural and historical situation of the migrants’ country of origin to understand how migration flows across the globe. Although such an approach explicitly supports the emancipation of subordinate societies, postcolonial thought is vulnerable to criticism for over-emphasising historical, cultural and theoretical explanations and for being less concerned with concrete inequalities and poverty (McEwan, 2003; San Juan, 1998). By interweaving structural influences alongside cultural explanations for migration, a ‘materialised’ version of postcolonialism locates international mobility within a wider process of global inequalities and uneven development (Blunt & McEwan, 2002; Cook & Harrison, 2003; Jacobs, 1996). In this perspective, as Hall (1996) explains, the world can be viewed as a series of linkages between cultures and economies revolving around the ‘metropole’ of Europe as a colonial power and the powerless ‘peripheries’ of the world. This empirical migration study draws on a materialised postcolonial perspective that situates the movement within inequalities of a globalised system; additionally, by bringing a realist biography into the fold, it also

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enables an understanding that appreciates structure and agency within gendered, racialised and class hierarchies. Biographical accounts capture the voices and viewpoints of those who migrate, thereby offering an important counterpoint to ‘grand’ (essentialised) narratives of mobility (Silvey & Lawson, 1999; Lawson, 2000). The value of capturing migration ‘stories’ is that they reflect complex constructions of migrant subjectivities, structured by gender, class and race (Dyck, 2005). This focus on agency, according to McEwan (2002) ‘recovers the lost historical and contemporary voices of the marginalised, the oppressed and the dominated’ (p. 128). However, Bailey et al. (2000) warn against a strict ‘post structuralism’ that involves ‘agency-heavy’ and ‘structure-light’ concepts of migration, advocating for an interpretive approach (Goss & Lindquist, 1995; Bailey 2001) that combines agency with other factors (such as cumulative causation, chain migration) to consider the state’s role in influencing migration. A realist biography approach that is sympathetic to postcolonial tradition, therefore, recognises how migrant agency intersects with structural factors in influencing migration processes. The following section examines structure and agency’s role, specifically how advanced marginality as a consequence of global inequalities has created crisis conditions from which one has to flee for a number of reasons—such as survival, freedom and opportunity.

Survival Migration motivated by survival is a response to the day-to-day struggle for subsistence and an inability to reliably meet basic needs for oneself and family members. Migration in itself is a survival strategy for those confronted by destitution, violence and persecution. In this study, those participants migrating for survival were more likely to comprise nationals from Central American and Caribbean countries, than participants from Eastern and Central Europe. This distinction was not particularly surprising given the relative levels of economic development and social instability between the two regions. Further, limited freedom of movement to the U.S. tends to make the difference between voluntary and involuntary migration starker, regardless of legal distinction. Thus, desperation generally motivates a higher risk tolerance, including those associated with moving across borders (legally or not) (Isacson et al., 2014). These participants’ situation more closely resembled an involuntary or humanitarian immigration class, despite the lack of formal refugee or asylum status. It should be noted that an important exception to this observation was in the case of Roma travellers who continue to suffer significant persecution in Romania and elsewhere in Europe (Crowe, 1999). Food insecurity, intolerable living conditions and an inability to access health and medical care threatened the lives of participants fleeing

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destitution and abject poverty. These respondents explained how remaining in their own country was no longer a choice for them and, at the extreme end, the decision to migrate was a matter of life or death. Material deprivation, for example, was a common theme in interviews with Haitians. Migration from Haiti to the U.S. accelerated in the last quarter of the 20th century due to an oppressive dictatorship and relaxed immigration policies under President Carter’s administration, and was later fuelled again by the humanitarian crisis caused by the 2010 earthquake that affected over three million people (Seraphin, 2018). For one Haitian participant, migration was a survival strategy to escape food insecurity. Mariana was in her early 20s and resided in an emergency family shelter with her newborn daughter. She explained how she came to Boston out of desperation to leave her home once she was no longer a minor. She describes how her oldest sister also left at a young age to pursue opportunities in Canada and support her family in Haiti. Mariana reflects on the first time she became aware of her deprivation as her sister would play a crucial role in her reassurance and sense of security: It’s hard growing up and every day you don’t eat you wonder if you’re going to be hungry. [My sister] was 14 when she left for Canada and that’s when I really realised that I was hungry one day with no food … she makes things look easy and when we were hungry and the stomach is growling, she’d say everything in your body makes music … because the nights we don’t eat we spend the whole night … telling jokes or singing or looking at the stars, do anything to distract us until we fell asleep. (Mariana, Haitian) Mariana explained how her insecurity led her to migrate to a country she had never been to and to stay with a father she had never met. She expressed great trepidation about her decision to migrate because of ‘rumours’ she had heard in her village about her father being disreputable and prone to alcoholism. Still, she was willing to risk living with a potentially dangerous stranger than continue to face the threat of starvation. She could accept such extreme risks for survival. Soon after migrating, Mariana became homeless after being abused by her father. Despite this hardship, she believed that being homeless in America still afforded her and her family more opportunities than if she had remained in Haiti. Mariana could not see a future in a country where physiological survival is not guaranteed. Similar sentiments were expressed by other Haitian participants, as well as Roma, stating they had had ‘no choice’ but to leave. Roma participants from Romania also made reference to experiencing material deprivation and migrating due to their concern about not being able to meet basic needs. For many Roma participants, the fall of

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communism in 1989 triggered chronic unemployment with the systematic closure of factories. In the following years, many of the Roma participants described supporting their families only by working for cash in hand in the informal economy. For Roma, it is not uncommon for multiple generations to live under one roof in a home passed down through the family or self-built after acquiring a government loan. These homes can be in informal settlements and often were not connected to infrastructure. Gheorgh, for example, described how migration was a survival strategy to escape intolerable living conditions. She explained how she lost her home due to its poor physical quality and lack of adequate shelter: It was always hard, always poor like this. There was this heavy rain and our house just collapsed. It was made of sun-dried mud bricks, shabby. It was what I afforded to build. It was my home. (Gheorgh, Roma) Upon becoming homeless, Gheorgh and her family temporarily stayed with her husband’s family in Romania, who also sheltered the families of two other siblings. She described being unable to endure the extreme overcrowding and her family’s desperation for a solution. She and her family came to Edinburgh after being taken there by a family friend who was described as a ‘transporter’. Gheorgh explained that she had no choice but to accept the transporter’s offer, despite having no plan for where to stay once in the city. For Gheorgh, her family would have been homeless in Romania or in Scotland, as they had exhausted their options, and it was implied that being homeless in Scotland was preferable. Like Mariana, Gheorgh could not see a future in Romania without the means to shelter herself and her family. A number of Roma participants explained that they were prepared to be homeless in Scotland because they perceived a level of opportunity was available in a new country that was not in their homeland. For other participants, migrating was part of a survival strategy to access lifesaving medical treatment. One Romanian participant described how in her early 20s she decided to undertake seasonal agricultural work in Scotland in order to pay for her mother’s operation. Alexandra explained how in Romania it was common practice to give ‘tips’ or ‘bribes’ to everyone responsible for providing her mother’s care, including the surgeon and after-care nurses. Another participant, Isabella, explained how her son suffered from heart trouble and required specialist treatment that was not available in the Dominican Republic. After a failed surgery in Columbia, she described how her sister in Boston encouraged her to migrate (without prior legal permission) so that she may save her son’s life. She knew Boston had world-renowned medical institutions which, by State law, would not deny her son life-saving treatment:

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Three Drivers of Migration—Survival, Freedom and Opportunity Before [my son] went into the surgery room he had heart attack and he died. The doctor said he was going to do everything possible, because he had a heart attack, but it seems that God brought him back to life because he came back to life. But he needs another surgery. [My sister] was the one that told me to come here, because here there were good doctors, so I came here looking for a cure for my son. (Isabella, Dominican)

In the cases of Mariana in Haiti, Gheorgh in Romania and Isabella in the Dominican Republic, their family would not have survived if they had not migrated. For Mariana, the threat of starvation was real, as her mother struggled to feed her and her two sisters. It seemed unlikely that she would be able to contribute economically, as she was tasked with minding the household whilst her mother worked in the market. In Gheorgh’s case, she was left roofless after her home collapsed, and she quickly found living in extremely overcrowded conditions untenable for her family. Finally, Isabella exhausted all resources by flying her son to another country for an unsuccessful operation. She knew that joining her sister in America was her last hope to save her son’s life. All three women faced huge risks and uncertainty, yet were willing to risk homelessness in their migration for survival. Having left their homes with very little means to support themselves, these women spoke of their (continued) struggles with homelessness and destitution following their migration. All three women found themselves in severe housing need (Mariana and Isabella in an emergency family shelter, and Gheorgh in extremely overcrowded conditions) several years after migrating to a place which—ostensibly—offered greater opportunities. Alongside meeting basic needs, fleeing social instability was also a recurring theme amongst respondents who migrated for survival. Some reflected how migration was vital to ensure personal safety for a number of reasons, such as a lack of social protection, lawlessness, political upheaval and corruption, and the inability of governments to respond to a natural disaster. Living in an atmosphere of insecurity made participants vulnerable to constant fear, and many had either been victims of real or threatened violence. For some, the threat originated in the home, whilst for others it was propagated by strangers, criminal gangs or militia. One participant explained how she believed her son’s life was at risk. She explained that she feared her American-borne son would be kidnapped if they had returned to Haiti. As Sofia explained, kidnapping was not uncommon in Haiti: My country is like that; it is an unsafe country. Since [kidnappers] knew that [my son] was born [in America], they wanted to take him. Because he was born here, they think that his family must have money. I wanted to save his life so stay here. (Sofia, Haitian)

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Nicolas told of a similarly harrowing tale of how he relocated from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico (a U.S. territory) when he was just 18 as part of a witness protection programme. He explained how he was able to obtain a visa as part of a deal for providing testimony in a homicide case. Nicolas explains how his life was at risk if he did not flee the Dominican Republic: I didn’t want to leave, but the gang members were looking for me. So, if I didn’t leave, they were going to kill my family. So, I upped and decided to leave. (Nicolas, Dominican) For others, the threat of violence came from within the home environment and migration was a survival strategy to escape abuse. One Polish migrant, Antoni, explained how he left home at a young age because he lived in a ‘pathological’ family where he and his mother endured years of physical abuse at the hands of his father who struggled with alcoholism. Another participant, Valeria from Guatemala, explained growing up with violence was a regular occurrence in the neighbourhood, including gang warfare—in addition to the brutality propagated by her father: I was desperate to get out of my house because. My father’s abuse, with my mom and with me, was really violent. He would kick us out into the street … . It was very intense, the domestic violence. (Valeria, Guatemalan) Violence not only had physical manifestations but could also be economic (instigated by State action). For example, one participant described how his family lost their home after the government removed private property rights and offered only limited economic restitution contingent on political support. Gabriel explained how he and his mother were displaced after being forced from their home in Bucharest and stripped of their assets. More than thirty years later, he was still seeking restitution for this injustice, in order to return one day to Romania: We were demolished in 1984 when the communists abusively confiscated our house. I did not get it [the property] or its equivalent, not even today. It’s not [worth] a very big sum of money, but I could buy a house, where I could live. I wouldn’t earn this sum of money in Scotland even that I would work for 20 years. Restitution was made for people who have millions of Euros. And they shared halfhalf with the civil servants/clerks. What can I say, we have an embarrassing country. That is why I left Romania. (Gabriel, M, Romanian)

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These cases demonstrate how extreme situations of physical and economic violence compel people to migrate for survival and reveal various dimensions of violence. People migrate after becoming victims of violence or if they had good cause to believe they or their families would suffer at the hands of others; violence can happen within the home by those known to us, outside by strangers or those acting on behalf of the government or other agencies; and violence can result in bodily, emotional and/or financial harm. People who migrate for survival seek security and are escaping places where, for one reason or another, social protection is not available to them or their families. These participants also explained having ‘no choice’ but to leave. Nicolas and Gabriel, for example, both longed for their previous homes and the lives they lived there prior to the violence of gang warfare and societal collapse. Finally, migration can be a survival strategy to escape persecution. People experience displacement when the state, or those acting in the state’s capacity, such as an armed militia, persecute people on the basis of their ethnicity, religious beliefs, political support, sexuality or some other characteristic or trait. Persecution can take many different forms, including systematic subjugation, oppression and imposing second-class citizenship, incarceration without due process, summary execution and other crimes against humanity. The displacement caused by ethnic persecution, for example, represents the destruction of ‘home’ on a mass scale (Porteous & Smith, 2001). Scholars have observed that the Roma people have experienced persecution by different societies at different points in time in a fashion similar to that suffered by Jewish groups. In the early 20th century, Weber (1920) described Roma as ‘pariah peoples’ and Pogany (2012, p. 375) has explained how Roma communities across Europe are characterised by ‘political and social dis-privilege’, ‘far reaching distinctiveness in economic functioning’ and ‘ritual separation from mainstream society’. In Romania, for example, Roma are not afforded citizenship as a birthright, and consequently many do not have Romanian passports (Pogany, 2012). This differential treatment has created a two-tier system of rights and obligations in Romania. All nine Roma participants in this study reported being treated as second-class citizens, in terms of access to education, housing, health care and employment in their home country, compared to their non-Roma Romanian counterparts. Elsewhere, persecution is more violent. For example, Valeria explained how migration was a survival strategy to escape political persecution in Guatemala. She described how she faced great danger since she supported the democratic opposition of a despot who was placed in power after a military coup. She was the only participant in the study who was offered humanitarian protection to flee persecution, however, she lost this Temporary Protected Status (TPS) once (relative) social stability returned to Guatemala. Although she no longer fears violence for her political

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beliefs, she does not trust that her future security is not in jeopardy, given the trauma experienced during the political upheavals of the 1980s: I came because I had political problems. When I came here, I requested legal permission for political asylum because I was threatened by political groups. Initially I was fascinated, when I graduated [the political party] offered me a position. A job, if I supported that candidacy, but later I was afraid because they [the rebels] showed up killing people, and I didn’t want to get involved in that … so it got me scared. (Valeria, Guatemalan) With the exception of Valeria who was granted temporary protection (which later lapsed), the cases discussed in this section demonstrated how immigration status did not necessarily reflect the reason for migration—those participants migrating for survival were not granted humanitarian protection by the receiving countries despite claims that survival was threatened in their countries of origin. Whether fleeing poverty, violence or persecution, these participants all explained how the decision to migrate was not a choice for them because remaining in their country of origin presented a threat to life. Their latitude was more confined to where they chose to migrate rather than the decision to migrate. Many participants mourned the loss of their homes and some expressed a wish to return under different circumstances (for example, improved economic conditions or the end of civil war). Importantly, the urgent and desperate circumstances in which these participants had left their homes—and without legal recognition of humanitarian need by their respective receiving countries—was followed by many years of hardship having arrived with few resources to buffer the emotional and financial strains of moving to another country. For women with caring responsibilities, there was an urgent need to protect their families, as seen in Isabella’s story of travelling (illegally) to another country to secure lifesaving treatment for her son. In contrast, others in the study did not migrate as an emergency response and were afforded more choice in where they chose to resettle and under what circumstances. The following section outlines how other participants chose to migrate for autonomy, allowing them agency and a measure of independence.

Freedom Freedom was a recurring theme amongst migrants in the study, in terms of wanting to be free from something or to be free to do something. These reasons were similar to migration for survival in that all are about attaining basic needs, the lack of which provided ‘push’ factors compelling migration. However, migrating for freedom implies greater agency. Migration

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for survival was motivated by humanitarian rather than economic reasons, with a perceived lack of choice resembling involuntary migration even if it is not legally considered such. In contrast, migration for freedom is similar to migrating for opportunity in the sense that both imply goal-directed behaviour, however, the former involves basic physiological needs and ‘push’ factors, whilst the latter relates to self-attainment needs and ‘pull’ factors. Freedom can be taken literally, as in freedom from incarceration or servitude, but it can also refer to financial freedom, such as freedom from debts or being free to support one’s family. Freedom is also linked to civil liberties, including being free from social stigma or discrimination, and also free to form households and reunite with family. Interestingly, whereas survival was a predominant force for migration amongst nationals from the Americas, freedom was more likely to be articulated as the reason for migrating amongst Central and Eastern Europeans in the study, who have enjoyed the freedom of movement since 2004 (until 2020, when Britain left the EU, now requiring a residence permit to settle in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK). It is likely that the reason for this difference between participants in the two case studies is that the former tends to originate from poorer countries, but freedom of movement is also a hallmark of Europe, with fewer limitations on living and working elsewhere in the EU. As such, the choice is less constrained for these participants who primarily migrated for freedom and seemed able to exercise greater agency generally than those migrating for survival, a point discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5. Physical freedom encompasses the liberation of prisoners, indentured servants, trafficked slaves, bonded workers, military service personnel or minors. Some study participants migrated to ensure their literal freedom; in some cases to escape a prison sentence. One Polish participant explained how he ran afoul of tax laws in Poland and fled to Scotland after posting bail. For Piotr, returning to Poland was simply impossible until he paid over €40,000 in back taxes, plus fines and legal fees. He resented not being able to return for fear of punishment. When asked if he would go back to Poland if he could, he explained without hesitation, ‘Of course! If I haven’t problem with taxes, I’m back tomorrow’ (Piotr, Polish). Another Polish migrant explained a similar situation where he avoided a custodial sentence by absconding from justice proceedings in Poland, violating an order not to leave the country for a five-year probation period. However, Dawid described himself as ‘disobedient’ and ‘always needing to win with the police and courts’ and therefore defied the court order and left for the UK despite proclaiming having no previous desire to migrate (Dawid, Polish). By virtue of being street homeless EU nationals in the UK, Piotr and Dawid were primarily constrained by the threat of administrative removal. Uniquely, within the UK immigration system prior to Brexit,

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being homeless was the one category into which citizens of countries in the European Union who live in the UK can fall where they are not seen to be exercising their EU member Treaty Rights (as an employee, a job seeker, a retired person or being economically self-sufficient). The consequence is that, on this basis, a foreign national who ordinarily has the right to live and work in the UK under the European Union’s freedom of movement can be subject to administrative removal (deportation) (Serpa, 2019). The case of Piotr and Dawid (and indeed, the four other participants from Poland) clearly illustrates the consequences of rolling out crimmigration control in the UK—by enshrining the ‘hostile environment’ policy in statute within the 2014 and 2016 Immigration Acts, those lacking full citizenship status (particularly those without documented legal status) are increasingly marginalised and excluded from wider society by restricting access to work, welfare and housing. (Serpa, 2021). Both Piotr and Dawid have been threatened with deportation from the UK and, as a result, largely avoid formal support for fear of losing their liberty. These young men got by day-to-day by working cash-in-hand (when they could), begging or ‘sitting on a cup’, and ‘crashing squats’. Other Eastern Europeans in the study explained that they were ‘tricked’ by promises of work abroad and, upon migrating, discovered that the offer was fabricated or misleading in terms of pay. Despite having the freedom of movement to take up work in other EU member states, accounts of being tricked by people seeking to exploit vulnerable positions in the labour market were particularly frequent from young Polish and Romanian men in the study. These respondents explained how false promises were financially devastating for them after they had already gone into debt to relocate themselves, and in some cases their families, for these often-non-existent jobs. For some, the deception resembled bonded servitude insofar as fees associated with the privilege of work, such as the cost of recruitment, travel or accommodation, were tied to salaries which were not large enough to cover the cost of debts. One young Polish migrant explained how he was ‘duped’ into such an arrangement, which incurred debts to his employer as well as other financial penalties—devastating all possibility of being able to afford a private let. Jakub was left out of pocket once he realised that he would never receive payment: Every two weeks, there were new people in the hotel to get work. And you wait. One week passed. You must pay for the hotel, you get minus on your pay slip. Another week, they give you two days’ work. So, you get zero—you have no money for living, for the cost of travel and accommodation, because there is no work. (Jakub, Polish) Jakub, and other migrants in similar positions, spoke of having been taken advantage of and their labour exploited. For some, this led to their

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eventual homelessness, and for others, the scams compelled onward migration, described by one as having to ‘start from square one again’ with very few resources. For example, Jakub felt as though he was a hostage to his debt, and as a result, there were few resources available to him to extricate himself from this exploitative relationship with his employer. More than one respondent noted debt, either with a formal creditor or with an individual from whom they had borrowed money, as a motivator for migration. Gabriel, a Romanian migrant (who was not Roma), incurred a large and growing debt after his property was confiscated from his family by the Romanian government. After having been stripped of his assets without compensation, he explained how he and his mother went into debt after being unable to afford the rents of the private rental market in Bucharest. His migration for work was compelled by threats of eviction and the need to earn money to support his mother and keep her from losing her home for a second time. Similarly, a Roma participant explained how a persistent cycle of debt in Romania made it clear to him that his situation was unsustainable and that he had to migrate in order to support himself and his family. Vasile described how it was common in his community in Romania to accrue debts with local grocers; some days he had money from cash-in-hand jobs to buy food, whilst other days he was unable to bring home enough money. On those days, he would buy food on a promise to pay the next time he had the money. He explained how he took a loan to migrate to Scotland, and yet was still paying back debts to other creditors in Romania: I took a loan a year ago if we could go there [to Scotland] and now I still owe that person, I was unable to pay him back. What I do here, from selling newspapers, is for food and for livelihood. What made me came here was that I want to offer my children a good life, when I was working in Romania, I was unable to save money … . I’m still in debt. I owe money for food, sometimes I went to take my money to him. (Vasile, Roma) Another Roma participant explained that he left Romania over debts that he had no hope of paying back. Ioan took out a loan to build a house, but he unexpectedly had to use the money to pay for a life-saving treatment for his baby daughter, which left him and his family in debt and without shelter. Ioan explained how his debt left him with little choice but to migrate: She [my baby daughter] stayed for more than two months in hospitals. And I paid this with the money I had for the construction of a house, in the end I didn’t buy land. I still have two more monthly payments left so I still owe the bank some money from years ago. (Ioan, Roma)

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Gabriel, Vasile and Ioan saw little future for themselves and their families in Romania after having experienced years of cyclical debt. A poor economic outlook in combination with the burden of debt compelled them to seek opportunities abroad where they hoped to earn enough money to support their families without creditors. Unlike other participants who migrated for survival, these participants could meet their basic needs, albeit whilst amassing significant debt. As a strategy to cope with the competing demands from creditors and the pressure to provide the basics for their families, these men endured extremely overcrowded conditions, living with other households to share the cost of housing. Even still, this group felt migration promised freedom from financial precarity, for the longer term if not the immediate future. The majority of respondents in both case study areas described migrating because of an inability to achieve their aspirations in their home country. For some, the barriers went beyond poor economic conditions; these respondents were prevented from securing basic rights due to oppression and structural disadvantage. They migrated to have the same access to education, livelihood or family formation. Luciana is one such participant, having migrated as an unaccompanied minor from the Dominican Republic to Boston when she was 15 and pregnant. She described coming from a tight-knit religious community which strongly disapproved of teenage pregnancy and having children out of wedlock. She was ostracised at school and vilified in the neighbourhood; she felt as though she were a social pariah. The repudiation she felt amounted to daily harassment, to the point where she felt rejected by society: I was harassed. Especially the neighbours, they look at me the bad way. The fathers [of my friends] say, oh, no talk too much with her because you know, maybe the same [bad reputation] gonna happen with you. I have to move. I need to leave here because that’s not my place. (Luciana, Dominican) Luciana explained that after migrating she no longer felt depressed and that, unlike in the Dominican Republic, she felt as if she ‘could do anything’ she wanted, such as go to university and have a career. She explained that despite ‘things being tough’ living with her aunt and having to share a bed with her baby, she remained optimistic that her hardship was temporary and was enthusiastic about future prospects for herself and her child. Roma participants expressed a similar relief after migrating to Scotland; in general, they felt free being in a community where they felt welcomed. These feelings of freedom were expressed primarily by cataloguing the new possibilities available to their children that many Roma were denied in Romania. As Andrei explains:

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Three Drivers of Migration—Survival, Freedom and Opportunity It’s better here [in Scotland]. I have been thinking about these children, to make them a future. In our country it is very difficult. You can’t live from one day to another. There is no place to work. (Andrei, Roma)

Vasile elaborates by explaining how he feels there are limitless possibilities in Scotland for his children. Because his children can receive an education, there are many opportunities for them: I have a better life. If I can stay here, and if they don’t send us back home, my children will have a better life than I had. My children are going to school, they are already learning something. Every day I tell my daughter that she needs to work hard to learn because she has a chance to be somebody one day, to own a home, to have a better life than I had in Romania. (Vasile, Roma) Family reunification was another reason study respondents stated for migrating. For example, one person explained she lived for many years in a transnational marriage where she stayed in the Dominican Republic raising children whilst her husband lived and worked in Boston. Valentina described how her family was fractured for many years until she and her children were given legal permission to reunite with her husband. For Valentina, migrating was the only way to bring her family together, although she was reluctant to move with her children as she did not want to leave her support network in the Dominican Republic. She explained how her husband financially supported the family whilst working abroad and that his job prospects would have been poor had he remained in the Dominican Republic. By migrating, Valentina was free to form her household and support her family. As these narratives reveal, freedom can take multiple forms. ‘Freedom’ is strongly featured in the Scottish sample, particularly amongst Roma participants, in the form of financial freedom. Freedom with regards to family formation and pursuit of social liberties featured more in the Massachusetts respondents, which is perhaps unsurprising due to family reunification being enshrined in American immigration policy. Although these participants were constrained in similar ways as participants who migrated for survival (for example, facing extreme housing needs with few resources available to resolve financial hardship), many described their difficult circumstances as temporary and capable of being overcome in their pursuit of freedom. The next section contrasts migration stories of survival and freedom by describing participants’ pursuits of opportunity.

