Housing after care: understanding security and stability in the transition out of care through the lenses of liminality, recognition and precarity

ABSTRACT There is a well-documented association between histories of state care and housing instability. This paper examines care leavers’ experience of securing housing during the transition out of care through the lenses of liminality, Recognition theory, and precarity. Conducted in Ireland, sixteen care-experienced youth were recruited to a qualitative longitudinal study. The findings demonstrate how aftercare policies and a lack of affordable housing combined to create precarity for many, which also had implications for their feelings of recognition as young people. For those who remained in their foster care placements or transitioned to supported lodgings, housing stability engendered feelings of being cared for by creating a liminal space where growth was supported. Those, on the other hand, who left their foster care placements at the age of 18 or were forced to leave time-limited aftercare housing were pushed into precariousness, placing them at high risk for homelessness and housing exclusion. These young people felt misrecognised and disrespected by the state and the aftercare system. The findings highlight the deleterious consequences of time-limited aftercare supports for care leavers’ sense of security and their ability to achieve valued life goals. The implications of the study's findings for leaving care and aftercare policies are discussed.


Introduction
Housing has been identified as a foundational element of the leaving care experience and a strong predictor of positive outcomes for care leavers. Yet, care leavers experience homelessness at a far higher rate than the general youth population, with studies demonstrating that between 10% and 30% of young people leaving care experience homelessness at some point, sometimes directly following their exit from state care (Gypen et al. 2017). In the US, Choca et al. (2004) found that 60% of foster care alumni reported homelessness within six months of leaving care, while other research shows that the percentage of care leavers who experience homelessness increases over time (Pecora et al. 2003). These findings are broadly consistent with the only national study of care leavers in Ireland, which found that 33% experienced homelessness within six months, increasing to 68% after a period of two years (Kelleher, Kelleher, and Corbett 2000). Simultaneously, studies of youth homelessness in the US, Australia, and several European countries consistently show that a disproportionately high percentage of homeless youth report a history of state care (Cameron et al. 2018;Martijn and Sharpe 2006;Mayock and Parker 2017;Pacquiao and Fried 2016).
The housing circumstances of young people leaving care have gained increased attention in the literature. To date, however, much of the research has focused on establishing the prevalence of homelessness or housing insecurity among care leavers (Fowler et al. 2017) and, to a lesser extent, on describing the housing experiences of youth who exit the care system (Munson et al. 2017). While recent advances in the youth transitions literature have highlighted housing as a key protective factor that provides 'a base of security from which a young person can explore options for adulthood' (Munson et al. 2017, 431), conceptualisations of the housing transitions of care leavers are relatively underdeveloped. This paper examines the housing experiences of care leavers through the lenses of liminality, recognition and precarity based on selected data from a larger qualitative longitudinal study of youth leaving care in Ireland. Derived inductively from the accounts of young care leavers, we suggest that this amalgam of conceptual frames makes a theoretical contribution to understanding the complex layers of experience that accompany the housing journeys of care leavers. As the data presented in this paper demonstrate, care leavers' housing experiences extended beyond structural and systemic constraints of access to housing. The young people's accounts reveal housing as providing a liminal space that engendered feelings of being cared for and respected; conversely, housing insecurity pushed many of the study's care leavers into marginalising liminality, in turn contributing to feelings of disrespect and lack of care.
The paper starts by outlining the key concepts underpinning liminality theory, Recognition theory, and precarity, also drawing attention to the applicability of this framework to leaving care and aftercare policy and practice. The Irish contextrelated to aftercare provision and housing market conditionsis then explained. An account of the study's qualitative longitudinal methodological approach follows, detailing the sampling and data collection methods and the data analysis procedures used to capture care leavers' perspectives on their housing experiences. The findings presented examine both the stable and unstable housing paths of the study's participants. The paper concludes by discussing the contribution of the proposed theoretical framework to understanding the housing transitions of young people leaving care.

Liminality, recognition and precariousness during the transition out of care
Liminality theory is a core theory in youth studies that has bolstered understanding of young people's transitions to adulthood (Furlong et al. 2018). Fundamentally, it proposes that there are three distinct phases associated with any transitionnamely, separation, the liminal phase, and reintegrationthe outcome of which is an individual who is recognised as a full member of society (Furlong et al. 2018). It is widely recognised that contemporary youth transitions have shifted from a series of linear progressionslinked, for example, to completing formal education, entering the labour market, leaving the parental home and starting a familytowards far more circuitous and less connected transitions (Furlong et al. 2018). One of the consequences of these shifts is that the transitions of contemporary youth, including care leavers, are far less predictable than previously, in turn creating ambiguity around the boundary between 'youth' and 'adulthood'. Liminality theory asserts that this ambiguity can lead to the marginalisation of youth who struggle to achieve reintegration because it suspends them in the liminal phase, where they risk becoming 'marginals' (Furlong et al. 2018;Turner 1991). Exploring the process of marginalisation through the lens of liminality has the capacity to probe beyond the surface in order to better understand the subjective experiences of care leavers. For example, such marginalisation may increase a young person's feelings of misrecognition during the transition out of care, leading to feelings of disrespect, anger and/or shame.
