Settlement movement

The settlement movement started in London. Victorian England, increasingly concerned with urban poverty, gave rise to a movement whereby those connected to universities settled students in slum areas to live and work alongside local people. Through their efforts settlement houses were established for education, savings, sports, and arts.

The British Association of Settlements and Social Action Centres (BASSAC) is a network of such organisations in the United Kingdom. Birmingham University has produced a brief history of the settlement movement in the UK. Examples of the earliest settlements dating back to 1884 are Aston-Mansfield, Toynbee Hall, and Oxford House. There is also a global network, the International Federation of Settlements.

The movement gave rise to many social policy initiatives and innovative ways of working to improve the conditions of the most excluded members of society. The Poor Man's Lawyer service came about because a barrister volunteered his time and encouraged his friends to do the same.

In the United States, the two largest and most influential settlement houses were Chicago's Hull House (founded by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889) and the Henry Street Settlement in New York (founded by Lillian Wald in 1893). United Neighborhood Houses of New York is the federation of 35 settlement houses in New York City. The concept was continued by Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker hospitality houses in the 1930s.

Today, settlements are still community-focused organizations, providing a range of services in generally underserved urban areas, though they are staffed by professional employees rather than students, and no longer require that employees live alongside those they serve.

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