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Opportunity All of the study’s respondents spoke about the opportunity in some form as a motivation for their migration, and, as argued throughout this book, the reasons for migration are multiple and complex. Although ‘opportunity’ may not be a primary driver for some of this study’s participants, it was certainly recognised as a benefit. The opportunities sought in a new land were largely economic for some, such as better career prospects, educational pursuits or the prospect of upward mobility, whilst for others, the opportunities were more social, such as migrating for love, adventure or a feeling of belonging. The next sections explore the economic and social opportunities participants stated as reasons for migrating. Economic opportunity is a compelling force that motivates movement across borders, both temporary and permanent. As discussed above, poor economic conditions can force migration as a survival strategy when basic needs cannot reliably be met in the home country. Insecure future economic conditions could also influence a decision to migrate, including the fear of being unable to support one’s household in the years ahead or pessimism about the quality of life one might secure in the future. There are also highly individual and subjective factors that propel migration, such as the perception of these economic conditions and the imposition of personal values, when weighing these perceived options. Below, Alexandru’s and Jan’s stories highlight the causal force that one’s outlook has on a decision to migrate. Alexandru lost his factory job following the 1989 Romania Revolution and subsequently relied on casual work. Once Romania joined the EU in 2007, Alexandru sought work elsewhere in Europe, primarily in agricultural jobs as Romanians had been subject to employment restrictions until 2014 which required additional permissions to work that were not expected of other EU nationals. Being unable to secure a work permit prior to migrating, the jobs Alexandru found were seasonal, non-secure, demanding and low paying—reliant on undocumented labour. He become homeless in Spain after being cheated out of wages and then moved to France to seek refuge at a migrant camp in Calais. He had hoped he could work as a day labourer because the camp provided a large and ready pool of workers to gang masters, but Alexandru struggled to find work at ‘the Jungle’ and got by selling scrap metal or begging in town. He was pessimistic about his opportunities in France due to the competition with other migrants for the limited work in Calais. Alexandru described how he used all of his savings to pay for a transporter to bring him to Scotland where he hoped to find work: I heard that here [in Scotland] you can find a job. So, I came with a guy with his family. He had three children, him, the wife and

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Three Drivers of Migration—Survival, Freedom and Opportunity another guy were all in the car. I paid him €100 from there, what I gain there [in Calais] from begging and selling some scrap iron. (Alexandru, Romanian)

Alexandru felt Scotland had better opportunities for work because there were fewer migrants to compete with for low-skilled jobs. In contrast, Jan looked to migrate due to the possibility of being paid a far higher wage on a British construction job than he would have earned in Poland. He explained that even though he was being paid less than his British counterparts to do the same job, he felt that he benefitted since he could never achieve the same level of pay doing an equivalent job in Poland: It’s simple [the reason why I migrated]—big money. One pound [equals] six Polish zloty. English-Scottish bricklayer is about £10 to £12 per hour. And I am half price, this is Polish price. (Jan, Polish) Many respondents described finding better economic conditions in the receiving countries in terms of more numerous, better paid and more secure job opportunities (whether in absolute terms or relative to the cost of living) than they would find in their country of origin. Chapter 5 will explore in further detail how this disparity plays an important role in migrant housing strategies. For those migrating for economic opportunity, it might be a permanent move, it might be temporary to accrue savings over a defined period or it might inspire a transnational arrangement where migrants work a job overseas in order to support their family back home. Camila is one such example of a transnational family. Her story could represent the ‘feminization of migration’ (Morrison et al., 2007), where the gendered pattern of migration is shifting from males working abroad to females migrating alone to support themselves or to send funds back home. Camila describes how she migrated to New York initially for a job opportunity with her uncle so that she could support her family in the Dominican Republic: He [my partner] didn’t have work. My uncle convinced me to come here [America] illegally. We entered through Mexico and from Mexico we went on a plane to New York with papers from other people … . I had a son in Santo Domingo that stayed with my partner. And later, then I had a daughter who stayed with me in New York. (Camila, Dominican) For others, migration presented entrepreneurial opportunities. Cultural geographers note the appeal of self-employment in migrant communities

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as a means to circumvent barriers to employment, such as legal status or discrimination (Naude et al., 2015)—factors which have its roots in crimmigration, as Chapter 5 will reveal. The ability to utilize business opportunities could also be a catalyst for migration. Matias described how a lack of financial support for small businesses combined with a limited customer base made him struggle to survive as an independent tailor in Haiti. He felt that his move in the 1980s, at the time of the Cuban/Haitian Boat Crisis, having secured Temporary Protected Status, gave him the chance to establish his business in Florida: The government of Haiti is so bad. No jobs, no nothing. You got a profession, but you need clients to come to you, buying the stuff … . If they don’t have jobs, they can’t buy anything. A lot of people leave the country, try to move to United States. So, I come here … . Because United States is number one. To the country, to the world. (Matias, Haitian) The deep-seated belief that America was a symbol of ‘freedom’ and ‘opportunity’ to the world, as illustrated in Matias’ quote, proved a powerful motivator for many respondents in the Boston case study. The ability to own one’s own home, have a career and pursue an education were key opportunities. Some respondents specifically journeyed for educational opportunities. For example, Santiago migrated from the Dominican Republic after leaving school so that he could study music in New York, and he decided to stay after completing his studies. He candidly explained how higher education gave him an opportunity to permanently migrate (and stay without permission) to America: ‘I came with a student visa. And I stayed here. That’s everyone’s purpose’ (Santiago, Dominican). Similarly, Victoria migrated to Boston to pursue higher education, but unlike Santiago, she originally came to the U.S. under a tourist visa in the hopes of obtaining permanent residency and, ultimately, to resume her studies: Life was ok [in Belize], I just wanted to experience something new. I wanted to go back to school to study business and I knew some friends who were living in Boston and they said to come join them … . I just want to find myself. I need to find work. I want to go to school … . I want to stay in Massachusetts. There are good schools here, good jobs. There is lots of opportunity here, to get a job, a career, that is my dream. (Victoria, Belizean) In contrast to other participants in the study, Matias, Santiago and Victoria each enjoyed relative economic security in the earliest stages of

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their resettlement. As their authorisation to stay in the U.S. lapsed (for example, with the expiry of protected status and student or tourist visas), these participants became more vulnerable to homelessness. All three were residing in emergency shelters and lacked the documentation that would enable them to obtain higher-paid work or subsidised housing. These participants viewed regularising their status as key to realising the opportunities available to permanent residents and citizens. The desire for financial security and stability were common themes underlying the economic reasons offered by participants for migrating. Notably, many of the Roma participants emphasised that the opportunities available from migration were not necessarily for themselves, but for their children. Roma respondents often sentimentalized that ‘it is too late’ for them to realise their dream of a good job and a house, but that migrating to another country gave their children opportunities that they themselves were denied in Romania. Constantin explained how migrating to Scotland allowed him to save for his children’s future university costs: I want my children to settle here permanently. They go to school, I want to send them to the college, to study … to do what they want with their lives … as long as I am still alive, I want to make them a future if I didn’t have one. (Constantin, Roma) Not surprisingly given this research’s scope that focuses on ‘voluntary’ movement, the majority of respondents emphasised economic reasons for their migration. Many felt the receiving countries presented them and their families with more opportunities for employment, business, education and career prospects. These sentiments were widely shared amongst participants in both case-study areas. There were, however, two differences between the Central American respondents in Massachusetts and those from Eastern Europe in Scotland. Interestingly, the former tended to focus on opportunities available for themselves in both the short and longer term. They were concerned about the immediate need for work, but many emphasised long-term goals such as higher education, career progression and homeownership. This might be because the U.S. immigration system does not permit freedom of movement, and a greater proportion of Central American respondents emphasised their intent to resettle permanently. Another explanation might be that ‘the American Dream’ is a seductive (and romanticised) belief that the U.S. is a land of opportunity, which attracts ‘huddled masses’ and ‘elite’ from the world over (Fry, 2007). Some respondents made direct reference to the American Dream, such as Victoria in summarising her list of goals: I want to buy a house one day. Have my own car, my own home, a career. I want the American Dream (Victoria, Belizean).

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In contrast, the same level of migration to Britain has not been observed following World War II, and therefore more idealistic promises engendered by an ‘American Dream’ are not as deeply engrained in British ‘values’ (Wolton, 2006). Popular mythology may be one explanation, but freedom of movement may explain why migrants in the Scottish case study seemed to have time-limited, if not more modest, aspirations; Central European respondents felt secure knowing they could return to their country of origin and that their migration need not be permanent. Polish participants, in particular, mentioned their plans to return to Poland once the job market improved and poor economic conditions were alleviated. Owning a home somewhere in the UK was not a stated ambition of these participants, unlike those in the Boston case study who wished to establish roots over the longer term. One exception is the case of Roma participants. As mentioned above, many emphasised the economic benefits migration gave, specifically for their children. In this way, Roma respondents shared similar characteristics to participants from Central America in that they also intended to settle permanently and they had great ambitions, seemingly not for themselves, but certainly for their children. Younger study participants or those who had migrated at a young age tended to emphasise the social opportunities available from migration. These benefits were less tangible or material and tended to be more emotive, focussing on the excitement and the adventure involved in moving abroad. Other participants reflected how migration was part of their coming of age, that they had ‘found themselves’ or a life’s purpose after migrating. Furthermore, other participant narratives involved love stories, that seeking a job was part of living abroad, but that they migrated to find a partner, reunite with a lover or make a home with a lifelong companion. Broadly speaking, these participants were younger, without dependents, and (comparatively) had a greater ability to tolerate poorer living conditions. Males who had migrated at a young age tended to make broad references to coming of age. Alejandro, for example, reflected on how he had migrated to New York in his late teens and before that had not known adult responsibility. He explained how in the Dominican Republic he ran with youth gangs and was involved in minor criminal offences. His mother had encouraged him to join his brother in the U.S. to perhaps change his life course and to improve the prospects for him in general: [My brother] brought me here. Not legally, illegally. To make money, and to grow up a little. Life over there [Dominican Republic] it was good, I can’t say it was bad … but being over here [America], you can get better opportunities in your life. (Alejandro, Dominican)

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Mateo shared a similar experience and spoke about how migrating to America made him see his priorities in life. He explained how he migrated at a very young age after being told to leave the family home, and that he was more ‘adult’ for this decision: I was behaving bad. I was 16 when my mother kicked me out … . And then I had this great idea to move here [Massachusetts] … to change the path I was going. And it worked. (Mateo, Dominican) Mateo’s partner, Blanca, also reflected on what it was like to move to a country she had never been to and how thrilling this was, particularly given that this was the first time they were living on their own: ‘I didn’t really know anybody, we just went … a journey I think it is! And, we just sort of stayed’ (Blanca, Dominican). General feelings of well-being and quality of life were also mentioned as migration opportunities. These may not have been conscious motivations, but some psychosocial benefits were specifically mentioned by participants. For example, many Roma participants made reference to feeling part of a community and described being welcomed in Scotland. Vasile, for example, provides a parenting analogy for why he feels at home in Scotland, despite not having a home, explaining his migration as moving from a biological, neglectful mother to a caring, adoptive parent: First, it was a change [moving to Scotland], like changing a baby’s place, taking him from his mother where he had a hard life and giving him to someone, and he discovers a better life with this new mother, that is not his mother. What’s not to like? Maybe in the past you wondered what are you going to eat tomorrow, how to survive? And you came here and you see that every night you bring food to your home, you are loaded with products. It is another life; you have different thoughts here. (Vasile, Roma) Ana also shared Vasile’s feeling of belonging and became very emotional when she described how she felt more ‘human’ in Scotland. Here, others acknowledged her presence, and strangers would greet her and get to know her whilst she sold street newspapers: There where I sell the newspapers, all the people know me. I had a surgery, and they come to ask me ‘how are you’, or ‘how is going on’ … they are my family … after their leaving, I start crying and think ‘look, how much they love me, they talk to me’. (Ana, Roma)

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Ana’s story perhaps most acutely reveals the psychological harm inflicted upon persecuted persons and, in an extreme way, is a reminder of the importance of being socially included.

Conclusion These narratives reveal vulnerabilities associated with migration in two ways: first, they outline the relative disadvantages experienced by those coming from poorer countries; and second, they explain the unavoidable financial and social costs associated with migration. Simultaneously, these stories also demonstrate resilience on the part of actors to overcome structural disadvantages and their ability to exercise agency and take control of their lives. The choice to migrate illustrates the process of leaving home, as well as the subsequent routes taken in becoming homeless, the role of housing in resettlement and how actors balance competing priorities. Whatever the specific reasons for migrating, whether for survival, freedom or to realise (economic or social) opportunity, these migrant narratives all reveal the desire for a better life and the hope for a greater future for themselves and their families. For the respondents, the destination was one where people believed they could flourish, be free and take advantage of opportunities. The narratives also reveal the structural conditions that motivate migration, as well as the scope to exercise agency and choice. Migrants in the study spoke about immediate goals and future ambitions, which were often depicted as realising a life-long dream, intrinsically linked to migration. Furthermore, personal identity was heavily connected to the prospect of a new life; for many respondents, migration signified a fresh start or a new life, which ultimately necessitated a re-imagining of their sense of self. Being positioned in a new place signalled a revival for those seeking sanctuary and refuge and perhaps a rebirth for those simply seeking a new life elsewhere. Importantly, these narratives demonstrate the importance of both structure and agency. Firstly, structural disadvantages, positioned within a wider geopolitical context, strongly influenced the decision to migrate, whether for survival or for economic opportunity. Secondly, legal status and immigration systems influenced the purpose of migration insofar as closed borders limited migration largely to those who wish to permanently resettle; whereas greater freedom of movement allowed for the possibility of temporary or cyclical patterns of migration. Furthermore, as later chapters will demonstrate, these factors combine to influence the strategies devised for satisfying housing needs and migrant responses to homelessness. These structural forces influence vulnerability and offer the potential to show resilience in exercising choices, values and priorities. In other words, these structural constraints do not deny the

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potential to exercise agency; the respondents demonstrated considerable ingenuity, creativity and autonomy in their responses. Finally, there are important distinctions across and between the case study areas with regard to the reasons for migrating. For example, those migrating for survival arrived with very few resources and limited choices which increased their vulnerability to homelessness. Others in the study seemed to have much more latitude, with perhaps the exception of Roma participants who did not necessarily migrate for survival, per se, but nonetheless arrived with very few resources, few social connections and limited access to services compared to other homeless groups. Likewise, migrating for freedom featured more strongly in the Scottish sample, particularly with regard to financial freedom as a push factor. Migrating for opportunity was a theme which spanned both case study areas and was referenced in all of the interviews. The opportunities presented by migration largely speak to the ‘pull’ factors that motivate transnational movements. It is notable in the Scottish sample that the Roma participants almost exclusively spoke about opportunities in relation to their children, rather than for themselves. These introductions into the lives of the migrants participating in this study highlight their individual circumstances, each with unique backgrounds, resources, barriers, motivations and values. They reveal how respondents were not simply passive victims in their situation. The circumstances and explanations surrounding their migration provide insight into the causes of their homelessness, which are examined in Chapter 5, as well as the constraints they face and the trade-offs they make in their housing strategies. The next chapter considers the policy environment in which crimmigration works to constrain migrants’ agency, as well as the perspectives of service providers who advocate on behalf of migrant groups.

References Bailey, A. J. (2001). Turning transnational: Notes on the theorisation of international migration. International Journal of Population Geography, 7 (6) 413–428. Bailey A. J., Wright, R. A., Mountz, A., & Miyares, I. M. (2000). (Re)producing Salvadoran Transnational Geographies. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 92 (1) 125–144. Blunt, A., & McEwan, C. (2002). Introducing postcolonial geographies. In A. Blunt & C. McEwan (Eds.), Postcolonial Geographies (pp. 1–6). Continuum. Cook, I., & Harrison, M. (2003). Cross over food: re-materializing postcolonial geographies. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 28 (3) 296–317. Crowe, D. M. (1999). The gypsies of Romania since 1990. Nationalities Papers, 27 (1) 57–67. Dyck, I. (2005). Feminist geography, the ‘everyday’ and local-global relations: Hidden spaces of place-making. The Canadian Geographer, 49 (3) 233–243.

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Franko, K. (2019). The Crimmigrant Other. Routledge. Fry, B. N. (2007). Nativism and Immigration: Regulating the American Dream. LFB Scholarly Publishing. Goss, J., & Lindquist, B. (1995). Conceptualizing international labor migration: A structuration perspective. International Migration Review, 29 (2) 317–351. Hall, S. (1996). What was ‘the post-colonial’? Thinking at the limit. In I. Chambers & L. Curti (Eds.), The Post-Colonial Question: Common Skies, Divided Horizons (pp. 242–260). Routledge. Isacson, A., Meyer, M., & Morales, G. (2014). Mexico’s other border: Security, migration and the humanitarian crisis at the line with Central America. Washington Office on Latin America, 2–44. Jacobs, J. M. (1996). Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City. Routledge. King, R. (2012). Theories and Typologies of Migration: An Overview and a Primer. Working paper. Malmo University. Lawson, V. A. (2000). Arguments within geographies of movement: The theoretical potential of migrants’ stories. Progress in Human Geography, 24 (2) 173–189. Leyro, S. P., & Stageman, D. L. (2018). Crimmigration, deportability and the social exclusion of noncitizen immigrants. Migration Letters, 15 (2) 147– 131. McEwan, C. (2002). Postcolonialism. In V. Desai and R. B. Potter (Eds), The Companion to Development Studies (pp. 127–131). Arnold. McEwan, C. (2003). Material geographies and postcolonialism. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 24 (3) 340–355. Morrison, A. R., Schiff, M., & Sjoblom, M. (2007). The International Migration of Women. World Bank and Palgrave Macmillan. Naude, W., Siegel, M., & Marchand, K. (2015). Migration, Entrepreneurship and Development: A Critical Review. Discussion Paper No. 9284, Institute for the Study of Labour. Ogg, K. (2019). Sexing the Leviathan: When feminisms and crimmigration meet. In P. Billings (Ed.), Crimmigration in Australia (pp. 63–87). Springer. Pogany, I. (2012). Pariah peoples: Roma and the multiple failures of law in Central and Eastern Europe. Social and Legal Studies, 21 (3) 375–393. Porteous, D., & Smith, S. E. (2001). Domicide: The Global Destruction of Home. McGill-Queens Press-MQUP. Samers, M. (1997). The production of diaspora: Algerian emigration from colonialism to neocolonialism (1840–1970). Antipode, 29 (1) 32–64. San Juan, E. (1998). Beyond Postcolonial Theory. London. Seraphin, H. (2018). The past, present and future of Haiti as a post-colonial, post-conflict and post-disaster destination. Journal of Tourism Futures, 4 (3) 249–264. Serpa, R. C. (2019). Resisting welfare conditionality. In P. Dwyer (Ed.), Dealing with Conditionality: Implementation and Effects (pp. 43–60). Policy Press. Serpa, R. C. (2021). The exceptional becomes everyday: Border control, attrition and exclusion from within. Social Sciences, 10 (9) 329–342. Silvey R., & Lawson V. (1999). Placing the migrant. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 89 121–132. Weber, M. (1920). The Sociology of Religion. Methuen and Co Ltd. Wolton, S. (2006). Immigration policy and the ‘crisis of British values’. Citizenship Studies, 10 (4) 453–467.

4

Service Provision in a ‘Hostile Environment’

Introduction As a concise introduction to the legal architecture of crimmigration control and social welfare, this chapter reviews key structural constraints imposed by housing legislation in Britain and America. The chapter examines how these limitations are exacerbated by immigration policies and complicated by welfare reform, access to services, eligibility for (and entitlement to) assistance and the level of support provided. The analysis illustrates how the interface between immigration and social welfare policies imposes a complex, often contradictory range of constraints, whereby difficulties in accessing housing are intentionally accentuated in ‘crimmigrant nations’ (Koulish & van der Woude, 2020). These ‘systems of systems’ restrict access for migrant groups, further complicated by welfare reforms that impose increasing levels of conditionality to access services. The chapter examines how these features have operated within each case study area, establishing the national policy context in which respective sub-national and state legislation has evolved, identifying key themes and drawing implications for migrant groups. Finally, this chapter links the ‘hostile environment’ experienced by migrants with the contribution of various ‘street-level’ actors (such as service providers and administrative decisionmakers) charged with mediating between crimmigration control processes (embedded within the conditional welfare state) and homeless migrants as consumers of services. This chapter considers how service providers have negotiated these key challenges, analysed through processes of dealing with resentment, uncertainty avoidance, the exercise of discretion and direct interventions to prevent homelessness.