The notion of misrecognition is associated with a burgeoning child welfare and leaving care topic, namely, Recognition theory (Glynn 2021;Paulsen and Thomas 2018;Ridley et al. 2016;Thomas 2012;Warming 2015), which asserts that individuals in society desire and pursue recognition of their selves as distinct and valued members of a group (for more detailed discussions of the theory, see Fraser 1995;Honneth 1995;Houston 2016;Thomas 2012). Notably, the act of recognising another individual is considered to be a positive experience, meaning that negative relations constitute a denial of recognition; referred to as misrecognition or disrespect (Anderson 1995). There are three proposed forms of recognition with corresponding personal developments, namely: love or emotional recognition, which leads to self-confidence; respect or legal recognition, which leads to self-respect; and solidarity or social recognition, which leads to self-esteem.
These three types of recognition are important for an individual's psycho-social development and sense of belonging to a community. For example, research has demonstrated that the process of emotional recognition remains consistently important for personal development and relationship maintenance throughout the life course (Paulsen and Thomas 2018). In South Africa, van Breda's (2015) grounded theory investigation of the care leaving journeys of a small sample of young men found that 'seeking authentic belonging' was a foundational process in the transition out of care as young people sought to establish themselves post-care and secure their livelihoods (327). In terms of the roles respect and solidarity play in receiving recognition, individuals seek respect for themselves as an individual and for their lifeway as valuable.
For care leavers, recognition can be conveyed through social institutions and structures, such as those related to policy or legal frameworks (Fraser and Honneth 2003;Honneth 2012), which can be understood as 'embodiments' of recognition (Honneth 2012, 84). Thus, social structures such as housing or welfare assistance that distribute benefits unevenly may be interpreted as social and/or legal misrecognition. For example, restrictions on eligibility for housing assistance may, for care leavers, signify that they are misrecognised and, by implication, unworthy of assistance. This is an important consideration in the present moment since precarious conditions have become more apparent in the context of welfare state retrenchment and the punitive turn in youth social policy (Berlant 2011;Furlong et al. 2018;Starke 2006).
Finally, precarity is also a concept that has broader relevance for understanding how structural constraints operate in the lives of vulnerable populations (see Berlant 2011;Butler, Gambetti, and Sabsay 2016;Standing 2011). It is a condition whereby individuals experience relationships or situations of dependence related to their basic needs, such as housing (Bates et al. 2020;McKee, Soaita, and Hoolachan 2020). Research on youth transitioning out of care has consistently highlighted the precariousness of their housing, income and employment opportunities, which are frequently exacerbated by their limited access to wider supportive networks (for example, through family), creating high dependency on the state for needed supports (Boddy et al. 2019;Natalier and Johnson 2012;Peters, Sherraden, and Kuchinski 2016;Power and Raphael 2018). Dependence on the state for assistance is arguably inherently precarious, particularly in a context of welfare state retrenchment which, in combination with challenging housing and labour market conditions, can easily push care leavers into marginal spaces that restrict their ability to realise their housing aspirations and broader goals. The concept of precarity has been demonstrated to enhance understanding of the impact of austerity policies across multiple domains (including health, housing and education) of care leavers' lives (Boddy, Bakketeig, and Østergaard 2020;Power and Raphael 2018). A focus on precarity can also uncover 'the significance of recognition as a fundamental element' for care leavers, whose difficulties post-care can be strongly associated with experiences of misrecognition (Paulsen and Thomas 2018, 168).
Moving beyond analyses focused on the quantification or mere description of the housing outcomes of care leavers, the proposed combination of liminality, recognition and precarity directs attention to the interplay between structural conditions and individual agency, showing how housing and the availability (or not) of supports affect both the lived reality of seeking housing security post-care and the meanings care leavers attach to this process.
