To the Edge of the Urban Landscape: Homelessness and the Politics of Care

• Author: Bart van Leeuwen
• DOI: 10.1177/0090591716682290
• Date: 01 August 2018
• Published date: 01 August 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591716682290

Political Theory

2018, Vol. 46(4) 586 –610

© The Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/0090591716682290

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Article

To the Edge of the

Urban Landscape:

Homelessness and

the Politics of Care

Bart van Leeuwen1

Abstract

Homelessness is an obvious moral challenge, given the fact that it is a problem

that millions of people in the developed world have to deal with on a daily

basis. In the relatively scarce literature on this subject, there appear to be—

roughly—three main approaches, namely, what I will refer to as the “difference

approach,” the “liberal approach” and the “care approach.” In the paper I will

critically review these three moral perspectives on the issue of homelessness.

I will argue that the difference approach and the liberal approach in the end are

unconvincing. Homelessness can hardly be interpreted in terms of an internally

valued group identity nor in terms of autonomy and its preconditions. I will

defend a version of the care approach instead, an approach that focuses on the

concrete and particular needs of the homeless.

Keywords

homelessness, homeless, politics of difference, liberalism, care ethics

Both the rich and the poor have the freedom to sleep on the streets at night,

but the rich fail to take advantage of this freedom. This jest conveys an obvi-

ous but painful message: the privileged simply do not have to live and sleep

1Radboud University, Institute for Management Research, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Corresponding Author:

Bart van Leeuwen, Radboud University, Thomas van Aquinostraat 5, 6500 HK Nijmegen,

the Netherlands.

Email: b.vanleeuwen@fm.ru.nl

682290PTXXXX10.1177/0090591716682290Political Theoryvan Leeuwen

research-article2017

van Leeuwen 587

on the streets. Homelessness is a problem that millions of people in the devel-

oped world have to deal with on a daily basis.1 I will specifically reflect on

the problem of homelessness as it occurs in the major cities of the relatively

rich welfare states of the West. This focus brings out a certain contradiction

that, I think, is quite puzzling: why do the richest countries in the world have

millions of people living far below its own basic standards of minimum wel-

fare? Moreover, how is it possible that our liberal-democratic states contain

citizens that live without the defining characteristic of liberalism itself,

namely, a private sphere?

One answer to these questions is that most citizens have become so used

to the sight of the homeless in the centers of our cities that they simply have

become invisible or are just perceived as part of the normal city-scape.2

Another possible answer is that most urbanites live in the suburbs anyway,

where they are not confronted with the evidence of homelessness on a day-

to-day basis.3 These answers, of course, are not satisfactory from the moral

point of view. But what is the moral point of view regarding homelessness?

In the relatively scarce literature on this subject, there appear to be—

roughly—three main approaches, namely, what I will refer to as the “differ-

ence approach,” the “liberal approach” and the “care approach.” In the essay

I will critically review these three moral perspectives on the issue of home-

lessness and I will argue that the difference approach and the liberal approach

in the end are unconvincing and hence unhelpful. Both a politics of pluralism

(§ 1) and of liberal respect (§ 2) seem not to confront the central moral chal-

lenges of homelessness. In most cases homelessness is neither an internally

valued group identity nor an authentic choice, but instead a tragic condition

that is the result of different causes, both structural (e.g., political-economi-

cal) and individual (e.g., addiction, mental illness, unemployment, traumatic

life histories). For that reason I will defend a version of the care approach, an

approach that focuses on the concrete and particular needs of the homeless (§

3). According to some, however, practices of care and reintegration run the

risk of a degrading construal of the homeless as “helpless victims” or “clients

with pathologies”4 at the mercy of a panoptic regime of normalization and

objectification.5 These worries need to be addressed (§ 4).

1. The Difference Approach to Homelessness

The difference approach to homelessness argues for a more diverse concep-

tion of public space, particularly in terms of a more accommodating system

of laws and policies of what is allowed on the city streets. These theorists

basically argue that the homeless have increasingly become victims of

homogenizing conceptions of public space.6 Increasingly, the public places