Seamus Heaney's attention to the landscape has obscured his interest in riverbanks, lough shores and coastlines. Images of water and liquidity are critical to his writing, as are narratives of the sea and its crossings. This chapter traces Heaney's fluid aesthetic throughout his career, with particular attention to his declension of water in all its forms as evolving metaphors for mortality. Reading a series of texts across the breadth of Heaney's career, it engages his work with critical conversations in archipelagic literature.

In this chapter, we examine the theoretical underpinnings of bullying behavior and link bullying to related but distinct forms of aggression. Bullying prevention and intervention strategies are reviewed and the connection between school climate and bullying is reinforced. Prevention and intervention programs that address improving the school climate are necessary but insufficient to effectively reduce bullying. Given that bullying and targeted violence are typically seen as distinct behaviors, the authors suggest that promoting a holistic violence prevention model should replace the individual and often independent approaches for dealing with various forms of aggression and violence. Instead, a comprehensive and coordinated system of assessment, prevention, and intervention will lead to reductions in bullying and other forms of targeted violence. This will require students, teachers, parents, and community stakeholders (i.e., law enforcement, community leaders, politicians) to work together for the holistic health of schools and communities.

Mid-century Ireland was a society of surreal contradictions: an island that declared neutrality an emergency, a nation that became a republic by accident. This chapter examines how Irish writers responded to and reimagined the political and ideological contours of both states on the island in the post-war period, and in particular the creation by artists of altered states in which to seek refuge from the foreclosed reality of official Ireland(s). It charts the responses made by a group of writers whose themes ranged from a historical sense of dislocation and the search for a voice and an audience to an openness to vision and a careful attention to the environment. Initially discussing the novels of Elizabeth Bowen, Brian O’Nolan and Edna O’Brien, it outlines how they conceived of their roles within and beyond the nation in this time of change. The chapter then discusses how the outbreak of the Troubles in Northern Ireland provided the backdrop and impulse for new collective aesthetic projects in these later decades, such as the Field Day project and Atlantis magazine, that advanced the use of literature to imagine alternate Irelands beyond the pale of state and nation.

Introduction

This chapter outlines trends in recorded homelessness in the three countries between about 2008 and 2018/19. It first explores in some detail how homelessness is measured in each of the three countries. Each country uses a variety of methodologies to measure homelessness and it is important that the strengths and limitations of these different approaches are understood, particularly in relation to their comparability. In the case of Denmark, data from the national client registration system on homeless hostels are gathered by Statistics Denmark, in addition to a biennial count of adults experiencing homelessness conducted by the Danish Centre for Social Science Research. These two sources provide the basis for the measurement of homelessness in Denmark. Methodologically, the Finnish measurement is based on both administrative data and some estimates, based on a point in time in each year. Such an approach has its limitations, but as it is conducted on a consistent basis, it does allow for the reliable measurement of trends. In Ireland, data on homelessness are primarily based on administrative data via the Pathway Accommodation & Support System (PASS), a national bed-management system for homelessness services, and since April 2014, a monthly report on the number of households in designated homeless accommodation, broken down by gender, age and nature of accommodation, supplemented by a twice yearly survey of rough sleepers in Dublin. Data are also generated from PASS on a quarterly basis on entries to and exits from emergency accommodation, in addition to length of stay.

Of the three methodologies for measuring homelessness, the methodology in Denmark is the most sophisticated and robust, utilising as it does both administrative and survey data. As is well documented, comparative work on the extent of homelessness is beset with definitional issues (Busch-Geertsema et al, 2014; Pleace, 2016a). Having explored the full range of data on homelessness in each country, we then focus on those living rough, in emergency accommodation and in accommodation for the homeless. These are the first three categories in the European Typology of Homelessness and Housing Exclusion (ETHOS), which was described in Chapter 1.

Introduction

This book is focused on the formulation and delivery of strategies to end homelessness that the three countries adopted from around 2008. However, it is useful to reflect briefly on the recent history of responses to homelessness in each country as these histories influenced the ways in which the early 21st-century strategies were framed and developed.

The 20th century

Most economically developed countries in Europe, including the three that are the subject of this book, initially pursued policies that were grounded in assumptions about homelessness that began with a picture of lone, economically marginalised, adult men who had, in some way, chosen an itinerant lifestyle, often linked to alcohol dependency. Over the last three decades of the 20th century, homelessness policy was characterised by an increasing emphasis on treatment and support. This shift reflected broader trends across the economically developed world as homelessness came to be seen as associated with sets of shared characteristics such as addiction, alcoholism and severe mental illness.

Finland (Y Foundation, 2017; Fredriksson, 2018, cited in Ranta, 2019), Denmark (Kolstrup, 2014) and Ireland (O’Brien, 1981; Kearns, 1984) all experienced this transition, although the details and time frames varied somewhat across the three countries, as is described later. All three countries also saw the development of social housing at scale. Social housing was seen as an integral part of wider social policy, designed to increase affordable housing supply rather than the pursuit of free market housing policy.

The first phase in homelessness policy was surveillant: an attempt to contain, control and discipline. The second phase stemmed from medicalisation, emphasising the need to treat and support, but this was framed in the context created by the first phase. As the three countries developed their homelessness strategies at the beginning of the 21st century, a third phase in which services started to be modelled differently was underway. Choice, recovery and strengthbased approaches, and housing-led models that included, but were not restricted to, what became the global Housing First movement, were gaining momentum.