The Irish context: contingent aftercare supports and a housing market in crisis Ireland, like most European countries, has a policy of aftercare supports rather than care extension (Glynn and Mayock 2019;Tusla 2017b). While some jurisdictions permit the extension of care placements up to the age of 21 (or older), it is more common, internationally, for the state to provide aftercare support such as education and/or housing assistance than to grant rights to placement extension, which is also not typically granted to those in residential care (van Breda et al. 2020). To a large extent, aftercare provision in Ireland necessitates an abrupt transfer to adult welfare services with some limited tailored services (such as having a designated aftercare worker), which is generally comparable to provisions in other jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and most of the states within the United States (Boddy et al. 2019;Peters, Sherraden, and Kuchinski 2016;van Breda et al. 2020).
In 2015, the Irish government formalised national aftercare provision by passing the Child Care (Amendment) Act 2015, which came into effect in September 2017 (Department of Children and Youth Affairs 2017; Oireachtas 2015). This legislation entitles children in care and eligible young people 1 with care experience to an aftercare plan 2 and also places restrictions on these provisions based on the length of time in care 3 (Oireachtas 2015). At present, all care leavers are entitled to social welfare support for education, housing assistance and unemployment benefits. Importantly, the financial policy for care leavers includes eligibility requirements that restrict support based on the time spent in care and education and employment criteria 4 (Tusla 2017a). The conditional nature of aftercare support in Ireland has been critiqued for creating a significant service gap for the most vulnerable of care leavers, namely those who are not engaged in employment, education or training (O'Brien 2015).
Additionally, aftercare housing provision is quite limited. There is a small stock of designated housing of this kind, provided on a time-limited basis to care leavers who qualify for it and which primarilythough not exclusivelytargets young people leaving residential care settings. On turning the age of 18 years, care leavers (like other youth) who experience homelessness have no option but to access general, non-specialised adult homelessness support services. While there are a small number of medium-term stay hostels that cater for youth aged 18-26 years, services for young people experiencing homelessness are dominated by a model of intervention that relies heavily on the provision of congregate shelter/hostel and bed and breakfast (B&B) accommodation Parker 2017, 2020).
Another critical context for understanding the housing transitions of youth leaving care in Ireland is what has been coined a housing and a homelessness 'crisis'. Homelessness in Ireland has increased at a rapid pace since 2014 and is a development widely accepted to be an outcome of a chronic housing shortage that resulted from a decline in the supply of both private and social housing following the 2008 financial crash (Byrne and Norris 2018). Households and individuals living in the private rented sector (PRS) have been affected by exponentially rising rental costs, fuelled in part by the phenomenon of Airbnb and other short-term rentals, which has converted housing stock into accommodation for visitors in many European cities (Adamiak 2018). In parallel, the UK phenomenon referred to as 'Generation Rent', whereby young people are living in the PRS for longer periods because they are unable to access home ownership (McKee 2012;McKee et al. 2020), is also evident in Ireland. With those from low-socioeconomic backgrounds faring the worst (Hoolachan et al. 2017), care leavers are likely to experience heightened risk of housing exclusion. Available statistics in Ireland show that the number of young people (aged 15-29) experiencing homelessness increased by 90% between (Central Statistics Office 2012, 2017. This increase mirrors trends in Europe, where a growing share of young people in the 15-29-year age range is evident within homeless populations in a large number of countries (Baptista and Marlier 2019). The drivers of increasing levels of homelessness and housing exclusion throughout Europe are strongly associated with adverse housing market conditions, including steep increases in property and rental prices (Baptista and Marlier 2019). Welfare state retrenchment, characterised by reductions in minimum income benefits in many countries, have significantly impacted young people (Furlong et al. 2018), making low-income youth particularly vulnerable to housing instability and homelessness.

Methods
The larger qualitative study from which data for this paper are drawn aimed to explore how young people leaving care at the age of 18 in Ireland understand and negotiate the transition out of care. With the transition out of care viewed as a process rather than an event (Avery 2010), a longitudinal study was designed to capture the elements and essence of time and change as articulated by young people. Qualitative longitudinal research, which is concerned with revealing 'the process of change and detailing the complexities of the journey' (Shirani and Henwood 2011, 18), allows for transitions other than those defined by the researcher to come into focus (Neale and Flowerdew 2003). A core concern of this research was to give voice to 'the subject in process' (Rome and Raskin 2017;Thomson 2011)young care leaversas they embarked on the journey out of care. Ethical approval for the conduct of the study was obtained from the Research Ethics Committee, School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin and from Tusla's (the Child and Family Agency) Research Ethics Committee.