Comparing housing and homelessness policies Broadly speaking, when compared to European countries with a long history of social provision of housing and other welfare services, American social policy is characterised by a highly residualised public housing and welfare system, with concomitant ‘mass levels of unsheltered homelessness’ DOI: 10.4324/9781003264484-4

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(Toro, 2007). In the U.S., homelessness (in all its forms) is more prevalent than in the UK and impacts a much wider cross-section of society (Benjaminsen & Andrade, 2015). With respect to homelessness legislation, the American and European systems operate on very different legal frameworks. For one, the UK is unique in that it has the only housing legislation (apart from France) to create enforceable rights to settled accommodation for homeless households (Fitzpatrick et al., 2013). Although housing is devolved in the UK (each of its constituent parts is responsible for legislating and implementing housing policy), the contemporary homelessness legislation’s foundational principles can be found in the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act of 1977, which effectively establishes a ‘progressive counter-hierarchy of power’ (Fitzpatrick & Davies, 2021) by creating legal rights to housing (Watts, 2014). These individually enforceable rights are the corollary of clearly defined local authority’s (local government) duties towards statutorily homeless households. In contrast to the UK, there are no legally enforceable rights to housing under federal legislation in the U.S. Instead, the responsibility for responding to homelessness lies primarily with individual states, which may or may not elect to receive federal funding for that purpose. The majority of federal funding for homelessness relief is apportioned through the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987, which is a funding programme that matches state investment with federal funds. Whilst states participating in McKinney-Vento programmes are bound by the terms of the Act, states can opt out of the programmes (Schwartz, 2014). In these cases, the response to homelessness is mostly addressed by non-profit shelters and charitable soup kitchens, as had been the case in the U.S. prior to 1987 (Rosenthal & Foscarinis, 2006). Another important point of distinction between the two systems is how homelessness is defined in statutes and the implications of such for financing the delivery of homelessness services. In the U.S., a much more literal definition of homelessness is employed under McKinney-Vento than the statutory definition used in the UK. Specifically, in the UK, the 1977 Act established an enforceable duty on local authorities to accommodate certain ‘priority’ categories of homeless families with dependent children and ‘vulnerable’ adults (Loveland, 2017). In Scotland, where housing is a devolved matter, single homeless persons are now entitled to access statutory homelessness assistance with the abolition of ‘priority need’ in 2012 (Anderson & Serpa, 2013). In contrast, which groups constitute the ‘deserving poor’ is not as apparent in American housing law at the federal level (Bevan, 2021). Instead, the purpose of legally defining homelessness in the U.S. is to distribute federal resources to programmes at the state level, which have the power to designate funding as the state legislature sees fit. Under the McKinney-Vento Act, for example, a person is considered homeless if they are sleeping in places not fit for human habitation

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or in an emergency shelter, or will be imminently homeless without resources or a support network to secure permanent housing. To access support under McKinney-Vento, the homeless household’s eligibility is determined by their income, such as falling below a maximum earnings threshold—for example, 60% of the area median income (to qualify as ‘low income’) or below 40% to qualify as ‘very low income’. Due to these distinctions, their approaches towards eradicating homelessness in both countries look very different. In the UK, where homelessness is defined in fairly broad terms and which impart (limited) statutory rights to housing on a national (and subnational) level, there is capacity within the legislative framework for local authorities to prevent and even ameliorate individual cases of homelessness. In the U.S., however, where the responsibility for addressing homelessness is largely in the hands of the individual states and municipalities, the approach is (at best) a patchwork of ad hoc responses to individual emergency situations, and federal funding programmes are largely limited to crisis management. For example, historically, the McKinney-Vento and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Continuum of Care programmes (which locally coordinate services for homeless persons) have mostly been directed towards providing emergency assistance rather than using preventative measures. Here, the structure of funding for homelessness assistance has had important consequences for other areas of social welfare. Culhane et al. (2011, p. 295) contend that a tendency towards a residential ‘linear continuum model’ which requires participation in services so as to become ‘housing ready’ (making assistance conditional on such participation), has created a parallel social welfare system that provides services only to households after becoming homeless. Thus, one set of social services is available to homeless households in emergency accommodation, whilst mainstream welfare programmes are generally administered through the Federal Department of Social Services (DSS). Social services are much more generalised in the UK insofar as, for example, local authority social workers serve both homeless and housed clients alike, although there is a range of service providers across a (comparatively) large welfare state that offer specialised services for homeless and previously homeless households (at street-level, these include housing officers, homelessness officers, wellbeing officers, and so on). Clearly, the U.S. and UK address homelessness differently, namely Britain’s unique position of moving towards a model based on rights to housing, vis a vis a statutory homelessness system (Culhane et al., 2011), compared to America’s approach, which (historically) has revolved around emergency accommodation. However, despite America’s important failings in its ability to address homelessness, access to assistance is in fact less restricted than the availability of resources. Crucially, Britain is able to ensure entitlement to assistance because strict eligibility criteria (ostensibly) protect access to a limited resource for targeted households.

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Whilst American households face no additional limitations beyond meanstesting, there is no entitlement to homelessness assistance. Specifically, the McKinney-Vento Act does not create entitlement, but potentially widens eligibility for a range of household and housing circumstances, including those who would be deemed ‘undeserving’ in the UK context (including single persons, migrants, those without an apparent vulnerability, etc.). In contrast to the ‘selective’ welfare system in the UK (Fitzpatrick & Davies, 2021), where there are deeper entitlements, albeit with restrictions on eligibility, in the American system, there are no additional stipulations (at the federal level) beyond means-testing and satisfying definitional criteria to determine poverty status. Thus, in the American system homeless migrant groups might fair better than their UK counterparts in terms of access to housing. In Massachusetts, for example, migrants are able to compete for (much more limited) resources along with everybody else, whereas in the UK access to assistance is very much determined by one’s legal status. The ability of states to determine eligibility for housing and homelessness assistance adds considerable flexibility (and discretion) to the system. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is notable for its ambition to address homelessness compared to other states. Massachusetts is classified as a ‘right to shelter’ state and has taken a similar approach to the City of New York where there is a judicially enforceable obligation to provide emergency accommodation to homeless households (Haywood, 2002). However, unlike other right-to-shelter jurisdictions, Massachusetts has limited this right to households with dependent children and not extended it to single homeless persons (who may access assistance, but not as a matter of entitlement). Furthermore, in this context of restricted entitlement and broad eligibility, migrant groups are expressly included in Massachusetts’s homelessness system where emergency accommodation and public housing providers are prohibited by law from considering legal status in determining eligibility to access state-funded homelessness assistance (see: 1977 Massachusetts State Supreme Court ruling in Weeks v. Waltham Housing Authority). In contrast, legal status is a significant barrier for homeless migrants requiring temporary accommodation in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK, despite Britain’s comparatively more generous welfare state. In this instance, strict eligibility requirements accompany deep entitlements, and thus, individual rights to settled accommodation are only for eligible households and for those entitled to statutory assistance under the 1977 Act and the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987, Scotland’s legal framework for homelessness duties and powers. Interestingly, Scotland’s approach to ineligible populations looks not too dissimilar to the American model of homelessness response—with highly local, ad hoc, idiosyncratic reactions to specific demands placed on services by migrant groups. In areas experiencing relatively high rates of homelessness amongst migrant populations, some local authorities

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have begun specifically targeting homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing responses to ‘ineligible’ homeless households, such as those whose legal status restricted access to social assistance. For example, in 2018, the City of Edinburgh Council launched a rapid re-housing pilot programme, Rapid Access Accommodation (RAA), to address chronic homelessness and rough sleeping by offering a ‘high tolerance’ service model which made access to shelter completely unconditional. Within two years of operating, three RAA services engaged with over 300 vulnerable service users (including migrants) under a ‘no barring’ policy, meaning no one was turned away or removed from the shelter (City of Edinburgh Council, 2020). Uniquely, this local authority pilot provided temporary accommodation to six ‘ineligible’ households who had no recourse to public funds or did not have a Right to Reside, demonstrating the potential of local initiatives (backed by national funding) to respond to migrant homelessness—albeit, reactively. This low threshold approach (within the context of an expanded statutory homeless system in Scotland) stands in stark contrast with England’s ‘Everyone In’ impromptu homelessness programme in 2020, which provided emergency accommodation for every rough sleeper during the ‘lockdown’ periods of the pandemic—with the express exception of those lacking legal status (Serpa, 2021). ‘Everyone’, in this instance, meant everyone—except ineligible migrants. Given the issues highlighted above, housing policies in both the U.S. and UK are complicated by national policy agendas which can frustrate or, in some cases, prevent the enactment of local decisions. This is particularly the case when devolved or state responsibility for local housing policy comes into conflict with high-level concerns, such as national security, border control or other forms of social protection. The following section provides an analysis of the tensions between immigration and housing systems in Scotland and Massachusetts. As the analysis demonstrates, the intersections between national security and social protection (decided at the national level) have important implications for the execution of local homelessness policies that try to support migrant groups. The following illustrates how various conflicting policy agendas, created by the interaction of crimmigration law with a ‘system of systems’, result in a highly complex legislative and policy environment for delivering homelessness services.

Immigration control in the U.S. and UK In both the UK and the U.S., a person’s legal status can be separated into the following broad categories: citizen, legal permanent resident and those with temporary status (Felter & Renwick, 2018). Unlike the UK, legal status in the U.S. does not impart eligibility for social assistance, but; rather, determines access to the labour market. That said, U.S. legal

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status does have some important consequences regarding a person’s eligibility for certain federal and state programmes, such as housing and welfare assistance, although these vary widely from state to state. For example, the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA, or welfare reform) restricted federal benefits for many legal immigrants, but states retain the power to supplement with state-funded benefits programmes, some of which do not consider legal status at all (Loprest et al., 2000). Whilst legal status in the U.S. can determine access to services, eligibility restrictions are unlike those in the UK. In the U.S., migrant groups are additionally disadvantaged by wider assumptions. Since 1996, immigration control has featured prominently in debates around national security, including the protection of limited public resources, but more importantly with regard to protecting the safety and security of American citizens. In 1996, President Clinton’s Administration passed two immigration laws that have had a long-lasting effect—the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Both constitute the main statutory vehicle used to ensure fast-track deportations and detention of unauthorised migrants without just cause (Margulies, 2018). The enactment of these three laws from the mid-1990s onwards has heralded ever greater securitisation of migration in the U.S., characterised by increased entanglement of criminal and immigration law undergirded by national security imperatives—observed by Stumpf (2006) as ‘crimmigration’. Commenting on the effect of this unprecedented move in the American legal system to create ‘immigration crime’, an immigration law specialist participating in the study explained how the 1996 laws served to fuel anti-immigrant sentiment: In 1996, it was more of a trilogy of laws that really were damaging especially for foreign born populations, [including] the first ever anti-terrorist law passed in April of that year. That law, among other things, said that if you were a foreign national residing in the country without immigration status, you were potentially a terrorist. (Carlos, Immigration law specialist) Such restrictive processes have longer-term roots in both U.S. and UK contexts; immigration policies since at least the early 1970s have shifted from managing immigration to controlling and restricting entry. Criminology provides interesting insight into how increasingly restrictive (and punitive) immigration regimes have gradually eroded migrants’ personhood through what Bauman (1995, p. 137) terms ‘adiaphorization’—referring to stripping ‘human relationships of their moral significance, exempting them from moral evaluation, rendering them morally irrelevant’. In the U.S. (as in the UK) public hostility to migrant groups has become

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increasingly prevalent, owing to a range of factors, such as the belief that immigrants take away jobs as the labour market competition model suggests, resentment over having to pay for social services used by immigrants or their families or deep-seated cultural factors that are difficult to change with policy tools (Hainmueller & Hiscox, 2010). Rising populist concerns about migration fuel crimmigration control and the imperatives of ‘exceptional’ times are its accelerant. In the U.S., the 9/11 terrorist attacks (Stumpf, 2020) and the 2019 global COVID-19 pandemic (Serpa, 2021) have seen a suspension of civil liberties in a time of crisis, which, characteristic of crimmigration control, become a permanent feature in migration governance that survives a temporary state of emergency. For example, some of the study’s participants commented on the 9/11 terrorist attacks as marking a paradigmatic shift in public attitudes towards migration and migrants in the U.S. They noted greater public anxiety over immigration and wider social values, which collectively can include provincialism, isolationism or protectionism that reinforce and perpetuate the structural and legal constraints faced by migrants and impose practical barriers to accessing support. Discriminatory attitudes towards migration and weariness towards the ‘Other’ more generally is nothing new—it is when the exceptional becomes the everyday (such as a near-permanent state of emergency posed by the threat of terrorism or a global pandemic) that give rise to increasingly restrictive and punitive measures affecting an everexpanding group to which it is subject (Stumpf, 2006). For example, one defining feature of crimmigration control is to ensnare an array of thirdparty actors (employees in local government, airlines, banks and other institutions across civil society) complicit in policing immigration by such barriers to services vis-à-vis eligibility screening. Thus, crimmigration illustrates the ‘magic’ of borders—to turn ordinary people into border agents (Khosravi, 2010). This is not to say that such processes go uncontested. In fact, the majority of study participants who serve migrant groups and implement policy expressed deep unease with the political atmosphere in which they worked. One manager of local government homelessness services in Boston revealed the political difficulty in justifying assistance to migrant groups as follows: Immigration has become so contentious, it is so marked by mean spiritedness … . If you look at the immigration debate, how polarised the debate is, then if you are a restrictionist or you are someone who signs on to the narrative that we have so overextended ourselves when it comes to welcoming those who aren’t citizens, and that we are doing that to our own detriment, or we engage in reckless action when we do that because of the national security implications … If you are in that group, then you are not really keen

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on casting this [migrant homelessness] as a human rights issue, or an issue that involves international duties and obligations. (Eileen, Homelessness services manager) As a Civil Liberties attorney for the Federal Government, another participant was particularly well-placed to comment on the social atmosphere in which public policy is created. Reflecting on the proliferation of measures to protect national security following the U.S. terror attacks in 2001, she explained how a new surge in protectionism reinforced hardening attitudes towards immigrants, particularly those in need of social protection: Post 9/11, we’ve become a more xenophobic kind of country, we’ve become more unwilling to accept the ‘Other’. If someone were to look at the population we are talking about [homeless migrants] and say, ‘wow these folks are homeless’, then you would expect more compassion, and a certain level of openness and generosity. (Sheryl, Attorney for the Federal Government) As the above discussion demonstrates, the restriction of rights to foreignborn households in the U.S., both in terms of the right to remain as well as rights to social protection, followed a succession of national security legislation in the late 1990s and following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In contrast, contemporary moves to more tightly control immigration in the UK have largely been in reaction to the 2009 Global Financial Crisis and part and parcel of the proceeding years of government austerity (Crawford et al., 2016). In both contexts, the justification for restricting immigration in the interest of national security and continued social protection for citizens has followed a meta-narrative which is distinctly anti-immigrant, and in the UK, was put to the service of the 2016 referendum on leaving the EU (Ford, 2018). According to Bowling and Westenra (2018), the promotion of a so-called ‘hostile environment’ approach towards illegal immigration increases the criminalisation of immigrants lacking documentation by embedding the approach in institutional practices and forming a bespoke ‘crimmigration control system’ that is separate from the UK’s domestic criminal justice system. Thus, immigration policy has become increasingly restrictive. As one study respondent commented ‘there is a drive to keep everybody out’ (Colin, Local non-profit services officer). The anti-immigration rhetoric that has permeated decades of national policy debates has fostered a growing culture of ethnocentrism (Dunaway et al., 2010) that has been capitalised on for political purposes to legitimise the continued dismantling of public housing in the U.S. (Espenshade et al., 1997) and deeper cuts to social welfare programmes (Borjas, 2001). A similar process has been observed in the UK, where

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immigrant-targeted welfare retrenchment has been part of the post-2010 austerity agenda (Careja et al., 2015). Particularly in the run-up to Britain’s departure from the EU, a number of new restrictions to claim welfare benefits were placed on EEA nationals, who had, prior to 2020’s Brexit, enjoyed the freedom to settle in other member states, to take up employment and to access (limited) parts of the welfare system. Unlike the UK, the American welfare system offers few entitlements, and the same is true in individual states. In Massachusetts, homeless households are limited to a right to emergency shelter, and this is only in the case of families with dependent children. In the strictest sense, the same is true in Scotland where child homelessness is not tolerated, regardless of legal status. In such cases, child protection laws are triggered where the statutory homelessness system cannot respond. Still, in principle, Massachusetts offers a number of routes out of homelessness to migrant groups, where households in comparable situations may not be assisted should they be deemed ineligible (either due to having no recourse to public funds or not having a Right to Reside) in the UK. The constraints in Massachusetts are more due to the limited availability of resources more generally, when compared to a stronger UK welfare safety-net. In order to further develop an understanding of how these systems operate in a practical sense, the next section considers how these structural constraints affect the services provided to migrant groups in both countries—specifically how service providers and policymakers have responded to the challenges presented in an increasingly hostile environment for homeless migrants. These responses are broadly manifested in resentment, avoidance and the use of discretion.

Resentment Accessing homelessness services for migrants in both case study areas is fraught with multiple barriers as a result of restrictive homelessness policies, a desire to limit immigration, restricted access to financial support and highly conditional welfare systems. As noted earlier, in the U.S., an insecure legal status impacts a migrant’s ability to access the labour market, rather than welfare assistance per se. The process for securing permanent residency (or, applying for a green card which enables a foreign-born worker free access to the labour market), is notoriously opaque and requires highly specialised (and expensive) legal assistance. The availability of legal aid to cover the cost of a highly intensive and protracted legal process means few are able to secure this assistance, if they are unable to cover the costs themselves. In contrast, the primary barrier around legal status in the UK is the extent to which it prevents access to the benefits system (for EU nationals). Generic advisors in local authority and non-profit offices who are largely unspecialised in migrant rights face highly complex cases in an

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ever-changing legislative environment. This, combined with overly pressurized caseloads, means poorer service for those who have highsupport needs and limited ability to self-advocate. As a result, many homeless migrants are deterred from engaging with formal systems of support—a point of contention for service providers and policymakers working to include migrants in the welfare state. In both case study areas, there was considerable ambivalence regarding how to respond to disengagement, as well as ineligibility. Many street-level providers in the study explained going above and beyond their remit for clients who were the most difficult to serve. In contrast, there were accounts of twisting operational procedures to exclude otherwise eligible groups from housing, or at worst, creating ad hoc rules with no grounding in statute or regulation. Others were less inclined to serve a hard-to-reach group when faced with pressured caseloads and being ill-equipped to assist with more complex cases. In either case, migrant groups receive a poorer level of service than others, due to a complex legal environment, stringent conditionality and capricious discretion, which creates a greater likelihood of disengagement. Although very different systems exist—one based on statutory systems and formal procedure, the other based on local-level decision-making—the discussion that follows illustrates how there are also considerable similarities in the treatment of migrant groups. America had a succession of legislation serving to criminalise immigrants by instituting a series of criminal penalties for immigration ‘crimes’, whilst simultaneously denying immigrants their constitutional right to due process, such as in the cases of removing detention and expulsion matters from adjudication. The increasing criminalisation of immigrants has not only restricted rights, but has also galvanized wider welfare reform, a process paralleled in the UK post-2010. One study participant who was particularly well-placed to comment on the changing political landscape in America, pointed to a new, socially acceptable, anti-immigrant ethnocentrism, which undermined an ostensibly inclusive immigration agenda: You have a lot of restrictions that come from Congress and the generalised climate where people are mad that someone is here illegally, and there is this push to kind of criminalise that. So, why are we even going to give you benefits because if we give them to you, then they take them away from me? (Sheryl, Federal Government Attorney) The quote above alludes to a generalised anxiety about immigrants unduly taking, or stealing, benefits from someone else, presumably a person more entitled or deserving of assistance. Others in the study have noted that this fear has been felt more deeply and widely as welfare rights have been eroded more broadly. In both case study areas,

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immigrant-targeted welfare retrenchment has been pursued alongside welfare reform which reduced investment and shrank the overall number of claimants and the generosity of assistance, and introduced greater conditionally; this combination is often referred to as ‘workfare’. As one participant who worked in migrant rights explained, the retraction of the welfare state during a time of economic recession, alongside the ever-growing criminalisation of immigrants, gave rise to a prevailing agnotology and scapegoating discourse: ‘The more white families become embattled in this social economic downward spiral, the more likely they are to actually buy the argument that it is the foreign nationals who are coming to eat their lunch’ (Ernesto, National policy advocacy director). In the UK, the government’s policies of austerity have disproportionately affected low-income groups and disadvantaged the most vulnerable members of society (Beatty & Fothergill, 2013; Fitzpatrick et al., 2018). They have reinforced anti-immigrant sentiment in a similar scapegoating fashion to America’s welfare reform (Richardson & Codona, 2018). As expressed by a participant working in local authority housing services, a further restriction of access to assistance sent a message to those already here that they cannot rely on social protection and acted as an intentional deterrent for those considering migrating to the UK: ‘People are getting less and less … because the whole aim of the government has brought to make it harder and harder to come here, and certainly harder to be here if you are not working’ (Lynne, Homelessness services manager). Public support for reducing immigration in the UK legitimised efforts to restrict immigrant rights in many policy areas, with the (perhaps, unintended) consequence of blurring the boundaries of reserved and devolved matters. In the UK, there is a complex interplay between housing and welfare policy, with the former a devolved matter (decided by the Scottish Government at Holyrood) and the latter a reserved matter (under the legislative authority of the UK government at Westminster). Many respondents reported that the speed with which changes were occurring at the national level (largely under the banner of welfare reform) made working with migrant groups increasingly difficult, particularly in Scotland where the tone around immigration issues stands in stark contrast to the ‘hostile environment’ promoted elsewhere in the UK (Bowling & Westenra, 2018). According to respondents in Scotland, prejudicial attitudes towards migrants challenge the enactment of policies aimed at promoting equality and integration. Participants in the Scottish case study revealed how anti-immigrant sentiment added pressure to the workloads of hardpressed service providers working with immigrant groups and increasingly presented difficult positions for civil servants to defend policies promoting fair access to resources. One Scotland respondent explained

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how, as a civil servant, she found herself increasingly needing to respond to concerns from the public about immigration despite her remit being confined social housing: We get lots of letters from people, just tenants or random members of the public, complaining that the housing is being given to migrants. They write to ministers and usually they are writing saying ‘I want a house’, and they are not getting one, and ‘all the housing in my area goes to immigrants’, that kind of thing. Sometimes we write back and say that the data shows that that is not the case. (Anne, Civil servant) Resentment on the basis of race was also discussed in the Scottish case study, which included the perception that resources were being diverted away from other service users towards migrant groups. One case worker explained he felt a dilemma when migrant groups approached the local authority to access shelter, due to the conflict he had observed between local (Scottish) service users with complex needs and foreign-born ethnic minorities: We’ve got temporary accommodation and the suitability of that [for migrant groups] is a matter of concern. How suitable it is to put a person, a refugee for example, in with people who have multiple complex needs? Those kind of people [migrants] kind of experience, if not necessarily racial abuse, a feeling that is very, very uncomfortable with the way they are treated by other people around them … . You have some of the hostels which are very good on the one hand, but then some of the other hostels people are very mixed with quite intimidating characters. (Iain, Homelessness service provider) Resentment can also manifest in micro-aggressions by service providers. One manager for a homelessness charity in Scotland went so far as to characterise resentment from service providers as constituting direct discrimination: Sometimes front-line staff can be pretty lousy to EU nationals. They [front line staff] were shit, actually. If they [EU nationals] missed an appointment, they were totally cast out and would have to go through this process again. Let’s just call it what it is, it’s racism that’s what it is, and I think there’s a culture of racism in local authority services. (Gerald, Housing services manager)

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Although some respondents argued that racism was at the heart of the disproportionately poorer service that migrants received in homelessness services, others preferred to emphasise the general goodwill prevalent amongst social service providers. They explained substandard service as a consequence of fatigue and pressured caseloads. Work-related stress was a recurring theme amongst street-level case workers, exacerbated by the complex legal environment in which they work. As a consequence, there is a tendency by staff to avoid what is seen as complex cases. The next section outlines the ways in which service workers handle uncertainty and complexity through avoidance.