Denmark

In Denmark, rapid economic growth from the 1960s onwards saw a significant expansion of the welfare state, alongside major shifts in how welfare systems operated.

Introduction

At the outset of this book, we described a context in the early years of this century in which a ‘fundamental shift in expectations’ was generating a degree of optimism that homelessness could be ended in many countries. In the three countries under consideration, there was a high level of evidence-based optimism. Recent innovations in practice, combined with international research evidence, suggested that housing-led models, approaches that provided housing and support as the first step for people experiencing homelessness, would prove more successful than traditional approaches that largely focused on ‘treatment’ first. There was also the realisation that the number of those experiencing homelessness with high and complex needs was much smaller than had been previously understood. This, coupled with the emergence of effective Housing First, created an atmosphere, initially in the US and later in other jurisdictions, that homelessness was, in fact, solvable. If these practices could be delivered at the necessary scale, it would be possible to effectively reduce homelessness to ‘functional zero’ – in which homelessness would be rare, shortlived and non-recurrent. There was also a new political willingness in many advanced industrial economies not only to articulate ending homelessness as a realistic political commitment, but also to set out ambitious broad strategic frameworks. This political commitment and strategic framework established a context in which the scaling up of effective practice could occur, delivering real change.

This optimism and political commitment existed in a wide range of countries, and we have been able to look in detail at the experiences of three in this book. The three countries were selected for largely pragmatic reasons: they have published detailed data on the numbers experiencing homelessness that, to a large degree, are comparable. The similarity in population size and shared membership of the European Union (EU) provide a backdrop for useful comparison. On the other hand, historical differences in social, housing and welfare systems, as well as differences in political complexion over the period, provide useful areas for debate about the reasons behind the very different outcomes.

After documenting the policies, practices and outcomes over the intervening years in the three countries, we are forcibly reminded that homelessness is a complex issue not just at the personal level, but also within our economic and social systems.

Introduction

The strategies of the three countries were published within a relatively short period of each other. The Finnish Strategy, Paavo I, was launched in February 2008, while the Irish national homeless strategy, entitled The Way Home: A Strategy to Address Adult Homelessness in Ireland, 2008– 2013, was launched in August 2008, and the Danish A Strategy to Reduce Homelessness in Denmark, 2009– 2012 was adopted in August 2007 and published in October 2009.

When considered in retrospect over the period 2008– 18, the three strategies can each be seen to have distinct phases of announcement and implementation. In the case of the Finnish strategies, these build upon each other through a series of achievements and refined objectives, while in the Irish case, the strategies change considerably in format and scope, reflecting the broader economic and political crisis that engulfed the country. The development of the Danish strategy falls in between the other two cases.

The initial strategies

The Danish homelessness strategy

In Denmark, following the first homelessness count in 2007, a national homelessness strategy was adopted by the Danish government. The strategic programme succeeded earlier programmes aimed at strengthening social services for marginalised groups. For instance, the City Programme (Storbypuljen) from 2003 to 2005 also involved initiatives for homeless people, as well as services for other marginalised groups. At the same time, the strategy built on top of existing services in the general welfare system.

Four overall goals were set in the programme and operational targets attached to each goal were set at the local level. The four goals were:

• 1. to reduce rough sleeping;

• 2. to provide solutions other than shelters to homeless youth;

• 3. to reduce time spent in a shelter; and

• 4. to reduce homelessness due to institutional release from prison and hospitals without a housing solution.

A range of services for homeless people, and vulnerable people in general, was already specified in social services legislation. In particular, section 110 in the legislation obliges municipalities to provide temporary accommodation for people who have no place to live or who cannot stay at the place where they live due to social problems. About 70 homeless shelters nationwide operate under this section of the law.

Introduction

Having explored the role of housing in explaining the variable outcomes in the three countries under review, in this chapter, we turn to assessing the role of welfare provision in shaping trends in homelessness. Finland and Denmark are unambiguously part of the social-democratic welfare family, having high levels of decommodification for health and welfare services, with Ireland fitting somewhat uneasily, particularly in relation to housing, into the liberal cluster of welfare regimes (Esping-Anderson, 1990). In addition to housing-related factors, systemic factors related to welfare reforms have likely affected current trends in homelessness. Welfare benefits have generally been under reform in many countries following trends towards labour market activation for unemployed people and both the containment and the reduction of spending on social protection. This combination of growing shortages of affordable housing and reductions in welfare benefits has contributed to the housing exclusion of vulnerable groups.

The welfare state and homelessness in Denmark

Denmark has one of the most extensive welfare systems in the world, with a high level of income redistribution, universal health care, extensive social services and the provision of social housing. Wider social and housing policy probably helps explain why homelessness levels in Denmark are relatively low in international comparisons, with Denmark also possessing a significant and comparatively well-funded homelessness services sector. It also explains why homelessness is widely concentrated in people with complex support needs who fall through this otherwise extensive welfare safety net (Benjaminsen and Andrade, 2015). In particular, the scale of the public housing sector, in combination with relatively generous welfare benefits for families with dependent children, probably explains why family homelessness has remained at very modest levels in Denmark compared to many other countries, and to Ireland in particular (Baptista et al, 2017).

Although Denmark has largely avoided the austerity measures experienced by many other countries after the financial crisis, welfare reforms aimed at strengthening the financial sustainability of the system have been pursued, including ‘workfare’/labour market activationoriented reforms, mirroring wider trends in the economically developed world.