Sampling and recruitment at baseline
A purposive sampling strategy was designed to recruit a diverse sample of care leavers in terms of gender, care placement type and the duration of the care experience in order to identify commonalities and differences in their transition experiences over time (Bryman 2016). To be eligible to participate in the research, a young person could identify with any gender and had to: (a) have been in state care (i.e. non-kin foster, kinship, and/or residential care) for a minimum of 12 months prior to ageing out; (b) be 18 years old at the time of interview (allowed up to their 19th birthday); and (c) have left care at the point of turning 18 years old.
The recruitment process extended from January to mid-July 2017. During that time, contact was established with relevant gatekeepers within aftercare, homelessness and youth advocacy services with the aim of recruiting young people from each of the four Tusla Local Area Offices (i.e. Dublin North East, Dublin Mid Leinster, South, and West). This national reach was considered important since geographical variation has been noted in the provision of aftercare services in the Irish context (Carr 2014;Doyle, Mayock, and Burns 2012). Although contact was made with a range of gatekeepers, all of the study's participants were recruited via aftercare services. Aftercare workers explained the research to young people who fit the study's eligibility criteria and provided them with an information sheet. If a young person expressed an interest in participating, s/he then consented to have his or her contact details passed to the first author, who made direct contact with the young person to verbally explain the aims of the research and what participation entailed. The young person was given the opportunity to ask questions before agreeing to participate and it was made clear that consenting to participate at the initial interview stage did not mean that they were under any obligation to participate in future interviews.
The final baseline sample comprised 16 young people, including six young women and 10 young men, all aged between 18 and 19 years. Five of the young people had a migrant or minority ethnic background (e.g. Eastern European, African or Irish Traveller). The young people's final placement type prior to reaching the age of majority included residential (n = 6), non-kin foster (n = 6), and kinship (n = 4) care.
Data collection over the course of the study Over a 19-month period, data were collected through the conduct of in-depth interviews at three points in timesix months apartwith the participating young people. Interview times and locations were nominated by the young person and the interviews ranged in duration from approximately 30 minutes to two and a half hours, with most lasting for approximately one hour. All interviews were audio recorded and subsequently transcribed verbatim. A total of 42 interviews with 16 young people were conducted over the data collection period. The retention rates for Phases 2 and 3 were 88% (14 of 16 young people re-interviewed) and 75% (12 of 16 young people re-interviewed), respectively, which compares favourably with similar studies that have attempted to retain 'hard to track' samples of care leavers (Kelleher et al. 2000;Rome and Raskin 2017).
Interviews covered a range of topics, which overlapped but varied at each data collection phase, and included: young people's care experiences, their experiences of education, employment and housing and their peer and family relationships. All interviews began with the young person describing his/her current life circumstances, which facilitated the identification of change and continuity through time. At the end of all interviews, participants were invited to talk about their short and long-term aspirations for the future. Questioning during follow-up interviews was both retrospective and prospective, aiming to capture key life events since the time of their previous interview as well as young people's future expectations (Bone 2019). In keeping with the emergent design of qualitative longitudinal research, responses and developing concepts were incorporated into subsequent interviews. For example, the concept of security was included from Phase 2 onward because it emerged as a key concept in young people's Phase 1 accounts of a successful transition out of care.

Data analysis
Qualitative longitudinal research relies on a combination of traditional qualitative analysis procedures and specialised techniques that aim to incorporate time and change into the analysis. Data analysis included synchronic and diachronic comparisons as well as conceptual memoing and diagramming techniques, which were completed using the software Atlas.ti (ATLAS.ti 2017). In synchronic analysis, all of the cases in a 'pool' of time (i.e. Phase 1) are analysed in comparison to each other while in diachronic analysis each individual case is analysed longitudinally across all of the data collection points (Saldaña 2003). Synchronic and diachronic comparisons were supported by the maintenance of participant case files, which included a summary of each interview as well as ongoing memo writing on emerging changes and continuities across time. Throughout the presentation of this paper's findings, narrative excerpts are presented alongside a pseudonym, the participant's final care placement and the phase at which the interview took place (for example, Jennifer (Residential) P1).

Findings: young people's housing experiences after care
Young people's housing situations varied at the point of exiting the care system. As time passed, the number who remained in their placement homes and aftercare designated housing declined and, over time, a greater number relied on friends and/or family members or the private rented sector for housing. Those young people who depended on friends or family membersfour at Phase 2 and six at Phase 3were essentially living in situations of hidden homelessness (FEANTSA 2017). The evolution of the care leavers' housing circumstances is presented in Table 1.
The analysis now turns to examine how young people experienced care, respect and precariousness through their housing circumstances. First, the meanings attributed to stability and security are explored through the experiences of those young people who remained in their placements or lived in supported lodgings. Following this, young people's understanding of and responses to housing precarity are examined, with attention directed to the fear of homelessness that permeated the narratives of a large number, particularly with the passing of time.

