“It's not that we Feel Incompetent, We Simply Lack the Institutional Solutions” Applying a Collective Capabilities Perspective to Voluntary Organisations in the Homelessness Field

In today’s changing care and welfare landscape, voluntary organisations play an important role in providing care to homeless people. The limited literature on such initiatives is often sceptical about their effectiveness, although they do point to their positive contributions. In this paper, we use a Collective Capabilities lens to analyse the role, value, and limitations of volunteer initiatives addressing homelessness. We apply this framework to four case studies of volunteers-only initiatives providing care to homeless people in Brussels, Belgium. Data were collected through participant observation, interviews and document analysis. Our results highlight the trade-offs that voluntary organisations make between organisational capacities and agency. While formalisation and cooperation may contribute to an organisation's mission, these processes are sometimes avoided to preserve the unique contributions these organisations believe they make, such as providing care for people who fall between the cracks of the welfare state. Our results suggest that while voluntary organisations working with homeless people are aware of their limited capabilities regarding structural solutions, they do respond to unmet needs precisely because of their agency. However, there is a risk that fledgling organisations may take reckless and unsustainable actions.