ABSTRACT
This chapter uses policy and practice responses to vulnerable people to think about the conceptual relationship between the emotions and governance in a marketised, modernised, networked and mixed-economy welfare state (Lewis, 2005; DTLGR, 2001; Clarke et al., 2000; Clarke and Newman, 1997). It tracks what happens when a voluntary sector supported-housing organisation is brought into the state and becomes ‘governable terrain’ via mechanistic and fiscal processes (Carmel and Harlock, 2008: 156). The analysis developed here draws on empirical qualitative research with five housing and homelessness organisations in a metropolitan area in the north of England, UK, in 2008-9, which involved observation and interviews with 30 practitioners in front-line and managerial roles. It focuses on findings from a voluntary sector supported-housing organisation, anonymised here as the Windmill Project. Established in the late 1970s, the Windmill Project provided services for homeless and vulnerable in the local area, ranging from ‘floating support’ delivered to clients in their own homes, to more traditional hostel-style and staff-supervised accommodation where clients had their own room in a house with shared kitchen, bathroom and living room facilities.
