Housing Precarity: Legal Geographies of Invisible Inequality

Finland is considered one of the model countries for housing policy, where the number of homeless people is low and the housing first principle has been a success. However, the increase and diversification of housing-related insecurities have recently raised concerns. The HOPE project addresses housing precarity by combining legal geographical and social scientific thinking. With the help of ethnographic and textual data, the project produces information about the uncertainties of housing, concentrating on invisible inequalities. Our research questions include: How does experiencing uncertainty and negotiating housing situations change according to gender and age? How is living in an uncertain situation controlled through laws, regulations and customs, and how are the laws manifested spatially? HOPE will produce new knowledge about housing uncertainties, conceptualize inequality from new perspectives, and utilize interdisciplinary possibilities in methodological development.