Understanding housing insecurity: a qualitative study exploring the perspectives of families and professional practitioners in England

Like many high-income countries, England is experiencing a housing crisis, where conditions around housing availability and affordability are contributing to housing insecurity. Housing insecurity can be understood as experiencing, or being at risk of, forced and multiple housing moves. Our study explores families’ experiences and navigation of housing insecurity, drawing on the perspectives of families and professional practitioners. We undertook 78 interviews with 81 participants (43 practitioners involved in housing support, and 38 parents and children who had experienced housing insecurity). Data analysis generated three themes which provide insight into families’ experiences of housing insecurity: (i) navigating limited options and forced choices, (ii) trying to maintain normality, and, (iii) struggling to maintain hope. Our findings highlight how housing insecurity produces a pervasive state of uncertainty for families, marked by forced and frequent moves, limited choices, disrupted routines, and hopelessness. Further, our article discusses how the combined concepts of structural violence and slow violence produce a useful lens for understanding families’ experiences of housing insecurity, and explanation of why inequalities in housing are produced and how harm unfolds and endures over time. This can help to move towards appreciating the social, economic, and political forces that create and maintain housing inequalities.