Avoidance The responses from participants particularly in the Scottish case study emphasised how legislative and procedural complexity created intense pressures on staff, many of whom noted that they were ill-prepared or poorly equipped to provide the advice required by homeless clients with complicated legal standing. In the UK, measures introduced in 2014 to further restrict ‘European Economic Area’ (EEA) Nationals accessing UK benefits created a fast-changing service environment which made it incredibly challenging for (largely unspecialised) service providers to discern migrants’ rights at any particular point in time. Several streetlevel workers and service managers, particularly in the Scottish case study (where there are overlapping immigration systems), candidly explained how they struggled to keep abreast of the constantly changing policy environment, and frequently felt ill-equipped to handle cases involving a highly detailed knowledge of the intricacies of immigration law, as evidenced by the accounts of these two local authority managers: The non-EEA cases are more straightforward. Because quite often we’ll say, right we’ll look at your passport, are you entitled to public funds or not? And if you’re not entitled, then you’re not entitled. And if you are, then we can assist. I think the EEA national thing is more complicated. (Gerald, Housing services manager) Even with the guidance that’s put out they [front line staff] are still unsure about [applicants’] rights and things like that. So, I think they struggle themselves with that to be able to advise people what they are entitled to. What’s not helping is that there are constant changes coming out, one change and then six months later there is a further change. And it is trying to keep on top of it … . And [the changes] are not always well advertised. They [Department for Work and Pensions] don’t put much notification out. We’ve been aware of it, but we feel like it’s just arrived on our doorstep and then we’re

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scrambling around trying to put information out to staff to try and keep them as updated as we can. (James, Housing services manager) In the UK, prior to Brexit, EU migrants, in order to be entitled to assistance, in addition to having a Right to Reside, had to satisfy the Habitual Residence Test, by demonstrating they had been in the country for a ‘reasonable amount of time’ and had a ‘settled intention’ to be in the UK. Specific measures in the 2014 benefit changes included a requirement to have been resident in the UK for a minimum of three months before claiming Jobseekers Allowance (JSA), which then can only be claimed for a period of three months and without eligibility for Housing Benefit (HB). Those who worked in the UK, but subsequently became unemployed (involuntarily) were able to access HB and JSA, but for a maximum of six months (Fitzpatrick et al., 2018). These restrictions had a disproportionate impact on nationals from Romania and Bulgaria as these measures coincided with the expiry of transitional arrangements for these ‘A2’ countries, when such applicants would have been eligible for social protection on the same terms as other EEA nationals habitually resident in the UK if it had not been for the rule change (Dagilyte & Greenfields, 2015). Different rules applied to A2 nationals from Romania and Bulgaria, including Roma travellers, either as part of a transitional arrangement in play or due to a disproportionate impact of certain restrictions. This made it particularly difficult for service providers to assist this client group, as one participant explains: ‘With Roma [homelessness applicants] there is a lot of confusion, no one really knows what access they have to statutory systems’ (Becky, caseworker). Another service worker who participated in the study explained the first time he came across the ‘genuine prospect of work’ test when he assisted one of his clients from Romania, who was Roma, to claim for JSA. He described how defeated he felt after working closely with his client, only for him to receive a refusal letter from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) referencing regulations he had not heard of previously: It is eye-wateringly complex, migrant rights [specialists] having people there specifically trained to deal with EU migrants because it’s such a complex, complex case. Because the regulations change month to month, to month to month. You’re up to date, and you think you understand it, and then all of a sudden, this letter comes back with this new regulation and you’re like, what am I supposed to do with this? (John, Caseworker) Similar frustration was expressed in the Boston area, where eligibility criteria vary between different programmes, as well as different local

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housing authorities which administer the housing programmes. As one non-profit services manager explained: There are just other layers that come out, you know if you have some programs you are eligible for and some you’re not, when all of these things converge, it becomes the sort of helter-skelter system of I am eligible for this, but this is working against that. It just becomes incredibly complicated’. (Joanna, Non-profit services manager) An important consequence was a tendency to avoid customers with highdemand needs, such as migrants who might struggle to self-advocate, particularly when caseloads are already under pressure. Some respondents revealed, even with the best will, that there was still a tendency to prioritise ‘easy’ cases to lessen the pressures of heavy caseloads. The tendency to ‘park’ difficult customers (Bruttel, 2005) disproportionately disadvantaged migrants with the most complex and time-consuming cases, as this service manager in Scotland explained: We [caseworkers] hated getting Europeans. It wasn’t that you don’t want to help them. I think it was very difficult to help them. And the man hours you could put in to helping that person when at the end of the day they would get a ‘no recourse to public funds’ [decision] and therefore would be refused accommodation, when you’ve got ten other guys that you know that you can help. You start to deviate and, and it’s just a human thing, you know, that’s how people get parked. (James, Housing services manager) The consequence of ‘parking’ difficult cases, such as those with complicated legal status or high support needs, is poorer, more inaccessible service. In some cases, such reluctance deterred migrants from accessing services, and in some cases, disengaged them entirely: Migrants are less likely to make repeat presentations as the pressure on the service increases. Migrants need more time when getting support, so as the pressure on the services increases, migrants don’t get that space. They avoid busier times, so they are not being served because they are just not coming back. (Jenny, Policy officer) The system just needs to get simpler in order for it to be less frightening and more easily accessible to people who are entitled and eligible, that would go a long way to help [homeless migrants]. I know how hard I find it, and I live here! I have always lived here, the

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language is my first language, and for these guys [homeless migrants], it’s just mind blowing. I can see why they would feel totally disempowered by that. (John, Caseworker) In the U.S., much of the casework with homeless migrants seemed to revolve around securing a status that would enable them to work legally. One lawyer working with a non-profit organisation that specifically serves destitute migrants explained the legal quagmire involved in a long and protracted process for what would otherwise be considered ‘straightforward cases’. He explained how it was mainly the procedural demands involved in securing status that consumed the most resources. This hindered the agency in serving those seeking assistance. He explained how those with ‘Special Immigrant Juvenile Status’, otherwise known as unaccompanied minors, involved petitioning three different courts for three different legal motions in order to achieve one outcome—such as obtaining a green card or legal permanent residency: We have a lot of cases, with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. The people that meet the criteria, they tend to be relatively straight forward, but incredibly demanding on the amount of resources just because the procedures are really demanding … . But if you work really hard with the client and have them develop their story, we can usually get it done, if the facts are there, but it is very demanding … . which is fine except that it means we meet only a very small fraction of the demand for these cases. (Rafael, Attorney for local non-profit) Despite the different legal contexts, participants in both case study areas stressed the complex environment with which they had to cooperate with to serve their clients. In the UK, much of the difficulty seemed to lie in the swiftness in which regulations and directives were being passed as immigration control was made increasingly restrictive, at the same time as the welfare state was facing retrenchment. The combined effect of these processes made it difficult to ascertain rights at any given time, which burdened a largely unspecialised workforce within local authorities and non-profit agencies. In the U.S., the complexity did not necessarily lie in the dynamism of the systems, but, rather, in its opacity around pathways to securing status and the right to work. Highly trained specialists in immigration law were required to work intensely with individual cases, involving people who were often not equipped to selfadvocate (due to language barriers or other evidentiary difficulties) and/ or without the funds to lodge costly, protracted legal petitions. The above examples reveal the disproportionate effect status conditionality had on homeless migrant groups. The system’s inflexibility

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presented caseworkers with a moral conflict where they observed extremely vulnerable clients excluded because assistance was conditional on legal status. Many of the participants felt they had violated their own personal ethics by being complicit in what they viewed as a deeply inequitable system.

Discretion Whilst the responses above suggest that the housing and welfare systems are not flexible enough, other respondents highlighted how their ability to exercise discretion can create latitude for extending support to some households who might otherwise not be assisted. This, however, could also introduce an opportunity for discrimination. The political will to harden borders and tighten budgets is not universally shared across the U.S. or the UK, and less socially and fiscally conservative government administrations have actively pushed back against inward-looking policies with a more communitarian agenda. As discussed above, Massachusetts and Scotland are notable for a social democratic approach to governance relative to their respective national contexts. The tensions between federal and state or reserved and devolved policy can be most acutely observed in the contradictions produced when conflicting systems combine. As evidenced in both case study areas, some service workers respond to ambiguity by administering ad hoc rules that may or may not be formalised in regulation or procedure. Discretion cuts both ways in ‘grey-areas’—to both constrain and enhance rights. For example, in a Scottish case study, one local authority manager explained how, in certain cases, the local authority was able to suspend offers given to an applicant on the waiting list for social housing. This suspension was frequently used in cases where the household was eligible for assistance under Scottish homelessness legislation but was not entitled to benefits due to legal status. This respondent explained they could suspend someone indefinitely so that the council could still be seen as fulfilling their statutory duty without providing any housing offer for a period of time: ‘the landlord … can suspends somebody’s right for an offer. In effect they can put in a time period, saying you are on the list, but we are going to make you wait’ (Gerald, Housing services manager). Similarly, a caseworker in Massachusetts explained how affordability rules in local housing authorities were used to exclude eligible households. Here, public housing rent is pro-rated (adjusted) based on the legal status of each household member. This caseworker explained that households with a low income and a large pro-rated rent will not be offered housing: Some sneaky things that come into play, such as if the family can’t demonstrate that they can maintain the house in terms of the cost,

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that might be a backdoor to render them ineligible … . So you have a subsidised unit, we are going to subsidise it, we’re going to do this pro-ration, in fact we did the formula and it looks like you will actually be paying 60% of your income towards housing—‘we can’t house you here, you are a risk.’ (Rick, Caseworker) The combination of complex systems, a lack of transparency and severe financial restrictions also provides an opportunity for operational procedure that runs counter to policy intent. For example, in Scotland, there are no clear directives on how to assist entitled homeless households without an ability to pay for housing. Local authorities have been left to determine their own protocols, which has led to wide variations in practice. One local authority manager explained how some councils were discharging their duty by housing homeless households and would simply ‘take the hit’ (write off unrecoverable costs) on the rationale that this is a marginal group in terms of overall numbers and the arrears would be negligible; whereas other councils were (wrongly) taking benefit ineligibility as grounds for refusing homelessness assistance: Their stance is that until you are entitled to apply for benefits they don’t actually have the Right to Reside and therefore do not have the right to access their service. I don’t know whether a lot of people are just being quite ad hoc about it … there is no blanket policy so there is the potential that each individual case is treated differently. I don’t know if they [the council] have taken the stance that everyone is entitled. (Mick, Local government manager) Similarly, in Massachusetts, respondents commented on the extent to which individual housing authorities could restrict access to their own housing stock and devise eligibility criteria that cannot be found in any federal statute or directive, despite receiving federal funding and being bound by those conditions. For federally funded public housing, a person without legal status can reside in the home as long as someone in the household has legal status (typically the qualifying person is a child born in the U.S. and therefore considered a ‘natural born citizen’). However, as this respondent working in social services commented, it was not uncommon to have housing authorities require legal status of all household members: A strange thing about the state, is that even though public housing authorities are funded by the Federal government, they tend to act differently from community to community. They are not monitored particularly well, they are not always aware what’s allowable, so

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Service Provision in a ‘Hostile Environment’ often times you will find a public housing authority that says ‘no we can’t accept anyone that is not a citizen; we can’t accept people who, for example, have criminal backgrounds’. All of these things are local, kind of made up, rules basically. They are not in the Federal legislation. (Joanna, Non-profit services manager)

There was also considerable discretion in how the circumstances leading to becoming homeless were interpreted. For example, in Scotland, a household can be deemed statutorily homeless; but if they are assessed as being intentionally homeless, they are ineligible for assistance. Several respondents in the Scottish case study explained that migrants were being disproportionately assessed as intentionally homeless, since the process of migrating was seen as voluntarily giving up accommodation. One caseworker explained how he was challenging an intentionality ruling on behalf of his client who had become homeless in Edinburgh, but was refused assistance due to evidence that he owned property in Romania, despite the property being undeveloped and ownership split between six of his other siblings. In the Massachusetts case study, there were similar examples where the process of migration is viewed as abandoning a subsidy, which is punishable by being barred from shelters. Some caseworkers explained that migrants from Puerto Rico, in particular, were disproportionately impacted by this rule since, as an American territory, public housing in Puerto Rico receives some federal funding from the U.S. government. Others explained that households from the Dominican Republic were similarly affected by criteria requiring state residency prior to accessing the emergency state shelter system: It’s incredible the number of families that’s shown up at the airports and have nowhere to go. They don’t have [Massachusetts] state residency. A lot of families are in that situation, particularly from the Dominican Republic. Also, the number of families we get here are from Puerto Rico, are being denied basic shelter because of residency. (Maria, Homelessness services provider) However, one respondent, who worked in local government homelessness services, explained that the state residency requirement to exercise a right to shelter was not as unsurmountable as many would believe: There is a list of things that people can show to prove that they are a Massachusetts citizen. There are 69 ways you can prove that you are a Massachusetts citizen, and they have to show that they are citizens, really, we are very lenient in that, it’s as simple as going to the state

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registry and registering your car and showing up with the registration, or going and registering your child for school and showing up with your child’s school registration. It’s as simple as that. (Betty, Housing services manager) The combination of active resentment, legislative complexity, strict conditionality and, at times, capricious exercise of discretion can all act as disincentives for migrants from engaging with the system. However, discretion and direct intervention can also be deployed by service providers to counteract these barriers and prevent homelessness amongst migrants. Some respondents more actively intervened in individual circumstances to prevent the possibility of ‘choosing’ to sleep rough. Those in the study most passionate about preventing rough sleeping typically spoke of extreme examples. For example, one participant in Massachusetts explained how she was on holiday, and upon passing a homeless family, she was compelled to call the police to a forcible intervention; she felt she had a moral duty to act: I was walking down Michigan Avenue in Chicago, and I was shocked to see families with children sitting on cardboard! Visually for me, as someone who has worked on homeless issues for a long time, we don’t see that [family homelessness] in Massachusetts. We don’t have that. So, for all of the condemning that happens around, look at how many families are living in shelters. Sure, there are not good situations in the shelters and motels by any means, but the state should minimally be commended for at least providing a roof over their heads … . It is costing us a lot, but the human cost of not doing it is probably far more severe. (Sheryl, Federal government attorney) Street-level providers in the Massachusetts case study stressed the ethical dilemmas they faced. One caseworker described how she would sometimes have to refuse emergency accommodation to a family with children because there were no overflow units in motels available on a particularly cold evening. Instead, she explained how she would personally drive families to the emergency room, so they could shelter in the hospital until she could see if there was availability in the motels which were used by the welfare office as emergency accommodation. This participant expressed ambivalence about her role in administering an emergency shelter system where, in certain cases, she is required to exclude desperate households who do not meet the qualifying criteria for state assistance. She spoke openly about understanding the policy rationale behind the qualifying criteria in principle, but in practice she felt the implementation of the eligibility rules was unfair in specific cases of need, suggesting a need for some level of discretion in the system:

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Service Provision in a ‘Hostile Environment’ The system is a tough system, even folks that are trying to help other people sometimes run into road blocks and barriers, and it is not an easy system. I get why it needs to be as complicated as it is, I do understand that- that’s my brain side speaking. My heart side says, wait a minute, this is a mother with three children, what do you mean she has to go sleep in the streets tonight? So, in those cases I say to people, show up at the hospital emergency room, and I tell them to say ‘my child has a cough, she’s been coughing all night, can you help me?’ That is what happens a lot, because I don’t want the mother and children sleeping outside. If it is cold, those children are going to be cold and they going to get sick. So anyway, that is my heart speaking. My mind understands all the process. (Sue, Housing services manager)

In perhaps the most striking example of intervention, one outreach worker in Scotland said he did not accept refusals, that he believed there were no conditions or circumstances in which it was acceptable to sleep rough. ‘Disengagement’ was not an option. When asked if he felt he had the right to override people’s autonomy, he explained that, by virtue of sleeping rough, individuals have given sufficient evidence that their ability to exercise agency had been exhausted. For this respondent, homelessness was not a viable option: ‘I think that there are folk who say they choose to rough sleep, but I don’t think that they are, and I would do everything to stop them from doing it’ (Brian, Outreach worker).

Conclusion The preceding examples are ways in which participants themselves find their own autonomy in the context of constraints exerted by complex, contradictory systems, to circumvent these barriers and respond creatively to difficult cases. Interestingly, in some cases, the ability of service workers to act on their will to intervene can actively override homeless persons’ autonomy in a paternalist fashion, such as in the extreme case of the outreach worker in Scotland who would do anything in his power to prevent rough sleeping. In other cases, however, the expanded agency of service providers via a scope for exercising discretion has provided the opportunity to expand the choice of homeless migrants. The complexity of a ‘system of systems’ governing immigration and housing creates a grey area in law, which provides scope for discretion, but also uncertainty avoidance in practice. Homeless cases seen to be overly complex or timeconsuming, such as those lacking legal status with particular support needs, do not just fall through the cracks—they are dropped there. The use of resentment, uncertainty avoidance and discretion to exclude migrants from services are all reasons why migrant groups are disproportionately disadvantaged compared to other users of homelessness services.

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Such inequities can run counter to policy intent, due to a complex legislative context as well as a result of disparities at the point of implementation. In the UK context specifically, recent government withdrawal from the so-called ‘national housing settlement’, of which the statutory homelessness system is part, has become clearer post-2010 as successive Westminster Governments have institutionalised an increasingly ‘conditional, ungenerous and narrowly-focused social security system’ (Dwyer & Wright, 2014). Increasing conditionality in welfare added to the already complex legislative environment in which service providers operated to enable (or restrict) migrant access to housing and related services. The tendency to impose behavioural conditions attached to eligibility for a particular benefit and to introduce further requirements relating to legal status (for example, the requirement to attend English language courses as a condition to claim Jobseekers Allowance), formed part of the UK government’s ambition to extend and deepen conditionality within the welfare system. Conditionality, as it applies to legal status, rather than behavioural contracts, is referred to as ‘status conditionality’, where receiving assistance is conditional on one’s legal position (Watts & Fitzpatrick, 2018). When crimmigration and the conditional welfare state intertwine, homelessness, as well as poverty, become the consequence of status for migrant groups. Policy objectives are not implemented in a vacuum, and in both cases, the objectives of housing and homeless policies were frustrated by competing and conflicting (national) policy agendas, as well as wider economic constraints. This is particularly true for homeless migrants who find themselves caught between systems, whether their legal status restricts their eligibility for social assistance or their employment status limits their ability to pay for housing. In summary, migrants in both contexts are constrained, in terms of accessing employment and public assistance. With regards to accessing publicly subsidised housing and homelessness assistance, the situation becomes more complicated due to the multiple (and often, conflicting) layers of governance (in the U.S., the relationship between the federal and state governments; and in Britain, the tension between the UK and devolved governments as well as local authorities). The contradictions and inconsistency between housing and other systems in both contexts produce constraints within this ‘system of systems’. Finally, the extent to which people engage with and are served by formal systems of support is down to individual autonomy. In both case studies, respondents mentioned that migrant groups were particularly ‘hard to reach’ and many expressed frustrations at not being able to provide services. Indeed, formal sources of support were avoided by some migrant groups. Some respondents felt that services were avoided due to pride and suggested that some ethnic groups saw it as shameful to seek assistance. Others viewed official systems of support as being treated with suspicion. In contrast to this somewhat paternalistic view of

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service provision and service users, other participants were struck by the resilience of those whom they found the most difficult to engage. The next chapter focuses on the ways in which people who lack legal status endure and respond to homelessness in the context of crimmigration control.

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Espenshade, T. J., Baraka, J. L., & Huber, G. A. (1997). Implications of the 1996 welfare and immigration reform acts for US immigration. Population and Development Review, 19 (2) 769–801. Felter, C. & Renwick, D. (2018). The U.S. Immigration Debate. Washington, D.C.: Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 6 September 2022 from https:// www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-immigration-debate-0 Fitzpatrick, S., & Davies, L. (2021). The ‘ideal’ homelessness law: balancing ‘rights centred’ and ‘professional-centred’ social policy. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 43 (2) 175–197. Fitzpatrick, S., Bramley, G., & Johnsen, S. (2013). Pathways into multiple exclusion homelessness in seven UK cities. Urban Studies, 50 (1) 148–168. Fitzpatrick, S., Bramley, G., Sosenko, F., Blenkinsopp, J., Wood, J., Johnsen, S., Littlewood, M., & Watts, B. (2018). Destitution in the UK 2018. London: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Retrieved 6 September 2022 from https://www. jrf.org.uk/report/destitution-uk-2018 Ford, R. (2018). Britain after Brexit: A nation divided. Journal of Democracy, 28 (1) 17–30. Hainmueller, J., & Hiscox, M. J. (2010). Attitudes toward highly skilled and low-skilled immigration: Evidence from a survey experiment. American Political Science Review, 104 (1) 61–84. Haywood, B. R. (2002). The right to shelter as a fundamental interest under the New York State Constitution. Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev., 34 157. Khosravi, S. (2010). ’Illegal’ Traveller: an Auto-ethnography of Borders. Springer. Koulish, R., & van der Woude, M. (2020). Introduction. The “problem” of migration. In R. Koulish and M. van der Woude (Eds.) Crimmigrant Nations (pp. 1–30). Fordham University Press. Loprest, P., Schmidt, S., & Witte, A. D. (2000). Welfare reform under PRWORA: Aid to children with working families? Tax Policy and the Economy, 14 157–203. Loveland, I. (2017). Changing the meaning of ‘vulnerable’ under the homelessness legislation? Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 39 (3) 298–315. Margulies, P. (2018). Bans, borders, and sovereignty: Judicial review of immigration law in the Trump Administration. Michigan State Law Review, 80 (1) 1. Richardson, J., & Codona, J. (2018). Blame and fear: Roma in the UK in a changing Europe. Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 26 (1) 95–112. Rosenthal, R. & Foscarinis, M. (2006). Responses to homelessness: past policies, future directions, and a right to housing. In R. Bratt, M. Stone, & C. Hartman (Eds.), A Right to Housing: Foundation for a New Social Agenda (pp. 316–339). Temple University Press. Schwartz, A. F. (2014). Housing Policy in the United States. Routledge. Serpa, R. (2021). The Exceptional Becomes Everyday: Border Control, Attrition and Exclusion from Within. Social Sciences, 10 (9) 329. Stumpf, J. (2006). The crimmigration crisis: Immigrants, crime, and sovereign power. American University Law Revue, 56 367–379. Stumpf, J. P. (2020). The terrorism of everyday crime. In R. Koulish and M. van der Woude (Eds.) Crimmigrant Nations (pp. 89–115). Fordham University Press.

