Social innovation based on marginality: an analytical framework for the genesis and development dynamics of policies, projects, and practices in response to the housing exclusion

The article aims to establish an analytical framework for examining practices, projects, and policies relevant to the national context of the housing crisis. This framework facilitates the exploration of potential applications for analyzing specific transformations in living arrangements. It is based on the intersection of the formal/informal and conventional/unconventional variables, thus allowing for the classification of observable cases and the reconstruction of the processes through which responses to the housing emergency are formulated. Special attention is given to the emergence of innovation in housing and social policies arising from informal and unconventional practices that residents spontaneously adopt. Given that the reduction or denial of the right to housing is socially, politically, and even constitutionally unacceptable, it is important to emphasize the structural limitations of public administrations as levers for expressing the identity of civil society. It is also necessary to acknowledge the administration’s own need to collaborate authentically with residents to fulfill its roles and functions.