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Policy brief on how to mitigate the negative impacts of Universal Credit on financial insecurity and crime based on the paper d’Este, R. and Harvey, A. (2022), “The unintended consequences of welfare reforms: Universal Credit, financial insecurity, and crime”, The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization.

This paper aims to explore the lived experiences of key stakeholders working with homeless people during the implementation of universal credit during the austerity years.

The literature on austerity reveals welfare reforms’ impact on support services staff. Service providers’ perceptions of the impact of austerity-led policies and welfare reform via nine interviews with people working in homelessness organisations in Brighton and Hove in the UK. Service providers see the situation for their service users has gotten worse and that the policies make it more difficult to extricate themselves from their current situation. Three central themes relating to the impact of austerity-led welfare reforms were, namely, Universal Credit: the imposition of a precarious livelihood on welfare claimants; a double-edged sword: “If people are sanctioned: people can’t pay”; and “Hard to maintain my own mental equilibrium”.

More precisely, this paper captures service providers’ perceptions and experiences of the impact of austerity-led policies on their services and how they believe this, in turn, impacts their clients and their own lives.

The dimension cuts across service provision to vulnerable people and is intertwined with health and well-being outcomes. Austerity is detrimental to the health of service users and their clients. It is known that when it comes to the health and well-being of the most vulnerable, who have suffered most from the impacts of austerity policies. However, in times of open austerity, it falls also on those trying to ease their suffering.

The data suggest that policies were developed and accentuated by austerity, which led to the stripping of welfare support from vulnerable people. This process has impacted the people who rely on welfare and service providers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine expropriation, valuation, compensation and rehabilitation practices and their impacts on expropriated households.

This study employed a mixed research approach. The target populations of the study were expropriated households in Debre Markos City from 2019 to 2022. The study uses purposive and systematic random sampling techniques. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, narration and thematic clustering.

The findings of this study revealed that the expropriation process was not participatory and the right holders were not treated as what is expected. It is further found that economic losses, moral damage and social disturbance payments were not considered in the compensation package. The displacement compensation given was also inadequate and sometimes delayed and the time value of money was not taken into account for delayed payments. This creates social and economic problems. The rehabilitation and resettlement program was inadequate and ineffective. The expropriation, valuation, compensation and rehabilitation practice in general lack transparency and accountability.

To ensure efficient and effective expropriation, valuation and compensation, there should be a well-organized government system that provides an accurate valuation on the one hand and restores the livelihood of the displaced on the other.

This paper is the first on expropriation, valuation, compensation and rehabilitation within the framework of transparency, accountability, effective rehabilitation and resettlement and institutional arrangements to ensure the sustainable livelihoods of affected households.

Housing policies in India (last modified in 2017) define “affordable housing” on three main parameters – income of the target group, dwelling unit size and house price to income ratio. The Covid-19 pandemic has questioned the robustness of the defining parameters of affordable housing. This paper aims to study the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on housing affordability and adequacy for the urban poor and highlights how one pandemic has directly challenged the practicality of the affordable housing criteria in urban India.

The study is based on a pilot test conducted through interviews with the consumer group. Furthermore, the affordable housing policies of urban India were studied in conjunction with the pandemic guidelines laid down by the World Health Organization. The consumer responses were analyzed in relation to the policies and guidelines to arrive at the inferences. The secondary case examples of the Dharavi slums in Mumbai and the Savda Ghevra slum resettlement colony in Delhi, along with the findings of the primary survey in the economically weaker section category, are used to formulate the conclusions.

The pilot test conducted for the target consumer group clearly indicates that (i) the pandemic has severely affected the housing purchase capacity of the target consumer, thereby questioning the “affordability” of housing; (ii) proposed housing solutions are inadequate to enable livability, thereby questioning the “adequacy” of housing; and (iii) proposed housing solutions are inept to accommodate pandemic protocols. The Covid-19 pandemic and the conditions it imposed on the built environment clearly highlight the inadequacy of affordable housing parameters being followed in urban India.

