Time at home. Analysis of a day centre as a place of care for women experiencing severe precarity
Notes de la rédaction
This is the press release related to the article from Susan Even published on 2 April 2026. Read the article.
While women are more likely to experience material deprivation and face specific forms of discrimination in the housing market, they remain significantly underrepresented in counts documenting homelessness. Several factors help to explain this, including the tendency of women tendency to seek out their own solutions in order to avoid ending up on the streets or in emergency shelters, where the risk of violence is high. Would designing reception centres for and with women experiencing homelessness make it possible to offer more appropriate forms of refuge? What happens when such spaces are conceived in line with principles of care, and when the reception environment is deliberately arranged so that it, too, contributes to caring for women in situations of acute precarity?
Two and a half years ago, the first women-only day centre opened in the Brussels-Capital Region. Susan Even, a researcher in political and social sciences (Uses&Spaces, UCLouvain) and author of the 215th issue of Brussels Studies, has taken it as her field of inquiry. Drawing on detailed ethnographic work and interviews with both the women who find refuge there and those who support them, she shows how space and its configuration – mobilised by social workers – can act as a lever for the development of care relationships among the women who attend the centre.
Three key dimensions characterise the centre under study: for women experiencing severe deprivation, it functions as a place of refuge, a space for attending to one’s appearance, and a temporary “home”.
First, the women-only nature of the centre creates a refuge from gender-based violence. The absence of men, together with the training of the social workers, enables women to share certain experiences and to feel more at ease. Second, the presence of a clothes room and a dressing table encourages those who wish to do so to take care of their appearance and, by extension, of themselves. Third, the personalisation of the space through furniture and domestic objects allows women to develop a sense of familiarity with, and attachment to, the setting – a feeling of being “at home” – which can in turn support renewed confidence in improving their situation and securing housing.
The researcher thus demonstrates that the space in which care is provided can itself shape the nature of that care. As such, the setting should be conceived from a care perspective. This calls for attention to the care environment in all its dimensions, including seemingly minor elements which may easily be overlooked (from nice tableware to a mirror), and for moving beyond a strictly functional view of reception facilities. In doing so, it becomes possible to design spaces which leave room for agency and redefinition on the part of those being supported, whoever they may be.
References
Even, S., “Time at home. Analysis of a day centre as a place of care for women experiencing severe precarity”, Brussels Studies [Online], General collection, No 215, 2 April 2026. URL: https://journals.openedition.org/brussels/9128
Contact
Tatiana Debroux, Editor in chief:
tdebroux[at]brusselsstudies.be



