Homelessness in Hong Kong represents profound and multidimensional capability deprivation, extending beyond the absence of shelter to the loss of substantive freedoms necessary for a dignified life. Drawing on the capability approach, this study conceptualizes homelessness as a dynamic process in which individuals experience constrained opportunities across housing, social participation, security, and well-being.

Integrating a capability lens with the housing pathways approach, the project has two main objectives. First, it will develop a capability-informed typology of housing pathways to examine how different forms of deprivation emerge, accumulate, and change over time. Second, it will advance a nuanced understanding of agency through the concept of tragic choice—situations in which individuals must choose between options that each involve unacceptable losses in basic capabilities.

Using a qualitative longitudinal design, individuals with experience of street sleeping or shelter residence will be interviewed twice. Thematic and temporal analyses will identify patterns of capability deprivation, pathway types, and shifts in agency over time. By extending capability theory into homelessness research and illuminating how agency operates under extreme constraint, this study will generate theoretical insights and inform more effective responses to homelessness in Hong Kong and beyond.