Wicked issue
The interpretation of the concept of de-institutionalization has been contested in both international and Flemish circles. There is a risk of thinking too much in black-and-white oppositions without a sustainable long-term perspective. It requires a historical awareness of developed social developments to draw out future scenarios of deinstitutionalization. Consequently, deinstitutionalization is a complex socio-ecological sustainability issue. In Flanders, including Ghent, the social urgency is currently recognized. This issue has major socio-spatial repercussions. It is therefore crucial to build up both theoretical and practical knowledge about socio-spatial views and strategies concerning the deinstitutionalization of care. In this way, we want to arrive at substantiated and future-oriented insights to support sustainable innovation in policy and practice.

The past as a springboard for the future
During the decades after WWII, a sharp social criticism arose about the de-humanising effect of residential institutions. In these large-scale residential 'total institutions', care-dependent citizens were treated as objects of care and isolated from society. This translated into building according to a hospital model. To this day, this led to a notion of de-institutionalisation in which dismantling large-scale, residential facilities was paramount and efforts were made to organise care and support in the community.

While Flanders continues to work on quality of life in residential care, it is also committed to the socialization and community-oriented nature of care. Nevertheless, there is growing criticism of how care-dependent citizens physically move into the community (including in small-scale housing, flats, and social housing). When care-dependent citizens live in the community, an institutional culture with oppressive logic may as well continue to live. In addition, as citizens, they do not necessarily have the experience of belonging in society and often end up in marginalization, under-protection, and forms of (hidden) homelessness.

Socio-spatial quality of the residential care environment
A socio-spatial perspective focuses on what space does to people, and what people do with space. Creating socio-spatial quality of the residential care environment requires embedding care and support in an inclusive residential care environment where citizens with disabilities but also a diversity of citizens can feel at home, enjoy coming to work, meet each other?

This can involve both small and large socio-spatial interventions (ranging from opening up and breaking open residential care campuses situated as enclaves in the city or city outskirts or at more remote locations to master plan development for new residential care initiatives). The intended innovation also requires a combination of adapted housing, a neighborhood with nearby basic facilities and accessible care and services, accessible public transport, opportunities for employment, lifelong learning, leisure, and a public space that enables and accommodates encounters.

Creating socio-spatial quality in the residential care environment simultaneously requires an interlocking of housing and welfare policy through trans-disciplinary interaction between policy, practice and inter-disciplinary research to enable experimentation space, innovation and regulatory ease.