Stable housing as caring recognition
Over the course of the study, five young people reported housing stability, which they frequently described in terms of care and feeling cared foran essential feature of caring recognition (Honneth 1995). In other words, they articulated felt security that engendered a sense of 'home', whether this related to their foster families providing the option of them staying in their placement or to the benefits they derived from living in a familylike supported lodging 5 placement. Participants who remained in their foster placements and those who lived in supported lodgings were the only participants who consistently described their housing as stable and expressed satisfaction with their living situations.
For these young people, being supported through the liminal phase of ageing out of care was perceived as an extension of care, with a number drawing attention to the rarity of such experiences for most care leavers. For example, Isaac stressed during his first interview that his experience of being cared for 'like one of their own' and remaining in his foster home was unusual.
There's not many people in aftercare that have what I have. People that actually care abouta foster family that actually care about you. And without that you don't really know where you end up, y'know. -Isaac (Foster), P1 Two of the four young people who remained in their foster placements upon reaching the legal age of adulthood continued to reside there between Phases 1 and 3. Both were happy to remain 'at home' and had no immediate desire to move, as Bryan explained during each interview: 'Well, I don't have any plans of moving out'. Two others had moved out of their foster care placements between Phases 1 and 2; Isaac to study at a university one hour away and Derina to a private rented apartment in the same town as her foster family. Both Isaac and Derina maintained regular contact with their foster families, considering them to be their 'real' families and emphasising that moving was not connected to relationship breakdown. Indeed, both stated that having the option to stay in their placement was valuable in terms of felt security and in allowing them time to adjust to a landscape of new responsibilities. Their foster families continued to provide emotional and financial support, with Derina, for example, explaining that her foster parents had stocked her pantry when she moved to her new apartment, which solidified, for her, the reliability of their support: 'They weren't gonna leave me stuck. D'y'know, it's the little things really that they help me out with'. During his final interview, Isaac similarly highlighted the security of having a 'home' and 'family' to return to, saying, 'It's nice having a family, yeah, it's nice to go home'.

A safe space to practice independence
In addition to caring recognition, young people who experienced more stable housing transitions asserted the value of having a secureone might say liminalspace in which to practice their independence. Notably, all of the participants who described their housing circumstances as stable had consistently engaged with education or employment, while there was far greater variability in the education and employment experiences of young people who reported less stable housing trajectories.
Often, reduced financial stress in these liminal arrangements was cited as a feature that supported feelings of security and having a 'safe base' from which to engage with other life endeavours. For example, Abby noted that having a single payment that covered all of her bills made supported lodgings feel more 'stable', explaining that this arrangement felt more secure than moving to aftercare housing.
It's [supported lodgings] just more practical … I get a budget and I have my pocket money, and it's still independent and … It's just more security being in supported lodgings than aftercare [housing], if I'm being honest with you. -Abby (Residential), P1 Living in supported lodgings was valued by Abby because she enjoyed stability while also having more independence. Here, it was the option of seeking support that was particularly emphasised. Kevin, who also lived in supported lodgings, did not feel obligated to engage with available supports but appreciated that they were there if and when he needed them.
If I didn't want to cook or anything, I could give the woman thirty Euro and she could cook me dinner for a week. Now I never done that there 'cause I think I can manage cooking for me because I haven't got poisoned yet, thank god [smile in voice]. -Kevin (Kinship), P1 For individuals in either continuing placements or supported lodgings, having the option to engage with supports was perceived as a mark of care and respect: care for their needs and respect for their autonomy. In this way, remaining in a foster placement or living in supported lodgings created a liminal space for young people; freeing them from financial worries and permitting the time and space to adjust to life after care. In part, freedom from concerns about access to basic needs allowed these young people to engage more consistently in other pursuits, such as education and employment.

Time limits and unstable markets: precarity and (dis)respect in housing
Persistent media coverage of the homelessness crisis, combined with personal experience of navigating the private rented market, meant that most participants were acutely aware of the risk of housing precarity. Very many expressed concerns about becoming homeless, an issue consistently raised as the worst possible outcome of leaving care. Particularly as the study progressed, young people identified housing as a key indicator of 'success' in the transition out of care. This was especially evident in the narratives of participants who had experienced a greater number of residential moves and among those who were living in time-limited accommodation. Anna, who was in receipt of aftercare support, explained that the prospect of losing her housing following the termination of her aftercare package at the age of 21 was her biggest concern.
