87 Part A _ Articles Parenting within Homelessness: A Qualitative Study on the Situation of Homeless Fathers and Social Work in Homeless Support Services in Vienna Marc Diebäcker, Yann Arhant and Roswitha Harner University of Applied Sciences, FH Campus Wien, Vienna, Austria > Abstract_ The relationship between homelessness and male parenting is rarely discussed in the professional discourse on family homelessness. There are few international empirical studies that analyse the relationship between homeless men and their children. This paper is based on a one-year exploratory research project, which was financed by the University of Applied Sciences FH Campus Wien and carried out in 2013 and 2014. The qualitative study aimed to explore the situation of homeless non-resident fathers living in transitional shelters and tried, furthermore, to reconstruct their parenting and constructions of masculinity from a gender critical viewpoint. The study paid particular attention to the parent- child relationship, parental practices, the housing situation and the support services of the social work staff. The results indicate that housing shelters represent an important resource for sustaining a relationship between homeless men and their children. They are characterized simultaneously by a wide range of control mechanisms and by a lack of privacy and adequate spaces for children. The study has further shown that the homeless support services mainly concentrate on the restoration of inde- pendent living and thus rarely address psychosocial topics such as parenting. Furthermore, the men seem to develop new forms of parent- hood, which are not necessarily reflected upon as such, nor are they integrated into future ideas of parental practices. Under the enormous pressure of homelessness and the experience of acute poverty, men strive to recreate their own social status and draw on established notions of normality, such as the nuclear family and men being responsible for its financial wealth. Thus, the establishment of different long-term parental ISSN 2030-2762 / ISSN 2030-3106 online