Between alternative living-models and housing precariousness in rural Wallonia – questioning frameworks of homelessness

Wagener, Martin [UCL] De Moor, Nicolas [UCL] Emmanuel, Noémie [UCL]

The last book in Homage to Henk Meert is titled « In my caravan, I feel like Superman ». Meert questioned representations of homelessness which are grounded in societal perceptions and normative (dis-)beliefs. Based on data from recent counts in the rural south of Belgium, we’ll analyse more in detail the living situations of people in camping sites, tents, caravans or tiny houses. In Wallonia, there is a long-standing discussion about how to recognize these living arrangements between precariousness and the need of social intervention. On the one hand societal actors argue about the recognition of alternative modes of living, and on the other hand, multiple situations of poverty and deep-routed housing-related precariousness question the “alternative model”. Based on the contacts and discussions with different alternative living projects and also residents who are permanently housed on camping sites, we first analyze statistical profiles to give a better understanding of these situations. Further, we’ll discuss discourses from a perspective inspired by Blumer (1970) about the normative framing of homelessness and alternative living models by a set of different actors.