I just want to know that there's [pause] … like I don't want to end up homeless when I'm finished college. You know, that kind of way, like 'cause this [housing and living expenses] is all only funded while I'm in college. -Anna (Kinship), P2 Thus, aftercare acted as a buffer by delaying housing insecurity but did not, in the minds of the care leavers, eliminate the possibility of future homelessness.
While some young people cited state supports as essential to remaining housed, many more were critical of available supports because they implied a duty of care and respect that did not materialise. For example, young people frequently talked about the false sense of security created by the time-limits imposed on their aftercare placements. For Elspeth, who was nearing the end of a year-long placement in an aftercare apartment at the time of her first interview, the exit deadline loomed large in her mind: 'I'm out of here in February, March the latest … it's January now and I don't know if I'm homeless, I don't know'. Elspeth's search for new accommodation became increasingly urgent at subsequent interviews. During her second interview, she highlighted the lack of care underpinning the available supports, saying, 'Aftercare, yeah. They don't care though'. At Phase 3, Elspeth was pregnant and relying on informal housing arrangements, the stress of which she had communicated to a social worker, who then initiated the process of registering her as homeless. She felt strongly that the aftercare service should have been able to help her to secure permanent housing. In Elspeth's case, the support provided was seen as a violation of the care it was meant to imply because it was abruptly removed without alternatives or housing security provided (Honneth 2012).
Participants understood that they were largely dependent on others, such as state support or their social networks, to secure basic needs such as housing. For example, moving into aftercare accommodation made Jennifer feel acutely aware of the extent to which she depended on aftercare for the provision of housing, explaining during her first interview: 'And when you get kicked out [of aftercare housing], you don't realise it, but you're going to be homeless. You will have nowhere'. Statements like these reveal the extent to which young people were aware of the precarity and contingency of their everyday situations. Over time, the challenges associated with accessing and maintaining safe and secure housing increasingly preoccupied the thoughts of a large number, generating stress and contributing to their mobility as they sought more secure living arrangements.
Decisions regarding housing and how best to secure it often influenced young people's choices in other domains. For example, Brad explained that he could no longer pursue his evening job as a bartender after he became homeless because the emergency hostel where he stayed required residents to leave in the morning and check back in daily by the afternoon. These examples demonstrate that precarious housing conditions, often exacerbated by limited and contingent state supports, had a profound impact on other valued activities, such as the pursuit of employment and education.

Navigating a precarious housing market
With the importance of housing security becoming increasingly apparent to young people as time passed, many aspired but struggled to secure private rented accommodation in a highly competitive rental market. Anna, for example, had secured a room in a rental property at Phase 2 at a charge of €1000 per month, the cost of which she split with her boyfriend with whom she shared the room. She emphasised that renting alone would require settling for substandard accommodation. However, paying high rent did not guarantee quality because Anna's landlord continued to make short-term rentals (via Airbnb) available in the property, without issuing notice to longer-term tenants, and also withheld information about bills. Such practices ultimately led Anna to leave this rental property and to resort to situations of hidden homelessness. At the time of her Phase 3 interview, she was alternating between the homes of her grandmother and her boyfriend's parents.
Those young people who faced housing insecurity and uncertainty about how to finance their basic everyday needs framed their situations as a withdrawal of care and support and as a mark of disrespect towards young people who are deserving of assistance. Frequently, the inadequacy of the Homeless Housing Assistance Payment (HAP), a benefit that targets individuals who are currently or are at risk of experiencing homelessness, 6 was cited as evidence of a lack of care on the part of the state, which they felt failed to adequately support young people transitioning out of care. High rents and the competitive nature of the rental market meant that care leavers' searches for private rented accommodation could go on for months, as was the case for Elspeth and Brad, who both experienced homelessness for extended periods. Brad, who was nearing the time-limit on his aftercare accommodation between Phases 1 and 2, had planned to take up his uncle's offer of work and lodgings, but this arrangement fell through shortly after he left his aftercare accommodation. By Phase 3, he had been accessing an emergency homeless hostel for six months despite his ongoing efforts to find affordable rental accommodation. Brad, like a number of other HAP recipients in the study, felt strongly that HAP did not provide a route to housing stability. For example, young people routinely pointed out that the monthly cost of good quality rental properties far exceeded HAP limits, which meant that they were still essentially priced out of the private rental market. Similar to research conducted elsewhere (McKee et al. 2020), several also reported discrimination on the part of landlords against people, particularly young renters, who are in receipt of rent supplement, while a number also feared landlord discrimination because of their status as care leavers.