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Toro, P. A. (2007). Toward an international understanding of homelessness. Journal of Social Issues, 63 (3) 461–481. Watts, B. (2014). Homelessness, empowerment and self-reliance in Scotland and Ireland: the impact of legal rights to housing for homeless people. Journal of Social Policy, 43 (4) 793–810. Watts, B., & Fitzpatrick, S. (2018). Welfare Conditionality. Routledge.

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Introduction This chapter outlines the array of obstacles the study’s participants faced in securing housing following their migration. It explores intentional barriers that limit the full participation of those lacking legal status in society’s labour and housing markets and block access to social welfare assistance, all of which are rooted in crimmigration control. The following sections underscore crimmigration’s impact on other policy areas that involve immigrants but are not traditionally considered formal elements of criminal or immigration law. Importantly, crimmigration affects longstanding protections that relate to immigrants’ experiences but come from other areas of law and policy—such as labour, housing and social security. As Chapter 4 demonstrated, these are dynamic processes which present a constantly changing policy landscape—under crimmigration control, migrants and those who serve (or house and employ) them face increasingly restrictive and punitive measures designed to deter ‘unwanted’ migration and exclude those lacking legal status. This crimmigration dynamic threatens longstanding and baseline protections in employment and social welfare. With respect to labour standards, wage per hour, job security and discrimination are considered here as protections undermined by crimmigration. Safeguards within housing and welfare policy, such as rent for subsidised and emergency housing as well as the level of welfare assistance (in-kind benefits and cash receipts), are similarly undercut by weaker standards applied to migrant households as compared to non-migrant households. The subsequent sections, therefore, consider how immigration policies interact with other systems, such as labour, housing and social security, to contribute to and amplify the causes of homelessness. An analysis of migrant experiences reveals how crimmigration becomes embedded within other systems to produce ‘inclusionary exclusion’ (Agamben, 2005). These exclusionary practices within formal structures of support, whereby a different standard of protection and punitive regimes apply to migrant DOI: 10.4324/9781003264484-5

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households, illustrate how the welfare state is co-opted in the migration control project (Serpa, 2021). Finally, the chapter examines the diverse housing strategies migrants employ to cope with crimmigration-based exclusion and day-to-day precarity, including the extent to which households can share accommodation and pool housing costs, utilise emergency shelter systems and source other forms of shelter usually considered unsuitable for habitation, such as vehicles and ‘squats’. The study introduces the concept of ‘housing sacrifice’ to explain why marginalised households may deprioritise housing, in some cases to the point of homelessness, in response to social exclusion and poverty (Serpa, 2019). The question of ‘choice’ is central to this discussion, considering the degree to which participants are able to exercise agency in their adopted coping strategies. The following stories, positioned within these wider forces, highlight both the manoeuvrability and constraints experienced by migrants in their responses to homelessness.

Crimmigration, work and homelessness Much of migrant homelessness’s structural explanations can be located within a precarious and restrictive labour system, particularly for those migrating primarily for economic reasons. Precarious or flexible labour markets are characterised by job insecurity, casual work and competitive pay. Flexible labour markets drive unemployment rates down, shifting the balance of power further towards employers and creating a highly insecure workforce (Standing, 2011). Migrants, regardless of skill, are at the sharp end of market liberalisation and more likely to experience job loss, low pay, insecure work and, frequently, discrimination and exploitation in the labour market. Unauthorised migrants in particular are disproportionately concentrated in low-wage industries (Feltman, 2008). The combination of deskilling, or the devaluing of skills, as a result of migration and a highly competitive labour market due to recession, greatly disadvantages migrants in the workforce (Garapich, 2014). Crimmigration plays a pivotal role in creating and maintaining workplace disadvantages for immigrant workers. Specifically, crimmigration affects labour standards (relating to wage and hours, anti-employment discrimination and collective activity protections) by generating incentives that regulate the behaviours of both employers and employees alongside the direct exertion of coercive force to enforce civil and criminal penalties for workplace-based immigration violations (Cox, 2008). According to Griffith (2011), crimmigration has impacted employee rights and protections by introducing problematic incentives for employers to discriminate, encouraging new forms of employer retaliation involving sub-federal (local) law enforcement in the investigation and punishment of workplacebased immigration violations and through the powerful symbolic effect of

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fostering a culture of fear in the workplace. This section focuses specifically on wage and hours of working and employment discrimination, as well as the regulation of immigration via the workplace. In both the UK and the U.S., it is not illegal for unauthorised migrants to work, per se; rather, immigration enforcement has been brought into labour standards enforcement through immigration regulatory measures and workplace-based enforcement actions at all levels of government. In the U.S., for example, the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was the first federal legislation to regulate immigration flows via the workplace by introducing sanctions primarily targeting employer behaviour and new criminal penalties for employers. Essentially, the IRCA created civil and criminal penalties for employers who knowingly hired unauthorised workers, a violation which frequently triggered other areas of criminal law, such as charges relating to ‘document fraud’ and ‘harbouring unauthorised aliens’ (Griffith, 2011). Prior to 1986, employers in the U.S. were not legally required to check the immigration status of their employees. Similarly in the UK, the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act created a new offence for hiring unauthorised workers—a civil offence punishable by a fine. Later, under the ‘hostile environment’ policy, the Immigration Acts of 2014 and 2016 introduced criminal sanctions (including imprisonment) for employers who commit workplace-based immigration offences (Hendry, 2020). The effect of entwining labour standards enforcement with immigration and criminal law, as is the case in both the U.S. and UK, has placed new burdens on employers to police migration in the workplace. The introduction of criminal and civil penalties for employers who hire employees without authorisation to work creates a strong incentive for employers to institute rigorous status checks and ongoing monitoring in their human resources practices. For migrants, these strict requirements create additional barriers to the labour market for migrants, regardless of their qualifications or experience. Others risk losing their job should their status (or their ability to prove their status) change. Many respondents in this study attributed their financial difficulties to evidentiary problems—they were skilled workers with a high degree of training or education, but lacked documentation to prove their eligibility for work. One service provider in Boston who gave specialist immigration advice expressed dismay at how he routinely saw talent and skills wasted due to an inability to provide the necessary documentation for employment: I think what is very backward about the system is, basically a family can be relatively educated, being quadrilingual is not uncommon, speaking Spanish, Creole, French and English. But, if they weren’t legally eligible to work, but were willing to work and were able to work, but not legally eligible to work, they end up in the shelter system. It’s kind of a waste, but that is the system. (Rafael, Attorney for a local non-profit)

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In addition to the barriers accessing work, participants who were able to secure employment spoke of their experience of a lack of labour standards protections relating to wage and hours of work, problems with health and safety in the workplace, as well as discrimination and exploitation. According to Griffith (2011), the dynamic of crimmigration in labour standards enforcement creates a hostile environment for migrant workers by introducing incentives for employers to discriminate against applicants that ‘look foreign’, and frustrate workers’ collective action efforts concerning complaints about wages, health and safety, and discrimination through immigration enforcement threats. Crucially, crimmigration also disincentivises employees to report violations to the appropriate authorities. As a result, migrants without a legal right to work are particularly vulnerable to exploitation through very low or zero wages, bonded debt, unpaid wages, misleading recruitment practices or poor (sometimes dangerous) working conditions. Some of these consequences that were experienced by participants are considered below. Firstly, several participants reported being cheated out of their agreed wages, whether through a promised job never materialised or work that was not fully compensated. One Romanian participant was left destitute after being paid only a fraction of the wages he had earned and relied on to cover basic costs. The missing wages left Gabriel without the resources to provide shelter for himself when he travelled onward for work: I earned £1,600 but he gave me £500. Food and accommodation and the rest of the money I did not [get]. I bought a tent in Glasgow and I stayed like that about three weeks. (Gabriel, Romanian) Jan was similarly out of pocket when he and his brother came to Edinburgh for work and found that the accommodation arranged by his employer was extremely poor, with six persons in a single room. In addition, Jan and his brother were never compensated for their time on the job: Terrible place. Like this room [gestures to the small room where interview is being conducted], six people. I’ll never forget that guy. We finished the job, but he didn’t pay us anything. (Jan, Polish) Secondly, job insecurity for working migrants was often the result of exploitive working practices. Antoni explained how the Polish workforce became expendable after migrants from other parts of Eastern Europe, who were prepared to work for a subminimum wage, began migrating to the UK. He described how he, along with over 100 other mostly Polish employees, were made redundant:

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I was fired by a new boss. Maybe they didn’t like Poles … . The boss decided to employ some workers from Lithuania. They were living in terrible conditions in some cabins provided by the company. He didn’t pay any taxes because they were working illegally. He was paying them less than us and they had to pay him for the accommodation. So, it was much cheaper for him to get rid of us and employ those guys from Lithuania. (Antoni, Polish) Thirdly, discriminatory pay practices were evident in some of the participants’ responses, although none described it as such. For example, several respondents offered examples where they were paid a lower wage due to their nationality or were unable to access certain jobs because they were (or were not) a certain ethnicity. Jan, for example, described how there is a ‘Polish price’ and a ‘British price’ for jobs, with Polish nationals compensated at a much lower rate than the native workforce. Interestingly, Jan excused such discriminatory practices by explaining the rationale for underpayment—that Polish currency (Złoty) is undervalued compared to the British Pound (£). Jan explained he was willing to accept the lower wage because the exchange rate enabled him to maximise the remittances he sent to his family in Poland. The inability to secure sustainable and reliable work is a major cause of homelessness amongst migrants. Emphasising this point, a caseworker in the Scottish case study stated: ‘I believe personally that you can’t talk about homelessness without also talking about employment and creating jobs’ (Becky, Caseworker). Crucial to this disadvantage is that employment is the most commonly pursued path out of homelessness for participants in this study, as most must secure housing in the private market and the earnings provide their main resource to do so, due to restrictions in both social security benefits and subsidised housing. As one service manager in Boston explained, employment, even in low-paying jobs kept many from experiencing homelessness: ‘I think a majority of my clients aren’t homeless because they just work very hard, illegally’ (Eileen, Homelessness services manager).

Exclusion from within The cases discussed above, particularly the experiences of migrants from Eastern Europe in Edinburgh, point to the extent to which crimmigration has undermined longstanding labour standards protections for employees and job seekers who have an immigration background. Similarly, the increasing pressure on third-party actors within the housing and welfare systems to police migration via ‘bordering practices’ serves to erode baseline protections for families in need of state support (Paasi, 2009). Bordering practice is conceptualised as involving social control by

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‘inclusionary exclusion’ (Agamben, 2005), whereby the welfare state apparatus (and other civil society institutions) is co-opted by central authorities in migration control. In the examples that follow, migrant groups are not necessarily excluded from social welfare entirely, but instead face exclusion within welfare structures (Serpa, 2021), for example, by having to pay higher rent for subsidised and emergency housing and receiving lesser welfare assistance by virtue of their legal status. Through bordering practices, social welfare services have ‘the capacity to define who matters and who does not, who is disposable and who is not’ (Mbembe, 2003, p. 27). In this way, the delivery of housing and welfare services can be seen as a ‘necropolitical site of violence’ where migrant groups are ‘kept alive, but in a state of injury’ (Mbembe, 2003, p. 21) through the conditional delivery and denial of essential services and support. Although complicity in crimmigration control can be contested (as seen in the responses of street-level providers in Chapter 4), local sites of ‘border resistance’ (Weber, 2019) nonetheless tend to be fragmented, ambiguous, idiosyncratic and surpassed by the influences of state control. Crimmigration, therefore, has a profound effect on the scope and shape of social welfare vis-à-vis bordering practices, as seen in how migrants are excluded from and disadvantaged within systems of subsidised housing and other forms of social protection. In both case studies, legal status determines one’s ability to access—and pay for—subsidised housing. For example, some study participants were limited in their options for moving on from shelter because their immigration status limited their housing options. Most participants in Massachusetts, however, did not identify a restriction to subsidised housing as a significant reason for their homelessness per se, as they would be eligible for state-subsidised housing; however, it was recognised that this is a more expensive option (due to rent proration) with a longer wait for those without documented status. However, a highly prorated rent (for example in cases where more than one member of a family lacks status) can render a household ineligible for housing on affordability grounds—as caseworker Rick explained in Chapter 4. Fortunately for Luciana, she was not in this situation and was very knowledgeable about her rights in Massachusetts since she was undocumented. Obtaining legal status was a clear priority whilst she resided in emergency shelter so that she did not have a restriction to subsidised housing: When you no have immigration status you only can apply for public housing, with state housing. So too much people apply for that and it’s the longest waiting list. And I can’t apply for [federal housing], because you have to be not illegal here, you have to be citizens … I can apply for other places. Because it’s better when you a citizen, more opportunities, more stuff you can do. (Luciana, Dominican)

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In Scotland, the barriers to accessing social housing identified by participants were largely due to their difficulty paying rent, rather than their eligibility criteria. For example, one Polish migrant explained how an inability to access secure employment caused him to accrue rent arrears in temporary accommodation, which otherwise would have been paid by Housing Benefits, had he not been restricted to benefits due to his immigration status. He was therefore unable to access affordable housing unless he paid back the debt owed to the Council. According to Jan, his only option was to rent privately which he could not afford because of his job insecurity: ‘My situation is simple. When I lost my flat, I was evicted. I don’t have any rights to get a new one’ (Jan, Polish). As discussed in Chapter 4, many respondents serving migrant groups were troubled by the limited support social services were able to offer clients by virtue of their legal status, if not for moral grounds, then for operational reasons. For example, one services manager in the Scottish case study questioned the (legally and morally) right course of action in cases where a household qualifies for housing (in this hypothetical case, an existing tenant) but is not entitled to the subsidy that would enable them to pay for that housing: If you have no access to benefits from the start but you do get access to accommodation, because you’ve been employed, and then you lose your employment … you’re not able to claim benefits … Then what do you do with that household? Who picks up the rent? Do you move through to actually evict? (Lynne, Homelessness services manager) Lynne’s dilemma reveals the latitude for discretion that providers have in responding to ‘grey area’ cases, but also the uncomfortable position street-level service workers are placed in determining what level of service migrant households are entitled to compared to other eligible groups (see Chapter 4 for a discussion on the role of discretion in determining entitlement and eligibility). Luciana and Jan’s story demonstrate the real consequences of crimmigration-based exclusion manifested in the barriers they experienced towards accessing subsidised housing. Legal status limits the available resources due to restrictions in the labour market and welfare system, and subsequently places migrants in a vulnerable position within the housing market in terms of the likelihood of accruing arrears, experiencing insecurity of tenure, and enduring poor housing conditions. In addition to making migrants susceptible to homelessness, limited income earning potential as a result of one’s immigration status also presents barriers to migrants escaping homelessness. Facing significant barriers in the labour market and restrictions to accessing (and affording) subsidised housing, some participants struggled to get by on the miniscule levels of welfare support available to them.

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Several participants in Boston, for example, explained that a prorated level of assistance (due to their legal status entitling them to less support) failed to alleviate their experience of poverty. Sofia expressed her dismay once her welfare entitlements were recalculated at a lower level after her temporary admission (legal status) expired: They’re [Department of Transitional Assistance] not going to give me more. When I got here they gave me more. And then they gave me less. Now is not enough to live. (Sofia, Haitian) Similarly, Jakub explained how he attempted to make use of temporary accommodation and was discouraged by the cost. Having migrated to the UK after 2014, when further benefit restrictions were placed on EU migrants, Jakub explained how he was unable to claim Housing Benefit that would enable him to pay for the expensive rent charges and that his entire paycheque would be spent on rent had he accepted temporary accommodation: I get my pay slip, I get £300. They [council] take £250 from me, and I get £67.90 for living from Jobseekers Allowance. I will not work only for accommodation … I will not make my hard money – you know, I sweat, tears and everything for that money for one week accommodation? (Jakub, Polish) The level of assistance provided in the form of welfare payments and inkind benefits was also insufficient for some participants. For example, Isabella explains how the welfare assistance paid to her children, who are American citizens, falls far below her actual costs to support her family even when complemented by other forms of State assistance, such as Food Stamps and the subsidised Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). She goes on to explain that even with a rental subsidy, she still struggles to support the household: Even when the Section 8 vouchers would help a lot, I still need money for many things. My son gets his medicines free of charge, but I suffer from high blood-pressure and I have to buy the medicines myself, because I have temporary health insurance. I have to buy a weekly transport pass to be able to go to my work … . There are times when I don’t get the coupons [Food Stamps] and I have to buy milk for my son … . I have to buy many things … like the school uniform, the shoes … . there are so many things that I have to pay for and cannot. (Isabella, Dominican)

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In addition to limited access to housing and welfare support, some participants explained that their homelessness was directly linked to violating conditions for assistance—violations which were directly connected to their status as a migrant. For example, Section 8 housing attaches strict rules about acceptable behaviour as well as requirements for annual recertification in the tenancy agreement. Migrants living transnational lives are particularly susceptible to falling afoul of requirements to respond to time-sensitive demands from housing management or be available for unannounced inspections. One participant explained how she missed crucial correspondence from the local housing authority regarding recertification whilst she was visiting family and returned home to find that the locks were changed after her absence was mistaken for abandonment despite contacting the authority in advance of her temporary leave: What happened when I lost my Section 8 [rental voucher] was that one of my family members back home got sick. They [housing authority] contacted me three times … and I wasn’t here in Boston. So they kicked me out of the house for that. I even tried to let Section 8 know that I was away and I had a sick family member and they still closed my case, evicted me. (Camila, Dominican) Similarly, one homelessness services manager explained that violating the rules of Section 8 subsidised tenancies by allowing unapproved occupants in the household disproportionately impacts migrants as it is common practice for a tenant to allow a friend or family member who does not have documented status to be doubled up with them for a short period until they are able to source alternative, more permanent accommodation. Unfortunately, even short-term stays can be breaches of tenancy agreements which are punished by the ultimate sanction—eviction: They [Section 8 tenants] double up, sometimes with other families who are in subsidies or other situations that put them at risk [for breach of tenancy]. We do the overnight twenty-four-hour response for the main hotline and we get many phone calls where they’re just at breach with nowhere to go. They’re not welcome anywhere. They’ve been denied through the state’s welfare system. We get many phone calls like that. (Joanna, Non-profit services manager) Some participants explained how they were not only excluded from services due to their legal status, but also encouraged by front-line caseworkers to return to their country of origin when seeking support. Valentina expressed her devastation when she approached a social

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worker for help relocating her and her family, who had endured intolerable conditions in an illegal basement apartment. She explained how she was deemed (wrongly) ineligible for homelessness assistance and that the only solution her caseworker at the time could offer was for her to return back to the Dominican Republic: It was heart-breaking; imagine I was here, I had no family, I had no money, it was better to tell me to leave [the country], but leaving implies expenses, four flights, the kids and mine, she [social worker] told me, ‘go back to Santo Domingo, what are you doing here?’ It was shocking. You think you will find something positive and they [DTA] turned their backs, I left crying because I didn’t had a place to go, and that day I didn’t wanted to go back to that place, to the house. But, I had to go back. (Valentina, Dominican) Fortunately, in her persistence, Valentina obtained another social worker who, at her discretion, placed her and her family in an emergency shelter. To protect her family, Valentina emphasised the great risks she took by approaching social services about her poor housing conditions; she was worried that her landlord would retaliate against her for having reported the condition of the home to the authorities. The anxiety Valentina expressed over the possibility of losing her home—and her children—poignantly demonstrates the level of fear one has when acting on rights and protections without legal status: I’m falling dead because the [landlord] invented that [social work] would take my kids away because they were at the basement, and the basement wasn’t really in good condition, there were rats and a lot gas smell, there was a lot of mould. I had to leave but couldn’t because I wouldn’t let them to take my kids away, I did not come from Santo Domingo to have my children removed just like that, and I had to grab and hold the pride and all morals and go to [Department of Transitional Assistance]. I told them my case, I had no home, had three children, the older one suffers from asthma every night and he had attacks so then they sent to investigate and monitor the area and because of the kids they gave me housing. (Valentina, Dominican) Valentina’s case reveals the two-pronged power that crimmigration has in influencing the behaviour of migrants and other third parties who employ, house or serve them. On the one hand, there is a powerful incentive on behalf of third parties to police the migration status of employees, tenants, clients and so on, but there is also the incentive to exploit those who lack documentation and are therefore not afforded the

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same rights and protections guaranteed to citizens. Coupled with these incentives is also a strong disincentive for migrants to complain out of fear of retaliation which might result in losing one’s job, home and children, or becoming subject to detention or deportation. These anxieties which so often characterise the immigrant experience (alongside individual preference and priorities) factor heavily in the decisions people make to cope with precarity and housing needs.

