De lage middenklasse in België: tussen wal en schip?

status: publishe

‘Without an address, you do not exist’: the administrative invisibility of people experiencing homelessness in Belgium

Population registries have become essential instruments in the expansion of welfare states to determine a person’s eligibility for social rights and benefits. To (temporarily) register people without a residential address, Belgium introduced an alternative registration system: the ‘reference address’. By using data from interviews with 80 experts from two research projects, we focus on the reference address and the implications of registration and de-registration for administratively disadvantaged people. More specifically, we shed light on the importance of civil registration and the link with citizenship for people experiencing homelessness. Building on the concepts of domicile-based and local citizenship, we argue it disproportionately hampers the access to rights for people experiencing homelessness and creates an ‘invisible crisis’ in Belgium

Including the most excluded? A qualitative analysis of the non-take-up of an address for people experiencing homelessness in Belgium

In many European countries, one needs a permanent address or domicile to be entitled to social rights. To address this minimum prerequisite, mechanisms for administrative inclusion are in place for people experiencing homelessness without an address, such as the reference address in Belgium. Yet, hitherto, poverty organizations raised concerns whether it succeeds in doing so. This paper disentangles the non-take-up mechanisms behind this reference address by drawing on interviews with professionals. Our evidence suggests this address is a minimum minimorum of social protection, albeit it can reflect and reinforce administrative and social exclusion of the beneficiaries through (1) the disproportionate punitive consequences when not complying to the imposed (sometimes additional) criteria, (2) their subjection to interprofessional (sometimes arbitrary) variation of the administration, and (3) their stigmatization. By focusing on this key policy targeting people experiencing homelessness, the results contribute to the debate on the entitlement to and non-take-up of rights, the barriers that homeless persons are confronted with, and the possibility of an administrative address that includes the most excluded

Including the most excluded? A qualitative study on the address registration for people experiencing homelessness in Belgium

In many European countries, one needs a permanent address or domicile to be entitled to social rights. To address this minimum prerequisite, mechanisms for administrative inclusion are in place for people experiencing homelessness without an address, such as the reference address in Belgium. Yet, hitherto, poverty organizations raised concerns whether it succeeds in doing so. This paper disentangles the non-take-up mechanisms behind this reference address by drawing on interviews with professionals. Our evidence suggests this address is a minimum minimorum of social protection, albeit it can reflect and reinforce administrative and social exclusion of the beneficiaries through (1) the disproportionate punitive consequences when not complying to the imposed (sometimes additional) criteria, (2) their subjection to interprofessional (sometimes arbitrary) variation of the administration, and (3) their stigmatization. By focusing on this key policy targeting people experiencing homelessness, the results contribute to the debate on the entitlement to and non-take-up of rights, the barriers that homeless persons are confronted with, and the possibility of an administrative address that includes the most excluded