Over the next few weeks, this blog will publish a series of short films about the plenary presentations given at the European Network for Housing Research (ENHR) Conference, held in Edinburgh earlier this summer.

The first of these films is an interview with Beth Watts, a Research Fellow at I-SPHERE.  She is currently working on the Crisis and JRF-funded Homelessness Monitors, a five-year project exploring the impacts of the economic downturn and welfare reform on homelessness. She is also working on a five-year ESRC project exploring the ethics and effectiveness of welfare conditionality, as applied to social housing tenants, homeless households and other groups of welfare recipients. In her plenary, she spoke about the difference Scotland’s legal rights to housing make to the experiences of homeless people and outcomes of homelessness policy, compared to Ireland’s discretionary ‘social-partnership’ approach.

Some of Beth’s recent publications include:

• Homelessness, Empowerment and Self-reliance in Scotland and Ireland: The Impact of Legal Rights to Housing for Homeless People
• Rights to Housing: Reviewing the Terrain and Exploring a Way Forward

Follow Beth on Twitter: [twitter-follow screen_name=’BethWatts494′ show_count=’yes’]