Housing strategies dealing with crimmigration control This section demonstrates how households can actively deprioritise housing to the point of choosing homelessness when faced with multiple competing demands. Building on the concept of ‘shelter poverty’ (which explains how basic needs go unmet to sustain a home), the corollary notion of ‘housing sacrifice’ is introduced here to reveal how households forgo the privacy, safety and security of a home to meet other financial demands and social needs (Serpa, 2019; Stone, 2004), such as easing the burden of housing costs, or avoiding them altogether, by sharing accommodation with other households; utilising emergency shelters or sleeping in places not normally considered fit for habitation. By analysing the strategies, the following section considers the level of choice and constraint when migrants face extreme housing needs. Both case studies illustrate how agency can be deployed in response to deep exclusion and crimmigration control. First, this section examines how migrants share accommodation to reduce cost, increase mobility and access support. For most people, housing is the first and largest claim on household income (Stone, 2004). Migrants and others on a constrained budget with limited earning potential inevitably look to minimise their housing expenditures. Participants on extremely low (or zero) incomes explained looking outside the market to meet their housing affordability needs, saving on rent by ‘couch surfing’ (sleeping in living rooms, typically ad hoc, for a short period and often in successive moves), ‘doubling up’ (staying with others who would not normally be part of the household, often for a longer period and preplanned) or overcrowding (accommodation that is too small for the occupants’ needs, which may be with or without others who would normally form one’s household). There is considerable overlap between these categories; broadly speaking, these circumstances are often referred to as being ‘precariously housed’ or as examples of ‘hidden homelessness’. By sharing accommodation, these households are concealed in other people’s homes or are living in accommodation that is too small for their needs, primarily to save on the cost of housing, but also as a means to secure support from others with whom they share their home. In some cases, as explored below, the gap between the cost of housing and what one can afford can alter household formation, pushing

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multiple families to share the same living space or dividing families and dispersing household members across to several hosts when one accommodation is not accessible to the whole family. These sharing arrangements can be ad hoc, one-off events when the opportunity arises to stay with friends or family, for example, or they can be planned longer-term agreements with more distant connections. Lack of security of tenure is a concern for most concealed households as typically these scenarios do not impart (legally enforceable) occupancy rights. These situations do not always entail overcrowding, and this issue is addressed separately to account for families that are intact and singular but are unable (or unwilling) to spend more on more suitably sized accommodation. Study participants outlined various financial benefits of staying with people familiar to them (such as family members, friends and other acquaintances) on a short-term basis. Those who slept in living rooms or ‘couch surfed’ were typically single and male, although some participants did refer to periods of having to move several times, from house to house with children and/or spouses accompanying them. Couch surfing involved arrangements that were temporary and insecure, but also ad hoc and generally spontaneous, normally involving a chain of short-term stays with acquaintances over a period of time. Participants who couch surfed mostly enjoyed no housing costs, in that being accommodated for a night or so was seen as a token of friendship and love, although some said they did contribute a nominal sum in payment. Though not seen as an ideal scenario for anyone, several participants explained couch surfing as having financial advantages, particularly by unaccompanied (mainly, but not exclusively) male individuals. As an example, this arrangement suited Vasile early in his migration process, prior to his family joining him. After reunification nearly one year into his resettlement, he became desperate to secure his own place. However, in the longer term this strategy of saving on housing costs impacted his children’s well-being: They [host family] were sleeping in a bed and I was sleeping on a mattress. But here I didn’t pay rent, they let me stay with them. It was good then just me, but it’s true that is unpleasant to stay at someone’s place without paying rent. I’m with my family now, and I don’t want to be on the road anymore. We are sleeping in the living room. You can imagine that when I was waking up at 6am, my child was also waking up. (Vasile, Roma) Vasile’s experience exemplified how couch surfing appeals to single people as a (short-term) financial strategy but becomes a crisis situation for those with children. The negative developmental impacts of homelessness on

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children are well documented (Rafferty & Shinn, 1991; Buckner, 2008; Shinn et al., 2015; McCoy-Roth et al., 2012). For others, couch surfing was a means to support children and a family who remained abroad. Matias, for example, migrated to America, and for many years he sent money back to his family in Haiti. He explained how mobility was important for him so that he could follow job opportunities as they arose, often over state borders. His wide social network within the Haitian community in several towns in Florida allowed him to move flexibly for work and enabled him to send larger remittances. Matias explained how his social network offered the short-term support he needed to give himself time to establish himself in new communities: When I move, I meet some friends. I live with my friend for shortly, until I got job. I got paid so I make money to take care of myself and send the money for my family … . They [friends] let me stay so low [cost] space for a living, until I got job … . I don’t like living with friends for long. (Matias, Haitian) Whilst not ideal, couch surfing offered an important stop-gap, whether transitioning between jobs or places or to prevent or at least postpone street homelessness. This option, however, was much more attractive to unaccompanied individuals; in contrast, for families it was preferable to be ‘doubled up’ or in some cases ‘tripled up’ and have (comparatively) more stability. Severe overcrowding was therefore a sacrifice some participants made to make accommodation more affordable. Ana, a Roma migrant from Romania, endured more than a year of sharing a twobedroom flat with her sister-in-law’s family, for a total of nine people in the house. Despite the undoubted hardship she and her family faced during that year, she explained there was a financial benefit to living in such overcrowded conditions, saving on child-minding expenses. Having family in the home to watch the children allowed Ana free time to earn money by selling street newspapers. The household had a reciprocal arrangement shared amongst the two women: We lived with one of my husband’s sisters. We were three and they were six, so we were nine in two bedrooms. About a year, we lived together like this. My son was young and I couldn’t work every day. My sister-in-law helped me because they had a small child. It was easy for me to go to work because she could look after my son, too. (Ana, Roma) Although the informal support in the crowded home allowed Ana additional time to earn money, she stressed that her extreme circumstances were borne out of necessity and that she had no other option but

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to endure this hardship. Overcrowding was not a deliberate strategy, but she was able to make the most out of a hard situation: What else could I choose, there was no other choice to make. We wanted to be alone, to have our privacy, because is no good to be many people … . No matter how well you care the house, when it’s crowded, is crowded! (Ana, Roma) It is unsurprising that sharing accommodation involved a series of compromises. Many of the participants who couch surfed, doubled up or lived in overcrowded conditions emphasised the financial benefit of reduced housing expenses, but also noted that this living situation came at a cost of privacy, security and, in some situations, well-being. For some participants, sharing accommodation was a choice, typically for younger unaccompanied men looking to maximise earnings in the shorter term; for others, being in a ‘concealed household’ was a function of necessity rather than a desire for economic gain. Families with children who were sharing accommodation seemed particularly vulnerable to displacement, either by being asked to leave or being required to leave by official intervention. For a small number of participants, ‘literal homelessness’ was an active strategy to maximise savings or achieve other welfare objectives. Polish participants, particularly those migrating primarily for economic reasons, spoke about the financial benefits of avoiding housing costs, by opting out of the housing market entirely and rejecting social housing. It should be acknowledged, however, that for Polish participants who stated that homelessness was an active choice, certain conditions made this decision more tolerable. For example, these interviews were conducted in the warmer and dryer summer months, and it was likely that these participants would not have adopted the same housing strategy during a cold, rainy season. Some participants explained making use of winter shelters or temporary accommodation when sleeping rough became too dangerous at colder temperatures. Still, several Polish men in the study explained how they ‘chose’ to sleep rough, or sleep in places not fit for habitation, to make the most of their low wages and limited funds. Some described sleeping rough as a preference over other options, such as couch surfing, staying in emergency accommodation or even renting, because of the freedom and cost savings this afforded them. Others chose to sleep rough as an act of defiance. For Piotr, sleeping rough freed him from debt and expense and liberated him from other societal obligations and responsibility. Such an anti-authoritarian attitude amongst younger Polish men has been commented on in other homelessness studies (Serpa, 2019; Garapich, 2014; Mostowska, 2011). The interpreter employed during Piotr’s interview explained that, in Poland, anti-establishment beliefs were commonly

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described as being ‘choked with freedom’; after the fall of Communism in Poland, many of the younger generation rebelled against any form of State control, including State assistance. To Piotr, accepting State or housing aid would violate his deeply held personal ethics about independence and self-efficacy. He would rather be deported than wilfully accept the State’s control via welfare conditionality. Jakub, also a migrant from Poland, similarly adopted homelessness as a strategy to stretch his limited resources. Although personal independence seemed less of a priority for Jakub than for Piotr, it still featured in his interview as a personal value that he secured by sleeping rough. It was also clear in Jakub’s description that homelessness has different connotations in different cultural and social contexts. Like Piotr, Jakub described his surprise at being able to manage without a reliable place to sleep at night; such a prospect would have been unthinkable for him in Poland, mainly for practical reasons. He described how he circumvented barriers to getting a job whilst homeless by using public showers and keeping an address at a homeless drop-in centre so that he could collect his post. Jakub emphasised the support mechanisms which enabled him to secure and maintain a job whilst homeless: I didn’t look for work when I was [first] homeless, I didn’t think it was possible. But now I know it’s possible … . Now I sleep in the park, sometimes I sleep in the church. I have all the clothes for work in my pack, and change at work. I the first homeless guy to get a job! No one hires a homeless guy. I give them an address for the postman, at the showers. I didn’t think they would hire me if they think I was homeless. (Jakub, Polish) Those who actively ‘chose’ to sleep rough appeared to exercise more agency than other similarly positioned participants in the study. Perhaps an extreme example, one respondent in the study explained that homelessness was not only his choice, but his preference when compared to hypothetical housing options. In this case, it was more persuasive that sleeping rough was, in fact, a matter of choice. For Dawid, a Polish rough sleeper, homelessness was a long-term economic strategy. Unlike other Polish migrants in the study, he migrated to the UK prior to Polish accession to the EU in 2004 and benefitted from a booming UK construction sector at that time. He stretched his paycheque further by staying in very crowded situations with other workers on a particular job site or, when a job was in a more rural setting, he stayed in a tent. According to Dawid, the best arrangement was when he stayed in squats, which he explained offered him what resembled the security and privacy of a rented home, free of payment; this was more ‘convenient’:

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It was not clear why Polish participants in the study seemed to be exceptional in their preference for sleeping rough compared to other homeless participants in this study. Possible explanations include the concept of the Homo Sovieticus, referring to an ostensible tendency of those in (previously) communist countries to disobey authority at all costs (Garapich, 2014); perceptions of social acceptability of rough sleeping compared to prevailing attitudes in their home country; or that most of the Polish participants were young, unaccompanied and had migrated with the primary purpose of accruing as much savings in as short a time as possible. In this sense, the Polish participants had the greatest degree of choice, as they were relatively free of family obligations or limitations due to health or social status. These practical matters in combination with certain cultural attitudes and a short-term economic goal encourage a higher tolerance for what most would regard as unacceptable living conditions and the deliberate de-prioritisation of housing, to the point of homelessness. For others, ‘choice’ was much more limited; participants described opting for the least bad option out of a range of even worse alternatives. Just as sleeping rough was a distinctive act of defiance largely amongst Polish participants and exclusively in the Scottish sample, there was also important distinctions as to how an emergency shelter was utilised in the two case study areas. As the discussions below reveal, Eastern European participants in Scotland tended to use emergency accommodation on a much more temporary and ad hoc basis, when the conditions made it more convenient for them to do so; whereas the respondents from Central America relied on emergency accommodation in Massachusetts for the long-term and as a means to secure stability for their families. Because of these differences (which varied possibly due to the differences in eligibility criteria between the two systems, but also because of variations in the household composition between the samples in the two case study areas), the participants emphasised different benefits. Participants in the Scottish case study largely emphasised the financial benefits and the freedom and flexibility the shelter offered (depending on eligibility for assistance), whereas participants in Massachusetts benefitted from the services they accessed and the opportunity for permanent re-housing that would not have otherwise been afforded to them outside the shelter system. Culhane et al. (2011) explain how such a ‘linear continuum model’ of housing observed in the U.S. creates a parallel social welfare system which restricts

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access to essential services to those deemed officially homeless (e.g., residing in state emergency family housing). The variation in these strategies around emergency shelters between the two case study areas also related to varying goals (and permissions) afforded to participants in their wider migration goals. Emergency shelter and temporary accommodation were used strategically by some respondents in the Scottish case study, which for many of these participants was time-limited due to ineligibility for homelessness assistance and/or Housing Benefit. Indeed, most emergency shelters were only available during the winter months and were not intended as a longer-term option. Those informed of which shelters were available and when and/or knowledgeable about their rights to access temporary accommodation spoke of being able to manoeuvre between other arrangements (couch surfing, sleeping rough) and shelter depending upon the concessions they were willing to make at the time; for example, in sacrificing a warm and dry place to sleep at night so as to be nearer to work (choosing rough sleeping) or paying for commuting costs when it was dangerously cold out (choosing shelter). Jan, in particular, was well informed of the options available to him as a Polish migrant with restricted access to homelessness assistance and benefits. He explained how he was living in a tent with his brother whilst picking up casual work. Like Dawid, who maximised his earnings by staying in squats, Jan was long-term homeless whilst moving from job to job, typically within construction when building work was available. He explained how he was surprised to learn that emergency shelters at churches were available and that he could go to the council for assistance. Having made a homelessness application previously, Jan was aware that he had a right to temporary accommodation for a period of 28 days whilst the council decided on his application. Jan anticipated that he and his brother would be refused homelessness assistance on the basis of their legal status, and he explained how he was ‘saving’ their right to 28 days of temporary accommodation for the colder winter months: I got some job but we live in a tent. After this we sleep in a church. Have you ever heard of something like that?! … Then I can get B& B. This is only for 28 days and I’m waiting for winter. Now it’s warm and no problem. (Jan, Polish) The quality of emergency accommodation varies considerably across localities making this strategy more or less desirable depending on where one is homeless. In other cases, emergency accommodation is reserved primarily for households with children. In the Massachusetts case study, family accommodation is generally of higher quality (in terms of privacy

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and comfort) for households with children. Some participants in the study had personally experienced the difference between being considered a priority or not and its impact on their ability to access service and/or housing. Luciana, for example, was conscious that her priority for assistance was based on her daughter and not herself, that had she not had children she would not have been eligible as a single person without legal status. She explained how she could not obtain welfare assistance for her expenses or access support for other issues, such as immigration or employment training, that was not directly related to the welfare of her children. She described how state assistance was limited to food and shelter for her children: Social worker not helping my problems. Only the priority is my daughter. She gonna stay good, she has to be eating good, and she has to have someplace good for her, so that’s the priority for DTA [Department of Transitional Assistance]. (Luciana, Dominican) Similarly, Blanca observed the differential treatment afforded to individuals compared to families with children when she and her husband were without a place to sleep after being unexpectedly asked to leave the accommodation they shared with a relative. Blanca described how they were escorted by police to a low-threshold emergency shelter after they were discovered sleeping in their car and how frightened she was being the only female in a shelter and separated from her husband, as there were no family rooms. It was only until she emphasised the point that she was in her last trimester of pregnancy that the couple was transferred to an emergency family shelter. Blanca explained her relief at having been transferred to family shelter because she felt safer and more secure knowing that she could stay until she was re-housed and her time was not limited to a 30-day stay, the limit for a ‘wet’ (low-threshold, single person) shelter. Her husband, Mateo, went on to explain how being placed in the emergency family shelter was like ‘winning the lottery’ and that, had they been placed elsewhere, such as the overflow motels where some migrant households were diverted, they would have been unable to access the support they needed to secure re-housing, at least not as swiftly as they would whilst being in shelter: How long [re-housing] takes depends where they put you. ‘Cuz I know people that told me they’ve been in the motels and there’s terrible help going towards them. It takes weeks until you see a case manager versus being in a shelter, it’s like you hit the lottery. ‘Cuz you have a case manager, a case worker 24/7. Say we didn’t have the baby, we would have been [placed] in the motel because of no Green Card. (Mateo, Dominican)

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Isabella, also Dominican, shared Mateo’s relief at being accommodated in an emergency family shelter and expounded at length on the number of benefits she and her family received in the shelter. Prior to shelter, Isabella was in a motel with her young son who suffers from cardiovascular disease; they were shortly transferred due to being a medical priority. Isabella and her son had been moving between friends’ homes, and after her son’s health deteriorated, she sought homelessness assistance. Having never engaged with formal systems of support, she explained how the shelter provided an opportunity to secure a permanent housing solution for her and her son: ‘[Section 8 programmes] give more preference to the people living in shelters than to those who live elsewhere’ (Isabella, Dominican). Isabella was clear that the shelter represented a crucial safety net, that regardless of whether or not she was able to bring home a paycheque that week, she could at least rely on knowing that she and her son would be safe and have food and shelter. There were some participants, however, that had a much more negative experience in shelters and were no longer optimistic that they would be re-housed after waiting for so long. Valeria from Guatemala, for example, explained that her case manager at the shelter ‘don’t offer hope’, and that she was in a shelter because she had no other choice. Sofia expressed a similar degree of hopelessness, and having no other option, did not see anything positive about her family’s situation, explaining simply ‘I have nowhere to go. I needed a place to live with the baby, since I did not have anywhere to go, that’s why I’m here [in shelter]’ (Sofia, Haitian).

Conclusion The responses considered in this chapter illustrate how the degree of agency participants exercised varied in both case study areas. Some expressed having no choice in being homeless, such as Sofia from Haiti who felt that being in a family shelter was her only option. These experiences contrasted with the examples of Polish migrants Jan and Piotr, who explained that homelessness was their ‘choice’ and, in fact, expressed a preference for sleeping rough. That said, it is questionable how much being street homeless or staying in squats was actually a preference over other available (or hypothetical) options or was said for some other (unknown) reason. Similarly, some of those who were sharing accommodation, such as Matias from Haiti, explained that couch surfing or doubling up was an active choice for financial and social benefits. Others, particularly those in a family shelter or temporary accommodation, explained that having sought emergency assistance after exhausting all other choices, there were some benefits associated with being in a shelter (such as access to services and re-housing, as well as an ability to save), even if they did not ‘choose’ a shelter for those reasons.

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The concept of housing sacrifice is used to describe a range of situations, including active decisions to de-prioritise housing, as well as circumstances where choice is much more constrained to choosing the least bad option from amongst worse alternatives. Migrant responses to homelessness are therefore dependent on the context in which homelessness occurs and the degree to which choice is constrained. Ultimately, though, these responses are the result of a decision-making process involving the options available at the time and one’s values and preferences. The ways in which people responded to homelessness depended on an array of highly idiosyncratic factors, such as cultural attributes and personal characteristics, which interact with structural forces rooted in labour, housing and social security systems. The central argument of this book is that the deep-seated social exclusion and precarity experienced by migrant groups stem from a crimmigration dynamic that extends beyond immigration and criminal law and alters longstanding and baseline protections in other policy arenas such as labour, housing and welfare. With respect to labour standards, crimmigration creates strong incentives for employers to police applicants’ and employees’ legal status and to discriminate against those suspected to be foreign or lacking documentation. Furthermore, the critical importance of documented work authorisation for employment opens the door to worker exploitation; ‘illegal’ workers are not afforded the same protections as citizens, such as a minimum wage, maximum working hours and workplace safety. Importantly, crimmigration also creates a strong disincentive to employees to lodge a complaint about violations for fear of employer retaliation either through dismissal or reporting them to the authorities. A similarly strong disincentive also exists within the housing domain insofar as tenants without legal status do not feel empowered to complain against exploitative landlords who, for example, charge extortionate rents or provide substandard living conditions, such as in the case of illegal basement apartments in Boston. In Valentina’s case, she feared retaliation from her landlord if she had reported her for housing code violations, as she could evict her family or report her to immigration authorities and social services, potentially leading to deportation and the removal of her children. Crimmigration also undermines certain rights in housing, as evidenced by Sue, the housing services manager in Chapter 4, who provided the example of a mother of three who lacked legal status and was therefore advised to take shelter at an emergency room despite having a Right to Shelter in Massachusetts. Similarly, housing services manager Gerald explained how local authorities can suspend a right to an offer of permanent housing indefinitely for migrant households ineligible for benefits despite being entitled to a Right to Settled Accommodation in Scotland. These accounts seem to be exceptional, however, and the rareness of these cases perhaps speaks to the progressive nature of housing policy within these

Exclusion and Housing Sacrifice 101 subnational contexts. For example, since 2016, elsewhere in Britain (outside Scotland) exists a so-called ‘right to rent’ whereby all landlords and their agents are required to obtain proof from prospective tenants of their right to reside in the UK prior to letting or re-contracting, or else face criminal prosecution (McKee et al., 2021). More recently in 2021, the UK Government announced its intention to more fully rollout its crimmigration programme by making homelessness grounds for deportation for those without resettlement status post-Brexit (Serpa, 2021). A similar programme of deporting those in need also operates in the U.S. at a state level, as one participant reveals the bundle of protections extended to migrant households in Massachusetts compared to other jurisdictions: Massachusetts is more lenient than other states. For example, in Texas it’s just don’t walk through the door [of homeless services], they [immigration authorities] will immediately handcuff you and put you in jail if you can’t prove [legal status]. The children go to wherever they put the children until they figure out what is happening with the parents. It’s a tough situation, we do have a lot of undocumented immigrants all over the country and we can’t help them all. (Sheryl, Attorney for the Federal Government) The ability of crimmigration to embed itself within the relatively progressive housing policies of Massachusetts and Scotland also speaks to the influential power that combining immigration and criminal law has over other policy areas to affect migrant experiences. The convergence of crimmigration which criminalises immigrants, on the one hand, with a welfare system that (ostensibly) protects the most vulnerable in society, on the other, creates what Agamben (2005) describes as ‘inclusionary exclusion’. Crimmigration puts the welfare state to the service of a migration control project by deploying the State’s ability to categorise, monitor and punish so-called ‘crimmigrants’ within welfare structures (Franko, 2020). The consequence of such exclusion, under a necropolitical perspective, is to create a second-class citizenry that is ‘kept alive but in a state of injury’ (Mbembe, 2003). Forms of inclusionary exclusion observed in this study include the high cost of subsidised housing and temporary accommodation, making these options not financially feasible and a lower level of welfare assistance for migrants, which makes homelessness much more entrenched for families with a migration background. There is also evidence that migrant groups are more vulnerable to sanctions within housing and welfare, such as evicting households who do not attend inspections without considering transnational obligations as mitigating factors against doling out such harsh punishment. Welfare structures also have the power of expulsion, to evict people from homes and to exclude them from services, but also the powers of extirpation and

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banishment (Serpa, 2021)—as Sheryl’s quote above indicates, explaining how detention and deportation is a real consequence for undocumented migrants engaging homelessness services in a state where crimmigration is more enthusiastically embraced as a matter of official policy. The pervasive nature of crimmigration in other policy areas not traditionally thought of as concerning immigration and criminal law underscores the resourcefulness of migrants to exert agency under extreme constraint. Housing sacrifice is one such strategy that enables severely constrained households a measure of agency in the face of competing demands. The de-prioritisation of housing is by no means optimal; a home which offers privacy, security and stability should be available to everyone, regardless of the status of their papers. The concluding chapter considers how realising a ‘social citizenship’ right to housing might counteract crimmigration control and respond to the housing needs of all people, regardless of their status.

References Agamben, G. (2005). State of Exception. University of Chicago Press. Buckner, J. C. (2008). Understanding the impact of homelessness on children: Challenges and future research directions. American Behavioral Scientist, 51 (6) 721–736. Cox, A. B. (2008). Immigration laws organizing principles. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 157 341–394. Culhane, D. P., Metraux, S., & Byrne, T. (2011). A prevention-centered approach to homelessness assistance: A paradigm shift? Housing Policy Debate, 21 (2) 295–315. Feltman, R. (2008). Undocumented workers in the United States: Legal, political, and social effects. Richmond Journal of Global Law and Business, 7 65–86. Franko, K. 2020. The Crimmigrant Other: Migration and Penal Power. Routledge. Garapich, M. (2014) Homo Sovieticus revisited – Anti-institutionalism, alcohol and resistance among Polish homeless men in London. International Migration, 52 (1) 100–117. Griffith, K. (2011). Laborers or criminals? The impact of crimmigration on labor standards enforcement. In A. Ackerman & R. Furman (Eds.) The Criminalization of Immigration. Contexts and Consequences (pp. 89–99). Carolina Academic Press. Hendry, J. (2020). The hostile environment and crimmigration: Blurring the lines between civil and criminal law. Soundings, 76 (76) 26–36. Mbembe, A. (2003). Necropolitics. Public Culture, 15 11–40. McCoy-Roth, M., Bonnie B. M., & Murphey, D. (2012). When the bough breaks: The effects of homelessness on young children. Child Trends: Early Childhood Highlights 3 (1) 1–11. McKee, K., Leahy, S., Tokarczyk, T., & Crawford, J. (2021). Redrawing the border through the ‘Right to Rent’: Exclusion, discrimination and hostility in the English housing market. Critical Social Policy, 41 (1) 91–110.