Further research may be conducted on global best practices in housing, which may advise the housing policies in India.

The study suggests key areas that need intervention and modification to make the housing policies more robust and effective.

The study explores the social sustainability aspects of housing, which are often considered secondary in policies.

Because housing has a direct bearing on the physical, social and mental well-being of society, it is imperative to find housing solutions that are safe and resilient for a sustainable future. This paper is an original attempt by the author to question and highlight how the current affordable housing solutions adopted in urban India will continue to fail under any external adverse conditions unless modifications are considered in the existing housing parameters.

In the space of slums are many stakeholders; the extent to which their assistance contributes to slum administration is sparsely studied. The study aims to examine how external stakeholders contribute to slum administration within the Ghanaian context.

Using the stakeholder theory, the study used an exploratory qualitative design based on face-to-face, in-depth interviews among 21 respondents. Participants were purposively selected from stakeholder organisations and slum residents based on the stake in slums governance in Ghana.

The results indicate that stakeholders have contributed towards slums livelihoods in the general areas of housing, trading, skill development and capacity building. It shows that stakeholders’ contributions tend to enhance slums’ living conditions and affect local assemblies positively. The study finds that slum dwellers categorise stakeholders’ contributions as short-term relief and long-term solutions. Additionally, it emerged that in the areas of policy design, implementation and policy feedback, external stakeholders have supported the government in that regard.

The conclusion drawn from the study is limited to the four communities and the stakeholder organisations. However, communities with similar characteristics globally might benefit from the findings.

The study uncovers a context-specific role and assistance of external stakeholders in the domain of slums. This provides a guide to the government regarding key areas of stakeholder collaboration towards slum governance in the Ghanaian context. Theoretically, this study has contributed to new knowledge about stakeholders’ contribution to the overall governance of slums.

The study expands the frontiers of knowledge in the field of slum administration by focusing on external stakeholders. This study departs from previous studies, which have examined, in broader perspectives, stakeholders’ roles within the space of slums.

The purpose of this article is to examine synergies between a eudaimonic model of psychological well-being (Ryff, 1989) and mental health practice. The model grew out of clinical, developmental, existential and humanistic perspectives that emphasized psychological strengths and capacities, in contrast to the focus on emotional distress and dysfunction in clinical psychology.

Conceptual foundations of the eudaimonic approach are described, along with the six components positive functioning that are used to measure well-being. These qualities may be important in facilitating the recovery experiences, which are of interest in Mental Health and Social Inclusion.

Four categories of empirical evidence about eudaimonia are reviewed: how it changes with aging, how it matters for health, what are its biological and neurological underpinnings and whether it can be promoted. Major contemporary forces against eudaimonia are also considered, including ever-widening inequality, the enduring pandemic and world-wide strife. In contrast, encounters with the arts and nature are put forth as forces for eudaimonia. The relevance of these ideas for mental health research and practice is considered.

Enormous suffering defines our contemporary world. Such realities call for greater attention to factors that undermine as well as nurture the realization of human potential, the core of eudaimonic well-being.

Mental health is often defined as the absence of mental illness. The novelty of the eudaimonic approach is to define mental health as the presence of well-being, assessed with different components of positive functioning.

Homelessness has many causes and also is stigmatized in the United States, leading to much misunderstanding of its causes and what policy solutions may ameliorate the problem. The problem is of course getting worse and impacting many communities far removed from the West Coast cities the authors examine in this study. This analysis examines the socioeconomic variables influencing homelessness on the West Coast in recent years. The authors utilize a panel fixed effects model that explicitly includes measures of healthcare access and availability to account for the additional health risks faced by individuals who lack shelter. The authors estimate a spatial error model (SEM) in order to better understand the impacts that systemic shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have on a variety of factors that directly influence productivity and other measures of welfare such as income inequality, housing supply, healthcare investment, and homelessness.