Session: At the Frontlines, Yet Sidelined: Repositioning Social Work's Place in Housing Discourse (Society for Social Work and Research 30th Annual Conference Anniversary)

Social workers, due to their direct engagement with underserved and vulnerable populations, possess a unique and critical perspective on housing issues. Unlike other professions, social workers interact daily with individuals and families facing eviction, overcrowding, substandard living conditions, and homelessness - populations that include residents of low-income neighborhoods, unhoused individuals, and families at risk of displacement. These frontline experiences provide social workers with a deep understanding of the consequences of housing insecurity. Yet despite this expertise, discourse and policy decisions on housing have been predominantly shaped by economists, sociologists, and housing activists, often marginalizing social work's vital contributions.

This exclusion is particularly striking given social work's historical and contemporary role in housing justice. From the tenement house movement of the late 19th century to modern advocacy for tenant rights and equitable urban development, social workers have long been at the forefront of U.S. housing policy. However, their influence remains underrecognized in policy debates and undertheorized in academic research, leaving a gap in both practice and scholarship.

To address this disconnection, this symposium will serve three key purposes:

1. Reclaiming Social Work's Housing Legacy: It will illuminate the profession's overlooked history in shaping housing policy, emphasizing pivotal but forgotten contributions.

2. Expanding Housing Scholarship Through a Social Work Lens: It will explore housing-related subject areas - such as housing movement history, permanent supportive housing, housing choice vouchers, and housing insecurity - where social work perspectives are essential yet underrepresented.

3. Advancing Conceptual Frameworks in Housing Studies: It will promote social work-driven theoretical and methodological improvements to better capture the complexities of housing insecurity.

This symposium bridges social work's historical contribution, contemporary interventions, and intersectional lived experiences through four critical discussions. First, we reclaim social work's erased legacy in housing justice through archival recordings of social work's formative role in U.S. housing movements and housing policies from 1900-1960. Following, we interrogate Housing First as an anti-carceral modality exposing the gaps between theoretical framing, frontline implementation challenges, and broader economic structures. Then, we leverage practice experience at the Housing Authority of St. Louis County to examine how staff understand the goals and barriers of housing mobility within the Housing Choice Voucher program. Finally, we center on the intersections of disability justice, aging, and poverty, highlighting how such complexities compound housing insecurities for low-income older adults. Together, these papers illuminate the multi-faceted role that social work can and should play within broader housing discourses, theorization, and praxis and offer an opportunity for social work to consider its position within housing justice movements, more broadly.