Exclusion and Housing Sacrifice 103 Mostowska, M. (2011). Services for homeless immigrants: The social welfare capital of polish rough sleepers in Brussels and Oslo. European Journal of Homelessness, 5 (1) 27–47. Paasi, A. (2009). Bounded spaces in a ‘borderless world’: Border studies, power and the anatomy of territory. Journal of Power, 2 213–234. Rafferty, Y., & Shinn, M. (1991). The impact of homelessness on children. American Psychologist, 46 (11) 1170–1182. Serpa, R. (2019). Resisting welfare conditionality. In P. Dwyer (Ed.) Dealing with Conditionality: Implementation and Effects. Policy Press. Serpa, R. (2021). The exceptional becomes everyday: Border control, attrition and exclusion from within. Social Sciences, 10 (9) 329–342. Shinn, M., Samuels, J., Fischer, S. N., Thompkins, A., & Fowler, P. J. (2015). Longitudinal impact of a family critical time intervention on children in highrisk families experiencing homelessness: A randomized trial. American Journal of Community Psychology, 56 (3) 205–216. Standing, G. (2011). Workfare and the precariat. Soundings, 47 (47) 35–43. Stone, M. E. (2004). Shelter poverty: The chronic crisis of housing affordability. New England Journal of Public Policy, 20 (1) 16–22. Weber, L. (2019). From state-centric to transversal borders: Resisting the ‘structurally embedded border’ in Australia. Theoretical Criminology, 23 228–246.

6

Conclusion: Crimmigration, Housing Sacrifice, Citizenship and the Right to Housing

Introduction Growing civil unrest in large parts of the world since the start of the 21st century has led to historic numbers of externally displaced persons in the Global South, and in the years immediately preceding and following the 2009 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), more ‘voluntary’ forms of migration have been observed across the globe (Buckley et al., 2018). Not long after the economic crisis, a so-called ‘migration crisis’ was pronounced in 2015 as receiving countries in Europe and North America largely responded by turning inward and hardening borders (Egoz et al., 2017). In the U.S. and the UK, specifically, efforts to limit immigration (spanning voluntary and humanitarian categories) accompanied a period of economic austerity and a rise of far-right conservativism and ethnocentrism directly hostile to immigration (and migrants) (Harell et al., 2017). More recently, the public health emergency precipitated by the outbreak of COVID-19 saw some borders close completely, temporarily interrupting transnational mobility (Serpa, 2021). A distinctive shift from managing to controlling migration has therefore become a state priority justified by national security imperatives, as well as for more populist reasons (Hogan & Haltinner, 2015). In the U.S., restricting immigration has mostly been justified by the fear of foreign threats as a matter of ensuring public safety (Ewing et al., 2015); whereas in the UK, anti-immigration rhetoric has largely focussed on protecting the welfare state (Ford, 2018), as well as arguments about economic efficiency and the dangers of moral hazard (through welfare dependency). It is within this context of extraordinary global displacement, a succession of economic and social ‘crises’, wide and growing global inequality (Milanovic, 2016) and hardening public attitudes towards immigration (Ford & Lymperopoulou, 2016) that migrant homelessness has become an important and increasingly contested issue for both America and Europe. This book analysed the causes of and responses to migrant homelessness, looking specifically at how crimmigration control drives disadvantage and deprivation amongst migrant groups towards a state of ‘advanced DOI: 10.4324/9781003264484-6

Conclusion 105 marginality’ (Wacquant, 2008). More broadly, the study of migrant homelessness provides an illustration of how housing systems interact with other social structures to produce extreme precarity. The extent to which agency can be exercised in the context of extremely constrained choice reveals the preferences, underlying values and negotiations made in the housing strategies of migrant groups. In focussing on migrants as a distinct category, whilst recognising their diversity, the study engenders an appreciation for the ‘whole person’ in understanding homelessness (Somerville, 2013) through biographical enquiry. The research undertaken in this book has sought to identify the common factors that bind specific groups together in conjunction with an analysis of the structural forces which categorise and exclude migrant groups as a crimmigrant ‘other’. In Europe, increasing attention has been given to migrant homelessness, although there is scant research in this area prior to the early 2000s. In contrast, migrant homelessness is largely unexplored in the American context, with the most relevant literature centring on race and ethnicity (particularly, Latino and African American populations) rather than explicitly focusing on foreign-born populations. The concept of ‘migrant homelessness’ appears limited to Canadian studies, although the growing number of immigrants, particularly from Latin American countries, sleeping rough in Los Angeles (Burmudez & Vive, 2017), Washington D.C. (Gomez, 2017) and New York City (Spivack, 2017) has recently appeared in media headlines as ‘undocumented homelessness’. These narratives link the increasingly hostile landscape confronting irregular migrants following the Trump administration’s January 2017 executive order to withdraw federal funding to these ‘sanctuary cities’, so-called for their limited cooperation with the national government’s efforts to enforce immigration restrictions and rollout crimmigration control at the local level (Bauder, 2017). Despite a U.S. appeals court’s ruling that the executive order was unconstitutional in 2018, local attacks on sanctuary cities persist, as witnessed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s ‘protest’ against jurisdictions offering safe havens to migrants by illegally transporting more than 50 migrant ‘criminals’ from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts (Damiano & Gross, 2002). Notably, street homelessness amongst the foreign-born population grew across major American cities in 2017 as the deportation order to remove undocumented immigrants suspected of committing (non-violent) crimes deterred homeless persons from accessing the shelter system for fear of expulsion. In the UK, rough sleeping amongst migrants was also observed during the COVID-19 pandemic with a combination of migrants being excluded from the ‘Everybody In’ programme, which provided temporary housing for rough sleepers during lockdown and a national rollout of ‘Operation Nexus’, which co-opts local law enforcement in the deportation of homeless migrants who do not have a right to reside in the UK (Serpa, 2021). Policies centring on banishment and extirpation appear set to

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continue in the UK as PM Rishi Sunak announced in 2022 his plans to deter ‘illegal’ migration through bilateral agreements to return irregular migrants to their country of origin and the outsourcing of asylum processing to Rwanda (Consterdine, 2022). Considering the hostile environment confronting migrants as a consequence of crimmigration control, this book offers an enhanced understanding of the differing causes, implications and consequences of migrant homelessness by providing a detailed analysis of these groups’ experience. In this concluding chapter, the implications for public policy’s responses to migrant homelessness are considered concerning: the connection between migration and homelessness, the structural and individual causes of migrant homelessness, and the housing strategies of homeless migrants. These themes are discussed in the context of a ‘housing sacrifice’. This final section argues that the injustices of the crimmigration system provide strong support for a renewed right to housing and new forms of social citizenship.

Housing sacrifice The concept of a ‘housing sacrifice’ demonstrates the extent to which housing presents an arena in which difficult negotiations are made, by showing the conditions wherein housing is actively de-prioritised (in the more extreme cases, to the point of homelessness) and how the abnegation of (some aspect of) shelter has respective utility in relation to other goals. If ‘shelter poverty’ asks to what extent do households forgo necessities in order to maintain a roof over their heads (Stone, 2004), ‘housing sacrifice’ asks in what ways are households forgoing housing to achieve other necessities? This book showed how homeless migrants’ housing strategies revealed their capacity to create opportunities where few existed, particularly in undoubtedly extreme circumstances. A variety of housing tactics were employed by participants, demonstrating conscious and active decisions to manipulate housing needs/consumption—to achieve both immediate and longer-term social and economic goals. Some participants, however, were at pains to emphasise that their current circumstances were the result of having ‘no choice’; for example, one participant explained how she was forced to reside in extremely overcrowded conditions, purely because she saw no other option. Others described their actions as a ‘last resort’; for example, sleeping rough was a bad option, but from a range of worse options. The opportunities available to homeless households were strongly influenced by the circumstances surrounding their migration, such as the conditions that ‘pushed’ them from their sending country and the reasons that ‘pulled’ them to the receiving state. Where housing choice was the most constrained (and sometimes nonexistent), personal agency was still apparent in the preferences, values

Conclusion 107 and trade-offs that respondents made to survive. Further, it should be understood that the perception, knowledge and attractiveness of choices available determined whether or not alternatives were viable options. Cultural attitudes, for example, strongly mediated individual decisionmaking and prioritisation, which can change over time. For example, some participants specifically spoke of how the availability of opportunities led to shifting priorities—as in the case of one participant who was only able to consider other goals when no longer living hand-to-mouth and preoccupied with day-to-day survival (as had been the case prior to migration). The focus on housing strategies was deliberate. Although routes in and out of homelessness are typically described as ‘housing pathways’ (Clapham, 2002), this concept was rejected for its implicit passivity, ascribed to actors who seemingly pass through different tenures without an explicit purpose or (subjective) value assigned to housing options. Similarly, the concept of ‘housing careers’ (Rossi, 1955; Michelson, 1977) was rejected for its linear vision of housing, which, being value-laden, carried implicit assumptions about housing aspirations and the primacy of homeownership. The concept of ’housing strategies’ (Murie & Forrest, 1980; Thorns, 1981) most accurately depicts the ways in which households are active agents in housing systems and acknowledges the role of housing in achieving wider goals and ambitions. As the empirical findings suggest, for most households, housing was the first and largest claim on family incomes (Stone, 2009), and when faced with competing priorities, the largest savings could be found by reducing housing costs. In extreme cases, the de-prioritisation of housing amounted to a level of sacrifice, when it reached below a level most would consider being acceptable, by losing the privacy, safety and security one expects from a home. Sharing accommodation, either by couch surfing, doubling up or tolerating overcrowding, was (and continues to be) a common strategy amongst migrants to reduce housing costs. For some, particularly single persons who did not intend to permanently resettle, this strategy presented an attractive, short-term solution to what would be a long-term affordability problem. For others, particularly households with dependent children, sharing accommodation was not an option for practical or legal reasons, such as contravening child protection laws. For these households with less ability to negotiate housing needs, substandard and submarket housing provided cheap (albeit inadequate) shelter. Across the case study areas, households that actively sacrificed some aspects of their housing were willing to accept less tolerable circumstances in the belief that their situation was temporary. In a minority of cases, emergency shelters and temporary accommodation met immediate needs and at times offered the chance of upward mobility (in contrast to those in the study who saw emergency shelters as

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a last resort). Families in the U.S. case study, for example, explained how the shelter system was preferable over other (tenable) options due to inbuilt incentives for savings (enforced via refundable rent payments upon moving out of shelter) and the direct route it provided for subsidised housing that would not have been available from the private housing market. Similarly, participants in the Scottish case study explained how temporary accommodation (when subsidised by benefits) enabled them to amass savings much faster than if they had secured accommodation on the private market. This ’choice’ to utilise emergency shelter, however, should not be interpreted as evidence of manipulating or abusing public assistance. For most in this position, the shelter system was one option out of a range of poor ones, and emergency accommodation was far from optimal. However, the shelter’s ’advantages’ were mentioned by participants when compared to worse alternatives. In some extreme cases, participants suggested that sleeping rough offered a similar cost-saving benefit, but without the behavioural conditions attached to being sheltered in temporary accommodation (this was a particularly notable feature mentioned by Polish participants in the Scottish study). There were multiple reasons why households ‘chose’ to sacrifice some element of their housing. As explained above, for some participants the decision was borne out of necessity. For others, however, it was an active although never ‘ideal’ choice (apart from one Polish participant who proclaimed a preference for residing in squats above all other hypothetical housing options). However limited, this ‘choice’ still suggests some autonomy. Each housing strategy, if discussed as such, had different benefits (along with obvious costs). For example, sharing accommodation not only gave some households critical financial savings, in some cases, it also had social benefits such as a (less than ideal) solution to chronic isolation and child care needs. As explained above, emergency shelter use had very specific benefits in creating access to specialised support and offering a clear route to permanent housing, which reflected the American orientation towards emergency assistance rather than homelessness prevention. Sleeping rough was even purported to provide the psychosocial benefits of freedom and independence (though, most would reasonably argue the health and well-being costs of sleeping rough dramatically outweigh these more abstract benefits). The financial benefit from housing sacrifice enabled participants to accrue savings faster (this was particularly important to participants whose long-term aim was to return to their home country and eventually buy a home). Additionally, as explained above, many participants sent remittances (despite extremely pressurised incomes to support themselves), and these housing sacrifices enabled participants to support more than one household (even if partially). Interestingly, the lack of security of tenure afforded some participants the flexibility to pursue far-flung/speculative

Conclusion 109 work opportunities at a moment’s notice. Furthermore, many participants accrued large debts by migrating; reducing their housing costs as much as possible allowing them the possibility of becoming financially free from creditors, including other family members, and those described as ‘wolves’ or ‘transporters’, implying a veiled (or explicit) threat of violence in cases of default. Finally, housing sacrifices enabled households to meet other non-housing related needs, such as access to life-saving medical care, or other expenses such as higher education or training, even if at the expense of privacy, security or well-being (at least for the short-term). Public policy’s ambition to address migrant homelessness can approach the problem from one of two angles—either by removing the conditions which create the need for households to make hard choices in the first instance or by enabling households’ greater ability to negotiate housing needs. With regard to the latter policy option, the following discussion explores the ways in which public policy can expand homeless migrants’ choices. The elements which collectively comprise a ‘home’ can be sacrificed individually or in combination. Watson and Austerberry (1986) maintain that there are (at least) five ‘key signifiers’ of the concept of home: shelter corresponds to decent material conditions, hearth relates to emotional and physical well-being, heart to ‘loving and caring social relations’, privacy to the degree to which one can control their living space, and abode to describe the place where basic physiological needs are met, such as eating, bathing and sleeping. The housing strategies of homeless migrants revealed how these individual components of a home can be sacrificed to meet other priorities. The first two elements of a home, privacy and abode, are perhaps the only acceptable areas in which housing policy might seek to expand the choice of households to forego housing. For example, online platforms which broker sharing arrangements, such as Air BnB, have become increasingly popular in creating short-term lodging agreements as a means to offset housing costs or to provide a source of income. For example, a 2017 study found that the city of Boston was one of the top three American cities where the largest financial gain can be made by taking in a lodger with an average savings of $920 each month earned from the rental income from a roommate (Miller, 2017). Similarly, ‘co-living’ models of housing which resemble high-amenity dormitories have become an increasingly popular option in highly pressurised housing markets, such as London. Policies that facilitate safe sharing arrangements between strangers might include creating provisions in private tenancies that protect tenants from falling foul of sub-letting clauses—either through the exemption of lodgers or by creating allowances for rental income from lodging which is tax-exempt under a certain threshold. The issues of heart, hearth and shelter are much more problematic for housing policy that seeks to expand opportunities for de-prioritisation.

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Sacrificing these housing elements puts a household at risk of residing in an overcrowded, cold or substandard domicile. Moves within housing policy to further constrain options, to override a person’s ‘choice’ to forgo housing, for example, might resemble ‘harder’ enforcement measures such as urban camping ordinances which criminalise behaviour and force an end to sleeping rough, or coerce people to come off the streets by removing or limiting the infrastructure that makes sleep rough an easier option (such as food banks or soup kitchens). Alternatively, ‘softer’ interventions might be employed to influence decisions regarding forgoing housing, such as actively persuading service providers to consider other alternatives, including repatriation (Johnsen et al., 2018), as observed in the Dutch ‘discouragement’ policy involving ‘soft deportations’ (Serpa, 2021). Those who might bristle against policy interventions to constrain the choice of homeless households further might argue that such severely inadequate housing might be preferable to no housing at all, but this is hardly a position housing policy should aspire to. Therefore, segmenting housing into distinct components (privacy, abode, heart, hearth and shelter) might help reframe the ways in which housing policy might (ethically) support households to exercise agency in the context of extremely constrained choice vis-à-vis housing sacrifice.

Social citizenship and the right to housing If addressing migrant homelessness presents a dilemma insofar as facilitating the ability of households to sacrifice some aspect of their housing compromises basic living standards, then public policy should prevent the need for such hard choices in the first place. This study argues that public policy should do more than simply expand the choices available to homeless migrants (and other vulnerable groups) by addressing the reasons behind the forgoing of housing and losing some aspect of ‘home’. As explained above, housing sacrifice was a strategy adopted by households to enable them to meet competing needs when faced with an extremely constrained choice. Therefore, increasing access to housing would reduce the need for households to make such trade-offs. For example, incentivising the subdivision of the property to create multiple, smaller units on the proviso that rent cannot surpass a ’fair’ (locally determined) level whilst strengthening fire codes and standards, would add to the supply of affordable units in the private sector and remove substandard property from the market. A 2017 study into the prevalence of homelessness amongst Romanian migrant workers in the UK offered a similar solution, suggesting that cheap, flexible accommodation rented on a weekly basis at around £8 per night (including sharing arrangements) should be made available for younger, single migrants who may have few options available to them (Rice & Sebok, 2017). On the income side of the affordability equation, these solutions are outside the scope of housing policy and are more a concern for

Conclusion 111 immigration, welfare and labour systems (which, as this book demonstrates, all interact with housing and homelessness systems). With respect to existing immigration laws in both countries, specific measures to counteract crimmigration control would make considerable improvements to these migrant households. National immigration policies also frustrate the intentions of local-level policies to alleviate housing problems. In the American case study, for example, the Central American and Caribbean nationals who participated in the research emphasised the need to access employment as a route out of homelessness and the important role that low-paying ‘under-the-table’ work played in supplementing meagre state assistance, such as Food Stamps. Many participants were frustrated that a lack of official documentation stood in the way of self-sufficiency and that obtaining status was the key to achieving their ‘American Dream’, a concept specifically articulated in some cases. One solution, for example, would be to temporarily suspend work restrictions whilst an application is pending (in some cases involving appellate courts, which could take over 10 years to resolve). This would provide significant relief to households stuck in the impossible situation of not being able to work but also being unable to return to their home country after surrendering their passports. Such change would also positively impact labour standards enforcement as the opportunities for exploitation reduce with a greater proportion of the migrant workforce having regularised status, albeit temporarily. In contrast, the main barriers identified in the Scottish case study revolved around restrictions to accessing social security benefits, as all participants in the study had a right to work in the UK but struggled to access employment. Whilst the UK was still a member of the European Union, EEA Nationals had a freedom of movement which enabled economic migrants to settle in other member states, take up employment and access (limited) parts of the welfare system. Specific measures introduced in 2014 to further restrict EEA Nationals to access UK benefits, for example, were specifically identified by homeless migrants in the Scottish case study as significant barriers to accessing emergency accommodation and permanent housing; if either had been secured, it would have enabled them to work, a connection made notably by Polish participants. Reversing these measures (such as time-limited benefits and restrictions on claiming multiple benefits) would remove barriers for homeless migrants to access local temporary accommodation—such groups are entitled to assistance under Scottish statutory homeless legislation but find themselves unable to pay for it due to their ineligibility for the Housing Benefit. The ability to realise the homelessness assistance they are entitled to was particularly important for households with limited employment opportunities and few options to access informal forms of support. Furthermore, this change would reduce the demands placed on overworked case workers who would have fewer barriers to housing and supporting their clients with a migration

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background, as well as removing or lessening the responsibility for applying complex and fast-changing immigration rules. The scope for government intervention in migrant homelessness extends beyond immigration policy; non-profits can help facilitate access to housing, too. For instance, encouraging the development of communityled communal housing solutions through innovative mortgage packages and robust governance structures was identified as a way to address ‘extreme housing exclusion’, which includes homeless migrants (Netto et al., 2015). The capacity for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to aid those whose legal status would otherwise make them ineligible for public assistance is striking when comparing migrant homelessness in the U.S. and the UK. Despite having a comparatively weaker welfare safety net, migrants appeared to be better served in the U.S., in contrast to Scotland (where traditionally public bodies have borne the responsibility for homelessness). Due to a lack of entitlement and loose eligibility criteria within homelessness assistance programmes in the U.S., migrants have the possibility of competing for (scarce) resources; whereas in the UK, they might be excluded automatically from benefits for being migrants and without recourse to public funds. The research conducted in this book provides a clear example of what Wacquant (2008) terms the conditions of ‘advanced marginality’ and the ‘rightward tilting of the state’ (2012). Wacquant’s work (2012) has been highly influential in providing an analysis of ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ and has been effectively applied to a range of policy interventions (see Flint & Powell, 2019). The research discussed in this book has shown how the crimmigration system serves to extend social polarisation and compound disadvantage amongst the most excluded sectors of society—in this case, migrant homeless groups. The effectiveness of state agencies in developing a neoliberal agenda has been through co-opting welfare services (such as housing) within a process of state crafting. The result has been the construction of a form of second-class citizenship for migrant groups who face prejudice, hostility and ‘territorial stigmatisation’ (Wacquant et al., 2014). However, a central argument of this book is that the above processes are neither uniform nor consistent. Policies towards homeless groups are highly dependent on context and strategies will vary according to local policies, circumstances and the responses of professional agencies (in public, private and voluntary sectors) as well as homeless migrant groups’ strategies. The two case studies considered in this book illustrate how relatively progressive local strategies can frustrate as well as support more punitive central government policies. The combination of critical realism and biographical enquiry provides a useful means of analysing how marginalisation and inequality are both practised and experienced in controlling migrant groups. From the perspective of welfare professionals, their strategies can include tactics of

Conclusion 113 resentment (at the demands of migrant groups) as well as frustration with the entrenched inequalities caused by government policy. The consequence can be avoidance (neglecting the needs of customers) but also overt and covert resistance to policies. Discretion, therefore, becomes a primary tool for staff in shaping the structural constraints imposed by a central government through local interventions. Migrant groups’ responses demonstrate how analyses of homelessness must consider the agency of individuals towards both choice and constraint in their decision-making. The individual strategies demonstrate how extreme constraint operates and is negotiated. The accounts from migrant groups exhibit a high level of resourcefulness and resilience to difficulties and, in many cases, optimism about the future, for themselves and their families. What emerged clearly from this research was the ability of individuals and groups to resist the entrenched inequalities caused by government policy (at a time of severe public expenditure reductions and heightened populist hostility to migration). The crimmigration perspective highlights the policy’s punitive nature (operating from a negative frame), but also offers the opportunity for an alternate framing which can highlight the positive contribution of migration and the possibilities for inclusion and citizenship. In refusing to see homeless migrants as passive recipients of welfare or second-class citizens, this study highlights the need to confront social injustice, ensure effective social citizenship and realise the demand for a right to housing. Crucially, this book echoes Bratt et al.’s (2006) call for a right to housing and proposes a new social agenda, one which guarantees universal access to high-quality, genuinely affordable housing by both expanding the supply and standards of new homes and regulating the existing public, social and private stock. Laying this foundation would also see housing become a cornerstone of achieving a better society. A right to housing has the potential to positively impact multiple domains of social life (economic security, mental and physical health and safety, employment opportunities, community feeling, civic participation and other aspects of citizenship) given that assuring adequate housing offers the potential to realise a range of related benefits (Serpa & Saunders, 2022). An effective right to decent housing as set out above is, therefore, part of a series of broader ‘social citizenship’ rights across civil, political and social realms (Marshall, 1964). Taken together, these rights can challenge significant disparities in material well-being and strengthen the foundations of a just and democratic society. Importantly, achieving such a right requires radical political, material and ideological changes, away from a market ideology that sees housing as an asset, and towards ambitious policies that cement redistribution and equality. The human right to housing is not merely a right to shelter, but should be interpreted more broadly as the right to live in security, peace and

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dignity. For housing to be considered adequate and to realise the right to housing, there are seven key conditions which must be met. These include security of tenure; availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure; affordability; habitability; accessibility; location; and cultural adequacy (SHRC, 2020). Furthermore, locating a right to housing within a social-citizenship framework moves the debate beyond means-testing and distinctions between deserving and undeserving groups (on which many welfare systems are premised) and instead focuses on a universal entitlement to an acceptable standard of living. Upholding that universality is an ideological shift: everyone should have access to a home to live in, regardless of legal status.