To get a council house over here, it's just ridiculous liketo get a house anyways. Like not one landlord wants a young person after coming out from care. Because it'sthey've all such a bad reputation. -Charles (Residential), P1 Participants regularly referred to their care status and age as markers of deservingness, often suggesting that one or both should be reason enough for them to be recognised as worthy of the kind of assistance that would, at a minimum, prevent them from becoming homeless. While participants acknowledged that their aftercare workers had little control over housing market conditions, all wished that their workers had greater powerand invested more timein helping them to secure stable accommodation. Darragh, who had moved away from his first apartment in his hometown to attend college two hours away, framed his unsupported search for accommodation in a town some distance from his home as 'an absolute joke'. Forced to leave his course due to the stresses associated with securing accommodation and financing his everyday needs, he felt betrayed by the lack of support available from the formal aftercare system. So, I just felt a bit abandoned … it wasn't great after leaving care where, y'know, you just have that whole [pauses] I don't know? I don't know how to put it. Like, I was just generally disappointed. -Darragh (Foster), P2 For Darragh, the sense of abandonment he experienced symbolised disrespect on the part of his aftercare worker and by the care system more generally. Thus, under-resourced services, combined with a precarious housing market, forced many of the study's care leavers into homelessness, overcrowded shared accommodation and situations of hidden homelessness while also pushing a considerable number out of education and employment.

Discussion
This paper has examined care leavers' experiences of housing after care. As outlined earlier, housing is an area in which care leavers frequently struggle to establish themselves post-care. However, understanding of the unfolding housing situations of care leavers is weak and care leavers' perspectives on housing and its broader ramifications and meanings have received little attention in the existing literature. Before discussing the study's findings, it is important to comment on the limitations of this research. First, the sample size is relatively small, which is a characteristic of qualitative studies of this kind. Any generalisations must therefore be made with caution in light of the exploratory nature of the research. Secondly, while various germane services were contacted during the recruitment phase, the final sample of 16 participants was generated exclusively via contact with aftercare workers. Consequently, this research does not include care leavers who were not availing of aftercare supports, a group who may experience even greater challenges as they transition out of care and who may be at higher risk for housing instability and homelessness. Nonetheless, sample diversity was achieved across a number of important domains, including gender, level of service engagement and geographical location, with youth living in both rural and urban areas represented. This diversity and the ability to examine each participant's account of transitioning out of care in-depth and over time has permitted a detailed analysis of their unfolding housing experiences.
The housing transitions of this study's care leavers can be characterised as a mix of (relative) stability and instability; many experienced housing upheavals, a number had experienced homelessness and, by Phase 3, six were living in situations of hidden homelessness and one in emergency homelessness accommodation. Although the young people's housing situations post-care varied and were also subject to change, housing instability became a more present and persistent reality for a considerable number who struggled to secure safe, affordable accommodation alongside the task of initiating, continuing and/or maintaining other valued life projects, such as education and labour market participation. Significantly, the barriers encountered by the study's care leavers in their efforts to secure housing held meanings strongly associated with disrespect from the state and the care system more specifically. Young people depicted the limited state supports available to them as a lack of care, while the precarity created by the conditional nature of available supports and a housing market that was simply out of reach pushed many into a state of ongoing liminality (Turner 1991). This marginalising form of liminality undermined care leavers' sense of security and contributed to feelings of misrecognition as a young person not deserving of care and respect.
For those who remained stably housed in their care placements and those who had interim arrangements such as supported lodgings, having a 'home' provided a liminal space where young people felt safe to gradually mature (Avery and Freundlich 2009;Häggman-Laitila, Salokekkilä, and Karki 2018;Turner 1991). Importantly, these living situations also provided them with time to adjust to new responsibilities at the point of ageing out of care, alongside the option of having supports upon which to draw if needed. These young people's accounts clearly demonstrate that having a 'home' engendered a sense of being cared for and respected (Honneth 1995;Paulsen and Thomas 2018). By contrast, the narratives of care leavers who left their care placements shortly after turning 18 reveal the ways in which unaffordable housing market conditions, combined with a punitive aftercare system (Furlong et al. 2018), worked to embed precarity into their accommodation paths, also contributing to housing exclusion over time.
In keeping with previous literature, which asserts that the uncertainty and fluidity created by precarious conditions leads precarity to flow from one sphere of a person's life into others (Bone 2019), exposure to housing insecurity affected young people's ability to progress other life projects. Indeed, the contingent nature of aftercare support and the time limits imposed on aftercare housing led many to become preoccupied with the matter of housing (in)stability, sometimes to the detriment of the pursuit of valued personal goals. Notably, the findings also point to a link between housing insecurity and employment precarity (McKee et al. 2020) in that care leavers' choices about the kinds of work they pursued were highly constrained by their housing circumstances. Moreover, young people were acutely aware of their dependence on the state for necessities, including housinga relationship of dependence that contributed to uncertainty and precariousness (Berlant 2011). Time-limited aftercare housing was not generally viewed by young people as providing security because of the contingencies and risks associated with the inevitability of an end point that could and, indeed, did lead a number along a path of housing instability and, in some cases, homelessness. Thus, while felt security emerged as a key indicator of feeling respected and cared for by the state, it was significantly undermined by young people's exposure to precarious living conditions.

