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In the transition to more inclusive societies, design, far beyond traditional design domains dealing with form shaping, can contribute to organizational and social transformation (Jones & Van Patter, 2009) through projects for new meanings, new services and new processes. In this sense, the chapter aims to discuss the practice of ‘Costruire Bellezza (Crafting Beauty), an experiment (Binder & Redström, 2006) of design for social inclusion. It focuses on both the empowerment of homeless people (Sen, 1999) and the development of skills – mainly relational – of university students (Margolin & Margolin, 2002) via Design Anthropology–led creativity. Participants include researchers, homeless people, students in design and social sciences, social workers, educators and creative talents. Through regularly organized ‘design initiatives’ (Manzini, 2015, p. 91) they as a group work on projects, languages and co-creation processes. Design and Anthropology shaped this strong relational and community-based apparatus of collaborative experiences thanks to which all participants' backgrounds are valued. The participatory experience becomes the context where experiments are carried out to develop more effective services for homeless people and new models of active and responsible citizenship.

Art is a complex, multiform, fluid human activity that is subjugated to time-space-place contexts and dependent upon social representation and values. But what is it for? This introduction to the book Art in Diverse Social settings begins with a general characterization of Art as universal language. Unlike verbal language, art is primarily processed in the sensorial and emotional fields and only later rationally; unlike science, it does not aim at explaining or predicting the laws of the world's phenomena, instead it communicates by showing (in essence, it has an expressive meaning). In today's world, art became an accessible good and a valuable human creation because of this reappraisal of artistic practices; art is today expressive in domains such as politics, citizenship, economy, ethics, sustainability or public affairs.

The introduction to this edited book explains why it is focused on the role of art in today's diverse society. Art is part of the worldviews and mindsets from which it results and as a complex and ambiguous product of culture and perception, it must be understood from multiple perspectives. As such, this book includes in the first part seminal chapters with a theoretical scope, which highlight conceptual, contextual and cultural issues of contemporary art. The chapters in the second and third parts of the book are exemplary case studies, describing concrete intervention projects, which use some form of art or composed artistic expression as a medium for communication and intervention in the contexts of social and professional organizations, public spaces or the community. A summary of each chapter is provided and linked to the main goal of the book.

Considering the case study presented, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of the pandemic in local services for homeless people. Drawing from the concept of ontological security, it will be discussed how different services’ levels of “housing adequacy” shaped remarkably different experiences of the pandemic for homeless people and social workers in terms of health protection and agency.

This paper focuses on a case study concerning homeless services for people during the COVID-19 pandemic in the metropolitan and suburban area of Turin, in Northern Italy. In-depth interviews with social workers and participant observation during online meetings of workers from the shelters constitute the empirical data that have been collected during the first wave of the pandemic in Italy.

According to the findings, the pandemic showed shelters as unsafe places that reduce homeless people’s decision power and separate them from the rest of the citizenship. Instead, Housing First projects emerged as imore inclusive and safermore inclusive and safer spaces, able to enhance people’s power over their own lives. The pandemic did not create emerging issues in the homeless services system or discontinuities: rather, it amplified pre-existing problematic aspects.

The case study presented provides empirical insights to recognise at the political and organisational level the importance of housing as a measure of individual and collective security, calling for an intervention to tackle homelessness in terms of housing policies rather than exclusively social and emergency treatment.