From Free to Forced - Exploring Mobility among People Experiencing Homelessness

Abstract

For a long time, it was thought that the mobility of homeless people could be typically described as free and unrestricted.More recently, this mobility assumption has been challenged to the extent that it has been claimed that is not only restricted, but completely forced.Clearly, the mobility paradigm is inadequate to describe the movements of homeless people who are often subject to exclusion, relocation, confinement, and coercion.This is particularly evident in the theory of expulsion, which is critically reviewed and applied in this article.Based on qualitative research including interviews with 45 people experiencing homelessness in Croatia, we explore different dimensions of forced movement with attention to the broader socio-economic context.