Structural neglect and policy failures underlie fragile care acts for Paris's homeless, revealing global housing justice patterns
Original framing: “Amanda Curtin imagines fragile acts of care among the homeless in Paris” — The Conversation - Global
Indigenous traditions emphasize care as a reciprocal obligation embedded in kinship networks, exemplified by the Māori concept of whānau, where housing is viewed as a collective responsibility rather than an individual commodity. Similarly, many African societies practice extended family fostering, ensuring that no member is left without shelter through communal resource pooling. The novel’s focus on isolated acts of care misses these systemic, culturally grounded safety nets that could inform policy responses to homelessness.
The novel’s portrayal of fragile care among Paris’s unhoused reveals a symptom of deeper structural neglect rooted in centuries‑old vagrancy legacies, contemporary austerity‑driven housing policy, and market speculation that commodifies shelter.
Indigenous and cross‑cultural traditions demonstrate that care becomes sustainable when embedded in collective kinship or cooperative frameworks, a insight corroborated by scientific evidence on Housing First’s efficacy. Marginalised voices affirm that charitable gestures lack transformative power without policy guarantees of permanent, dignified housing, while trickster analysis exposes the paradox whereby such acts can both alleviate suffering and legitimize the very neglect they address. Integrating these dimensions points to systemic solutions—universal rent regulation, public land trusts, Housing First with wraparound support, and UN‑based right‑to‑housing advocacy—that shift the burden from individual charity to collective responsibility for housing as a human right.