Conclusion This study has attempted to demonstrate the ability of homeless migrants to exercise agency and to determine their housing strategies despite extremely constrained choice—negotiating housing needs and creating opportunities where none seemingly exist. Housing sacrifice was an option for participants in this study (in varying degrees, depending on the latitude of choice) to achieve housing and economic goals through a cost-saving exercise, for example, to amass savings faster or support other households, albeit at the expense of privacy, security and wellbeing. The practice of housing sacrifice is conceptually related to shelter poverty, insofar as this concept seeks to understand the ways in which housing provides the arena in which competing priorities are determined. However, instead of focusing on what is forfeited in order to maintain a roof over one’s head, the notion of sacrifice explains the circumstances in which housing is de-prioritised to meet alternative (housing-related or other) needs. Furthermore, this study has indicated that migrant homelessness may not only be a problem for housing policy. This research has attempted to demonstrate the number of ways in which crimmigration ensnares migrant groups in multiple systems and is therefore very much a concern for other policy arenas, namely welfare and labour. The spreading of the responsibility for migrant homelessness into multiple areas of social policy does not excuse government inaction. This book recognises that the landscape in which migrant homelessness is emerging as an issue for social policy (in American and European contexts marked by deteriorating economic conditions, the enthusiasm for government austerity, and hardening of State borders following the Global Financial Crisis) in many ways runs counter to the current ‘rapid re-housing’ agenda observed in both Massachusetts and Scotland (and other places in the U.S. and UK), which pushes towards a right to housing approach to homelessness. Rather than ignoring the difficult structural conditions in which migrant homelessness occurs by legitimising a ‘benign neglect’ approach to the problem, these conditions make the issue of critical importance for

Conclusion 115 housing policy, specifically, and for social policy more broadly, as crimmigration control becomes more pervasive in other policy arenas. Should public policy move to expand the choices available to homeless migrants, a set of policy measures could facilitate the choices available to severely constrained households, as discussed in terms of households forgoing certain aspects of housing, such as ‘privacy’ or seeing a home as an ‘abode’. This option, however, should not be taken as a signal for the state to abandon its responsibilities to ensure good quality, affordable housing provision. Alternatively, the state could address migrant homelessness by alleviating the conditions which serve to constrain choice and prevent the need for households to sacrifice any aspect of home. The above discussion provided recommendations which offer some specific policy measures—such as increasing housing access, relaxing welfare restrictions and reversing unjust crimmigration controls—which would go some way to alleviate the worst effects of homelessness for migrant groups in the U.S. and the UK. More research is needed to focus on how homelessness can be prevented in the first place for migrant groups, at all stages of the resettlement process. For example, the recent expansion of Housing First initiatives in Massachusetts and a rapid re-housing approach in Scotland provides the opportunity to incorporate those who are confronted with the most extremely constrained choice into a prevention approach towards homelessness. The implications of ‘housing sacrifice’ suggest that, as a survival strategy, the de-prioritisation of housing is not only a matter for housing policy, but spans wider policy arenas, such as welfare, labour and, in the case of migrants, immigration law. Without systemic change, it is tempting to suggest that some latitude for choice (even if that choice results in being housed poorly) needs to be retained so that households can exercise their preferences, values and priorities, even when those decisions involve difficult and undesirable trade-offs in the context of extreme, constrained choice. This research does not advocate inaction in social policy, but instead argues that, in the case of migrant homelessness, these problems cannot be resolved by a housing policy without understanding the various ways in which crimmigration conspires to constrain choice in civil society. The causes of migrant homelessness, in particular, lie within the restrictions of immigration law and policy which see immigrants as criminals and are exacerbated by crimmigration control embedded within housing and social welfare systems.

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Bermudez, E. & Vives, R. (2017). Surge in Latino homeless population ‘a whole new phenomenon’ for Los Angeles. Los Angeles Times. 18 June 2017. Bratt, R. G., Stone, M. E., & Hartman, C. W. (Eds.). (2006). A Right to Housing: Foundation for a New Social Agenda. Temple University Press. Buckley, R. P., Avgouleas, E., & Arner, D. W. (2018). Three major financial crises: What have we learned? In S. Schwarcz, E. Avgouleas, D. Busch, & D. Arner (eds) Systemic Risk in the Financial Sector: Ten Years After the Great Crash, AIIFL Working Paper No. 31, UNSW Law Research Paper No. 18–61. Clapham, D. (2002). Housing pathways: A post-modern analytical framework. Housing, Theory and Society, 19 (2) 57–68. Consterdine, E. (2022). Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak want to crack down on migration – An expert reviews their plans. The Conversation. 15 August 2022. Domiano, M. & Gross, S. J. (2002). Documents indicate Florida had plans for other migrant trips. The Boston Globe. 7 October 2022. Egoz, S. & De Nardi, A. (2017). Defining landscape justice: the role of landscape in supporting wellbeing of migrants, a literature review. Landscape Research, 42 (sup1) S74–S89. Ewing, W. A., Martinez, D., & Rumbaut, R. G. (2015). The Criminalization of Immigration in the United States. Washington, D.C.: American Immigration Council. Flint, J. & Powell, R. (2019). Class, Ethnicity and State in the Polarised Metropolis: Putting Wacquant to Work. Palgrave Macmillan. Ford, R. (2018). Britain after Brexit: A nation divided. Journal of Democracy, 28 (1) 17–30. Ford, R. & Lymperopoulou, K. (2016). Immigration: How attitudes in the UK compare with Europe. Findings from the British Social Attitudes Survey. Gomez, A. (2017). ‘Invisible:’ The reality for undocumented homeless immigrants in the District. Street Sense Media. 5 April 2017. Harell, A., Soroka, S., & Iyengar, S. (2017). Locus of control and anti‐immigrant sentiment in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Political Psychology, 38 (2) 245–260. Hogan, J. & Haltinner, K. (2015). Floods, invaders, and parasites: Immigration threat narratives and right-wing populism in the USA, UK and Australia. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 36 (5) 520–543. Johnsen, S., Fitzpatrick, S., & Watts, B. (2018). Homelessness and social control: A typology. Housing Studies, 33 (7) 1–21. Marshall, T. H. (1964). “Citizenship and Social Class” In T. H. Marshall (Ed.) Class, Citizenship and Social Development: Essays by T.H. Marshall, Doubleday, Ch 4. Michelson, W. (1977). Environmental Choice, Human Behaviour and Residential Satisfaction. Oxford University Press. Milanovic, B. (2016). Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization. Harvard University Press. Miller, D. (2017). What a roommate saves you in 50 U.S. Cities. Smart Asset. 28 September 2017. Murie, A. & Forrest, R. (1980). Wealth, inheritance and housing policy. Policy and Politics, 8 (1) 1–19.

Conclusion 117 Netto, G., Hudson, M., Noon, M., Sosenko, F., de Lima, P., & KamenouAigbekaen, N. (2015). Migration, ethnicity and progression from low-paid work: implications for skills policy. Social Policy and Society, 14 (4) 509–522. Rice, B. & Sebok, B. (2017). Research into the Lives of Romanian Migrant Workers Living in Encampments in London. Thames Reach. Rossi, P. H. (1955). Why Families Move, a Study in the Social Psychology of Urban Residential Mobility. The Free Press. Serpa, R. C. (2021). The Exceptional Becomes Everyday: Border Control, Attrition and Exclusion from Within. Social Sciences, 10 (9) 329–342. Serpa, R. & Saunders, E. (2022). ‘Housing in Scotland’ In G. Gall (ed.) Creating a Fairer Scotland. Pluto Books. SHRC. (2020). Housing Rights in Practice, Edinburgh: Scottish Human Rights Commission. Somerville, P. (2013). Understanding homelessness. Housing, Theory and Society, 30 (4) 384–415. Spivack, C. (2017). Undocumented street homelessness rises after Trump’s deportation order. The Brooklyn Paper. 7 February 2017. Stone, M. E. (2004). Shelter poverty: The chronic crisis of housing affordability. New England Journal of Public Policy, 20 (1) 16–24. Stone, M. E. (2009). Housing and the financial crisis: Causes, consequences, cures. Housing Finance International, September, 34–39. Thorns, D. C. (1981). The implications of differential rates of capital gain from owner occupation for the formation and development of housing classes. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 5 (2) 205–217. Wacquant, L. (2008). Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality. Polity Press. Wacquant, L. (2012). Three steps to a historical anthropology of actually existing neoliberalism. Social Anthropology, 20 (1) 66–79. Wacquant, L., Slater, T., & Pereira, B. (2014). Territorial stigmatisation in action, Environment and Planning A, 46 (6), 1270–1280. Watson, S., & Austerberry, H. (1986). Housing and Homelessness: A Feminist Perspective. Routledge.

Postscript: The Magic of Crimmigration

Undertaking this research was challenging. At times, the stories told were beyond troubling—incomprehensible abuse, persecution and terror were recurrent themes in many of the life stories. To flee such violence and be failed by multiple systems that are deaf to trauma is an obscenity. But, in those embattled voices, I also heard perseverance, resolve and some surprising optimism. These hopeful moments, shared by study participants as well as the homeless clients I’ve served in years past, motivated this work. By focusing on individual agency (as well as structural constraint), I turn my attention to the spaces of resistance and empowerment—however small, local or idiosyncratic they might be. In the first- and second-hand accounts of individual struggle, I am constantly struck by the strength and magnanimity of the human spirit—to persist in impossibly hard times and to show to others a caring and open heart in times of need. An additional challenge for me was my own status as a ‘crimmigrant’ whilst researching crimmigration. I did not set out to undertake an autoethnography, but I cannot separate myself or my personal experiences from this research. I am not suggesting any equivalence between my personal struggles with crimmigration and the hardships faced by participants in this study—there are a number of significant differences, not least because the precarity I experienced was rooted in so-called ‘evidentiary’ problems, rather than a lack of status; it was, therefore, more straightforward to resolve. Nevertheless, we are all affected by the same control system which sees us as crimmigrant. I deliberately use an adjective, not a noun, because being crimmigrant is not a state of being, but rather something ascribed to you. In my case, I became crimmigrant following an acrimonious relationship breakdown, where I was dependent on proof of the right of residence being supplied by my former partner. The absence of such proof led to the termination of my employment and homelessness, which consequently had a significant detrimental impact on my physical and mental health. I’ll explain briefly how this happened. When I was first hired, I supplied my residency card as DOI: 10.4324/9781003264484-7

Postscript: The Magic of Crimmigration 119 proof, but when it expired my ex-partner would not support my application for renewal. At the time, UK law did not require so-called dependent partners to obtain residency cards and therefore my right to work never ceased—rather, it was proof of this right which had expired. Magically, my ability to work disappeared. When I was dismissed, I sought legal advice from immigration and employment lawyers who explained that all they could do was try and cajole my ex-partner into supporting my immigration application. In the six months of legal negotiation that followed, I became homeless and without the means to secure my own home. The embarrassment I felt in having lost my job kept me from asking friends for help, and having migrated on my own I had no family with whom I could stay. The experience showed me that a crimmigration system leads to significant risk aversion—from employers, potential landlords, financial services and health and support agencies. I felt border agents were appearing everywhere as if by magic—at my job, at the GP, at the bank, at the real estate agency. The stress was unimaginable, and I suffered a nervous breakdown as a result. I needed help, and because I could not demonstrate legal status or an address, I couldn’t register at a medical practice. Banking presented yet another barrier. Agents at financial institutions require documented legal status (and an address) to open a bank account or become liable for civil and criminal penalties for failure to do so. My accounts were all jointly held with my ex-partner which meant I did not have free access to savings, money which I needed to get a private let. So, an easy answer was to get a flat with my new partner. Yet, again, I was required to provide documentation of my status to would-be landlords due to the ‘right to rent’ provision in England, which punishes violators with fines and imprisonment for housing someone who did not have a demonstrable right to reside in the UK. I was able to stay in my new partner’s home, but not as a joint tenant who had legally enforceable rights to the tenancy. I felt incredibly vulnerable. I had no rights, and I had to depend on a new relationship for all my needs. Being crimmigrant, I couldn’t get a job, access health care, open a bank account or get my own home. Multiple systems conspire against you all at once when you lose your home and are undocumented—as if by magic, I became alien, suspect and criminal. While this was happening, I was trying to finish my PhD thesis—on which this book is based. I found myself living what I was researching, and I nearly didn’t finish this research. I was too close to it. And several years on, I still feel this rising anxiety as I recall the feeling of being crimmigrant. I was reluctant to write this postscript because it is a painful memory, but also because I did not want to detract from the stories of participants presented in this book. Furthermore, the purpose of this book was not to compare and contrast my experience of

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crimmigration with that of others. But, like others in this book who testify to the harmful impacts of crimmigration, I did feel compelled to tell my story, to emphasise how quickly your world can unravel because of a piece of paper—and conversely, how that same piece of paper can solve a huge range of problems. One document has the power to do this. That is the magic of crimmigration.

Index

abode 109, 115 Agamben, G. 101 Air BnB 109 American Dream 50–51, 111 Amundson, E. 17 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act 61 Asylum and Immigration Act, 1996 83 Austerberry, H. 109 avoidance 68–72 Bailey, A. J. 35 Bauman, Z. 61 Benjaminsen, L. 13 Bhaskar, R. 17 biographical enquiry 7, 11, 26, 105, 112 Boston 2, 4, 6, 36–37, 45–46, 49, 51, 62, 69, 83, 85, 88, 100 Bourdieu, P. 23 Bowling, B. 63 Bratt, R. G. 113 Britain 58 Brouwer, J. 22 Bucharest 39, 44 Bulgaria 69 bureaucratised banality 7 Bürkner, H. J. 20 Canada 20, 36 Caribbean 5, 35, 111 Carter, Jimmy 36 censure machine 23 Central America 5–6, 35, 50, 84–85, 111 characteristics 14 Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) 88 chronic unemployment 37

City of Edinburgh Council 60 City of New York 59 civil penalties 3, 26, 65, 82–83, 119 Commonwealth of Massachusetts 59 communities 1, 18, 44, 52, 112; Haitian 93; marginalised 2–3; migrant 20, 48; religious 45; Roma 40 couch surfing 15, 20, 91–94, 97, 99, 107 Crawford, J. 24 criminal justice system 2, 22, 63 criminal law 2, 11, 21, 23, 26, 61, 81, 83, 100–102 criminal penalties 83, 119 crimmigration 2–3, 5, 9, 11, 61, 81–82, 84–86, 90, 100–101, 118; control system 3, 9, 11, 21, 26, 63; knot 23; magic of 120; perspective 26, 113 critical realism 3, 5, 7, 11, 26, 112; application of 12–13; value of 25 Culhane, D. P. 15, 58, 96 cultivated invisibility 18 De Nardi, A. 1 Denmark 21 Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) 69 Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Continuum of Care programmes 58 DeSantis, Ron 105 Di Molfetta 22 discretion 72–76 disengagement 65, 76 Dominican Republic 37, 39, 45–46, 48–49, 51, 74, 90

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Index

Eastern Europe 5–6, 50, 84–85 Edinburgh 2, 4–5, 7, 37, 74, 84–85 Egoz, S. 1 entitlement 59 epistemic relativism 12 Europe 19, 21–22, 24, 34–35, 40, 42, 47, 104–105 European Economic Area (EEA) Nationals 64, 68–69, 111 European Union 22, 43, 111 Federal Department of Social Services (DSS) 58 Fiedler, R. 19 Fitzpatrick, S. 14 food insecurity 35–36 Food Stamps 88, 111 France 16, 47, 57 freedom 34, 41–46, 54, 64, 94; financial 42, 46, 54, 96; literal 42; physical 42; psychosocial benefits of 108 gender 1, 6, 18, 20, 35 generative mechanism 5, 12–13 Global Financial Crisis, 2008 18 Global Financial Crisis, 2009 63, 104 Griffith, K. 82, 84 Guatemala 39–40, 99 Haiti 36, 38, 49, 93, 99 Hall, S. 34 Halliday, B. 20 HB see Housing Benefit hidden homeless 6 Hiebert, D. 19–20 homelessness 12; actual 12; assistance 59, 73, 77, 90, 97, 99, 111–112; charity 67; chronic 60; and destitution 20–22, 38; explanations of 13–16; hidden 91; legislation 57, 72; literal 94; migrant 16–24, 33, 60, 104–106, 109–110, 112, 114–115; practitioner 4; primary 15; research 25–26; secondary 15; services 68, 74, 76, 102; tertiary 15; undocumented 105; visible 15 Homo Sovieticus 96 hostile environment 7, 63, 83 households 5–6, 12, 15, 20, 38, 42, 45–47, 63, 72, 74–75, 81–82, 86–89, 91–93, 97–98, 101–102, 107–109, 111, 114–115; American 59; concealed 92, 94; constrained 102,

115; eligible 59, 72; homeless 25, 57–60, 64, 73, 106, 110; ineligible 60 Housing Benefit (HB) 69, 87, 97, 111 Housing (Homeless Persons) Act, 1977 57 housing pathways 107 housing sacrifice 5, 7, 91, 102, 110, 115 Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 59 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act 61 immigration: authorities 16, 100; control 60–61, 71; crime 3, 26, 61, 65; law 2, 11, 19, 21–22, 61, 68, 71, 81, 83, 100–102, 111, 115; policy 18–19, 22, 36, 56, 61, 63, 81, 112, 115; status 16, 18, 22, 34, 41, 83, 86–87; welfare 19 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) 83 inclusionary exclusion 81, 86, 101 interdisciplinarity 13 IRCA see Immigration Reform and Control Act Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) 69 JSA see Jobseekers Allowance judgemental rationality 12 Kuhn, R. 15 lacking full legal status 5–6 Leahy, S. 24 literally homeless 6, 14 Maloutas, T. 19 Martin, L. 12 Massachusetts 1–2, 5–6, 46, 50, 59–60, 64, 72–75, 86, 96–97, 100–101, 105, 114–115 May, Theresa 21 Mayock, P. 19 McAllister, W. 15 McEwan, C. 35 McKee, K. 24 McKinney-Vento Act 57, 59 Meda, J. B. 17 migrants: agency 35, 54; communities 48; EU 69, 88; female 20; groups 11, 17, 19, 21, 26, 33, 54, 56, 59–62, 64–67, 76–77, 86–87, 100–101, 104–105, 112–115; homeless 1, 5–7, 8, 11, 16, 19–20,

Index 123 56, 59, 64–65, 71, 76–77, 105–106, 109–115; households 81–82, 87, 98, 100–101, 111; narratives 53; Polish 39, 42–43, 87, 95, 97, 99; populations 59; Romanian 44, 93, 110; unauthorised 61, 82–83; undocumented 102; workforce 111 migration: crisis 104; economic 5; empirical 34; explanations of 34; feminization of 48; illegal 106; international 6, 16; involuntary 42; securitization of 21; unwanted 81 mobility 19; theorising 34–35; unwanted 23 moral realism 11, 13 Murnaghan, A. M. 20 national housing settlement 77 new orthodoxy 13 New York 48–49, 51, 105 1977 Act 57, 59 9/11 terrorist attacks 62–63 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) 112 Nordfeldt, M. 19–20 North America 19–22, 104 ontology 12 opportunity 47–54; economic 47–48, 53 participant: Haitian 36; Polish 94, 96, 108, 111; Roma 36–37, 40, 44–46, 50–52, 54 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) 61 Pogany, I. 40 Poland 2, 42, 48, 51, 85, 94–95 poverty 16, 22, 26, 34, 41, 77, 82, 88; abject 36; feminisation of 20; penalisation of 24; shelter 19–20, 91, 106, 114; and status 2–4, 11, 59 Preston, V. 20 Price, L. 12 privacy 109, 115 Puerto Rico 39, 74 RAA see Rapid Access Accommodation racism 19, 68 Rapid Access Accommodation (RAA) 60 reflexivity 3, 11, 13

research 2; empirical 5; social 3, 5, 13 resentment 64–68 respondents 2, 38, 44, 46–49, 53–54, 63, 68, 70, 72–74, 77, 83, 85, 96–97, 107; Central American 50–51; crucial 89; majority of 45, 50; Massachusetts 46; Roma 50–51; Scotland 66 retroduction 12 right to housing 5, 9, 102, 106, 110, 113–114 right to rent 101, 119 Right to Shelter 6, 100 Roma 35–37, 40, 44–46, 50–52, 54, 69, 93 Romania 35–40, 44–47, 50, 69, 74, 93 Romania Revolution, 1989 47 Ruiz, V. 20 Sanders, C. 18 Scotland 5–6, 37, 64, 76 security 5, 40–41, 91, 94–95, 102, 107, 109, 114; economic 49; financial 50; national 21, 60–63; social 19, 81; of tenure 92, 108 severity 14 shelter: emergency 6, 7, 14–15, 25, 36, 38, 50, 58, 64, 86, 90–91, 96–98, 107–108; family 98–99; food and 99; non-profit 57; populations 21; right to shelter 59, 74, 113; temporary 15; winter 94 shelter poverty 11, 19–20, 91, 106, 114 Sheridan, S. 19 Shinn, M. 14 social citizenship 1, 5, 9, 22, 102, 106, 110, 113–114 social harm 3, 7, 11 social housing 16, 20, 67, 87, 94 Special Immigrant Juvenile Status 71 state crafting 23–24, 112 status conditionality 77 Stewart, S. 18 Stone, M. 19 Stumpf, J. 61 Sunak, Rishi 106 system of systems 11–12, 26, 60, 76–77 Stumpf, J. 2, 22, 61 survival 35–41, 54 Teixeira, C. 20 temporality 14–15

124

Index

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) 6, 40, 49 Treaty Rights 43 UK 5, 19, 21–22, 43, 51, 57–58, 60–61, 69, 88, 112 U.S. 5, 19, 21–22, 50, 57–58, 60–61, 101, 112 Valeria 39–41, 99 Victoria 2, 49–50 violence 35, 38–39, 41, 109, 118; economic 40; gender-based 20; necropolitical site of 86; physical 40; symbolic 23

vulnerability 3, 54 Wacquant, L. 2, 23–24, 112 Washington D.C. 105 Watson, S. 109 Weber, M. 40 Westenra, S. 63 Westminster Governments 77 work 82–85; casual 47, 82, 97; genuine prospect of 69; seasonal agricultural 37; social 17 workfare 66 World War II 51 zemiologists 11