Conclusion
Combining Recognition theory, liminality, and precarity has enabled an examination of the interplay between individual experience and the broader structural and contextual conditions that impact care leavers' housing experiences. This amalgam of theoretical perspectives has drawn attention to how structural conditions that withhold or withdraw services based on arbitrary criteria rather than need contribute to feelings of misrecognition in care leavers, leading to feelings of anger and frustration towards the state and service providers. For care leavers, access to a liminal housing space post-care that allowed them to adjust to newfound responsibilities contributed to feelings of care and recognition, enabling them to invest more time in other life projects.
Consistent with previous studies, the findings presented in this paper reinforce secure and stable housing as essential to the well-being of young people leaving care (Wade and Dixon 2006). However, the findings go further by highlighting housing as a major avenue through which precarity is experienced by care leavers, also demonstrating the cascading effects of housing instability, which were closely linked by participants with the threat or reality of homelessness. Notably, housing circumstances that might otherwise be viewed as 'stable' were understood differently by young people, whose conception of homelessness (and housing) evolved alongside the experience of policies (e.g. time-limited aftercare housing) and a housing market in crisis, which coalesced to engender a strong sense of insecurity. Their evolving narratives reveal how policies can act to de-stabilise and embed mobility, and thus precarity, into the lives care leavers. Additionally, experiences of policy-induced precarity contributed to feelings of misrecognition of this liminal phase in their lives, leading many to question the purpose and value of available supports.
The findings presented in this paper demonstrate the critical importance of developing leaving care policies that support young people to either remain in their placements or to live in housing that is not withdrawn at an arbitrary date in the future. While support of this kind may be provided through extended care policies, which have attracted increased interest internationally (van Breda et al. 2020), this work also indicates that other arrangements, such as supported lodgings, can provide a similarly graduated transition period. The ongoing support received by care leavers who were able to leave their foster placements of their own volition demonstrates that such scaffolding can work to reduce their exposure to precarious living conditions. Contrasting this relative stability with the sudden loss of support felt by young people whose transitions were governed by arbitrary time limits reveals how policy can work to support or, alternatively, undermine care leavers' autonomy. Housing security is clearly a basic requirement for youth navigating the transition out of care. It follows that policies and supports must be designed to plan for the housing needs of care leavers and aim to ensure that security of housing is achieved and maintained. Notes 1. The eligibility criteria has changed once since implementation in order to loosen the criteria (i.e. changing the months needed to qualify from consecutive to cumulative). Currently, in order to be eligible for services a young person must have been in the care of the state for at least 12 months between the age of 13 and 18 years, including accommodation provided under Section V of the Child Care Act 1991 for the provision of shelter to homeless young people (Tusla 2017b). 2. According to the National Aftercare Policy for Alternative Care (Tusla 2017b), an aftercare plan should state the young person's needs in relation to, among others, financial support, housing, education and employment. 3. The Child Care (Amendment) Act, 2015 states that, in order to be eligible for a care plan, a child or young adult must have been in care for 12 months between the ages of 13 and 18 years. 4. To receive financial support, young people must have turned 18 while in the care of the state and have spent at least 12 months in care between ages 17 and 18. They must be currently engaged in either education or training, and they must provide updates on their course progress and engage with any other requirements the aftercare service may stipulate in their aftercare plan. 5. Supported lodgings are a type of family placement that some local authorities facilitate. In its most general sense, young people rent a room in a family home and may have meals provided. The specifics of the arrangements (i.e. level of interaction and support and training provided) are typically negotiated between the family, the young person, and the aftercare worker. Ordinarily, these are time-limited placements so that the room becomes periodically available for new care leavers. 6. HAP is a form of 'social housing support' that, subject to rent limits and conditions, allows qualified applicants to rent from the private market. Under the scheme, the local authority makes monthly payments to a private landlord while the tenant pays a weekly rent contribution to the local authority that is based on household income. Discretion is given to increase the basic payment by up to 50% for those at risk of homelessness and, in such cases, the scheme also allows local authorities to pay rental deposits and advance rental payments (O'Sullivan 2020).