Dispossessed realities Houselessness and spatial violence

Individuals facing houselessness confront intricate challenges and heightened health risks attributed to inequities in accessing healthcare services. This study delves into the extraordinary toll on their limbs, exploring the consequences of street life on the legs and feet sensorially. It analyses the various forms of violence perpetrated by city architecture, public order regulations, street-level bureaucrats, and housed individuals. These acts, both conscious and unconscious, treat houseless populations as ‘matter out of place, perpetuate the practice of ‘not here, elsewhere,’ and contribute to the deferral of responsibility onto affected persons and the construction of urban environments in progressively hostile manners that re-frame houselessness as intrinsic to a person rather than as a condition that happens to them.