Three Types of Home Evictions in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek. Monitoring Social Work Casefiles for Insights into Displacement Process | Mae de Monchy (Doctoral researcher, VUB Cosmopolis)
We provide dessert for the break after the seminar. Please register if you want to join and/or enjoy the dessert!
Based on a situated data source of casefiles from social workers at the housing service of Bonnevie, a community center, this contribution examines hidden phenomena of displacement in Molenbeek, Brussels, with a focus on evictions and the trajectories that precede them. The research shows how such structures can compensate for the lack of data and knowledge and are an important entry point from which to conceptualise hidden housing problems.
The presentation will discuss three key case files that narrate three types of evictions (judicial, informal, and administrative). These are linked to a coding of a large segment of the archives in order to reveal the scale, interconnections, and profiles predominantly affected by housing issues and displacement in the area where Bonnevie is active. This is situated within discussions on the monitoring of evictions in Brussels, the institutional landscape, housing‑rights legislation, and the protective strategies that can be employed in these contexts. The presentation emphasizes that judicial evictions represent only a portion of the problem, while informal and administrative evictions often remain uncounted, underscoring the need for greater awareness of these less visible forms of displacement and of the proactive roles played by local organizations in detecting and addressing them.
Mae de Monchy holds a research position, combining teaching responsibilities for the Master of Urban Planning and Design (SteR*) with the development of a PhD. Their research focuses on housing insecurities, displacement and their intersection with institutional housing procedures and planning processes, in Brussels. Currently involved in an action-research project at Bonnevie community center, analysing case-file archives from the “housing permanence,” a service that accompanies households experiencing housing insecurity and the threat of eviction.