ABSTRACT

This chapter explains social movements explicitly aiming at new 'homes'. Societal discrimination resulting at the micro-level in people being outcasts, living isolated lives should be countered by caring communities. Though people with mental and intellectual disabilities indeed left their 'total institutions', for many the place of arrival was not a warm, welcoming community. Depending on national and local policies, some ended on the street this particularly occurred in many cities in the US whereas elsewhere people got their own places but did not integrate into the community or society at large. The lack of social movement pressure to fundamentally change the public space in order to facilitate newcomers to 'mix' with longer-term residents, caused this narrowing down of ideals from community care to individual independent living. The Castro in San Francisco shows, on the other hand, that ongoing collective action can materialize in a public 'home', a 'heaven', in this case for gay men.