Homelessness is one of the most visible tips of the polycrisis in which we currently live – social, economic, environmental, political – that some fear is becoming normalized as part of the status quo. This primer takes this longstanding and decidedly unresolved issue of urban injustice and puts its very grounded nature into conversation with the more theoretical and high-altitude grammars of social justice theory. The everyday and the esoteric are combined, enabling readers to understand how social justice theory can be applied to practical problems in the real world. Chapters guide readers to think through four common approaches to social justice – liberal, radical, post-structural and capabilities – across the single case study of urban homelessness. Bridging urban studies, political science, philosophy and sociology, this primer emphasizes the spatial aspects of social justice (who gets what, and where) and how social justice is increasingly an issue of cities, the main arenas through which social justice can be demanded and obtained.

Geoffrey DeVerteuil is a Professor of Social and Urban Geography at Cardiff University, in the School of Geography and Planning. His research is at the grand intersection of inequality, its spatial expressions and its management within cities. He is interested more specifically in inequality as it manifests itself in terms of mental health, substance abuse treatment, homelessness, precarious migrants, gentrification and the voluntary sector. He is also interested in the forces arrayed against inequality, including a critical articulation of social justice and spatial resilience.