Homelessness and Macro Interventions

The emergence of social work and macro practice is often associated with the eradication of poverty and prevention of homelessness through the efforts of 19th century settlement houses. Structural violence and social determinants of homelessness are often grounded in unequal social, political, and economic conditions. Health and mental health were affected by the lack of stable housing, causing and increasing the complexity of health and human service needs and services. Furthermore, due to inequities, some populations are inadvertently more likely to face chronic homelessness, which can be mitigated through the role community-engagement and macro practice interventions.

University extension and the settlement idea

This chapter focusses on two of the earliest settlement houses in the United Kingdom, Toynbee Hall and the Bermondsey Settlement. It examines the activities of the residents of these settlements and explores the contribution made by university extension, an effort to develop university teaching into a more democratic social force. to the inception and practical operations of them. Indeed, a close look at the activities of these settlements and the motivations of their founders and residents does indeed show that, alongside religious imperatives and paternalistic notions of class reconciliation through personal contact, the settlements embodied a progressive commitment to education that could be endorsed across class divide. As such, educational activities aimed to bring the knowledge of the universities to the working class neighbours living in the slums in which the settlement houses were established were a crucial element in their work.

Settlement houses and the emergence of social work in Mandatory Palestine

The two settlement houses established in Mandatory Palestine were part of efforts by Jewish social workers to both address poverty among immigrant populations and to strengthen their integration into the Zionist project, which sought to establish a Jewish state in that country. The first settlement house was established in Jerusalem by a Zionist women’s organization in 1925. Drawing upon settlement house models in the UK and those developed in Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, the settlement house sought to combine community level and casework interventions, led by a social worker, in working with poor immigrant Jewish families primarily from Yemen. A decade later a second settlement house was established by social workers employed by Jewish social services. Here again a range of community and family-focused interventions were combined with efforts to integrate poor immigrant Jewish families into the wider Jewish community and to strengthen their affiliation with the Zionist values that dominated this community.

The French maisons sociales, Chicago’s Hull-House scheme and their influence in Portugal

This chapter traces the transnational translation of the settlement house model from the UK and the USA to France and from there to Portugal. The French settlement houses, maisons sociales, that emerged at the end of the 19th Century were influenced by social Catholicism and feminism. They also shared commonalities with, and exhibited divergences from the UK and US settlement house models. While residence, research and engagement in professional training were common, research in the maisons sociales was, unlike in the USA, not a means to further social policies but rather to enhance scientific knowledge. In the mid-1930s, the settlement house model was adopted in Portugal under the aegis of the single-party regime of the Estado Novo. Of the two organisations that engaged in the establishment of settlement houses in Portugal in the following decades, the Institute of Social Work in Lisbon (ISS) was strongly influenced by the French maisons sociales and by social Catholicism.

The Settlement House Movement Revisited

The Settlement House Movement is perceived as a major influence on the emergence of the social work profession globally. Yet, historical research on this movement in social work, and in particular, the transnational translation of this idea, is very limited. This volume sheds new light on the establishment of settlement houses in diverse societies, the interface between this Movement and other social movements, and the impact that it had on the social work profession, its values, practices and research. The chapters in the book explore the settlement house phenomenon in the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Canada, France, Portugal and Mandatory Palestine and the individuals and groups that played a major role in their establishment. They underscore both the ways in which the international Settlement House Movement developed, the commonalities between settlement houses across the globe, and also the differences that emerged between them. In particular, it seeks to highlight the various motivations and sources of belief and knowledge of settlement founders, the goals that they sought, the contexts in which they worked, the activities they undertook and the populations which they served. The critical and transnational historical perspective adopted by the authors of the case studies in the path-breaking book provides the reader with a more subtle understanding of the complexities of the Settlement House Movement and its impact on the social work profession.

Introduction

This chapter discusses a number of themes that underlie this edited volume on the transnational history of the Settlement House Movement. The themes include the motivations for establishing settlement houses and the differences and similarities that these had on the transnational translation of this idea; the unique role of women in the Settlement House Movement; and the Movement’s impact on the social work profession and upon social work and sociological research. The diverse cases discussed in this book offer an insight into the development of settlement houses in various countries and present a corrective to the tendency within social work to associate settlement houses exclusively with a change-oriented, community-based, social reform agenda. They do not only contribute to knowledge on a key element in the emergence of social work but also introduce a unique historical approach to the study of the Settlement House Movement, which adopts a critical and transnational perspective.

Conclusion

This chapter concludes the book by drawing together the themes from each of the chapters. It considers the place of the Settlement House movement within the development of social work, social welfare and research and comments upon the way in which a comparison of Settlement Houses as they have developed in different national contexts signify a more complex perspective. Examining the role of historical research and, particularly, the contribution that this methodological approach can have within social work and social work education it uses examples provided within the chapters. It concludes by discussing the role the Settlement House movement holds in the continued development of social work, social welfare and research.