Longing for a Forever Home: Ontological insecurity is collectively produced in fixed-term supportive housing for families

Abstract

ABSTRACT Increasingly unaffordable housing means that family homelessness represents an urgent issue for social policy and practice. Targeting families at risk of homelessness, Supportive Housing for Families (SHF) subsidizes leases and offers support aimed at sustaining tenancies and family unity. We explore how short-term funding cycles in an advanced welfare system impacts experiences with service delivery. Building on housing scholarship employing an ontological security lens, we interrogate the temporal dimensions of SHF, and how these are intertwined with understandings of home in spatial terms. The analyses are based on research conducted to examine a 12-month SHF pilot in Southeast Queensland, Australia. We analyse qualitative interviews conducted with families (n=17), statutory child protection officers (n=7), and SHF support workers (n=10) involved in this pilot. Findings indicate that fixed-term funding impacts every aspect of service delivery, resulting in the collective production of ontological insecurity, as families continue to long for a forever home.