Who counts as homeless? A gendered analysis of administrative recognition in the Belgian reference address system

Abstract

In Belgium, the reference address provides an administrative address for persons experiencing homelessness in order to enable administrative inclusion and facilitate access to fundamental rights. However, access depends on legal-administrative definitions of homelessness and evidentiary requirements implemented through administrative assessments. Growing research demonstrates that women experience distinct trajectories into and during homelessness, which often remain less visible within dominant understandings of homelessness. Despite women representing a significantly smaller proportion of reference address beneficiaries than men, research has not yet examined how the reference address framework interacts with women's homelessness trajectories or whether it may produce differentiated experiences. Through a feminist socio-legal analysis drawing on Katherine Bartlett’s feminist method of Asking the Woman Question, this thesis examines the extent to which the legal-administrative framework of the reference address accommodates women’s homelessness trajectories and identifies plausible gendered effects of administrative burdens emerging during CPAS implementation. The analysis demonstrates that the reference address framework does not merely identify homelessness but constructs administratively recognizable categories of homelessness through definitions, evidentiary requirements and discretionary assessment. These mechanisms may produce gendered effects where recognition depends on assumptions about what constitutes homelessness, thereby making trajectories that diverge from dominant understandings more difficult to recognize. The findings demonstrate that access to rights depends not only on formal legal entitlement but also on administrative recognition, highlighting the importance of legal-administrative frameworks that take diverse experiences of homelessness into account.