Social municipal practices against urban poverty: The case of Kepez Municipality

Poverty, which is a situation of deprivation of the resources that people need to meet their basic life needs in a country, directly affects societies in terms of its causes and consequences. This is a problem faced not only by underdeveloped and developing countries, but also by developed modern societies. The social state phenomenon and the emergence and development of social policies have shown a parallel development with the phenomenon of poverty. For this reason, it is accepted that there is a close relationship between the concepts of poverty and social state. Social problems that increased with the Industrial Revolution became one of the main problems of the states that could not be ignored any longer, and social policies came into play as a solution proposal. These policies, which have undergone many transformations in their practices until today, have also undergone a transformation in terms of policy practitioners. The services provided by the central government in its early periods have been replaced by local governments and non-governmental organizations over time, with the effect of globalization and liberal policies. Local governments have begun to play a more active role in the fight against poverty, as the central government has become more passive in social policy practices and the population has started to concentrate in metropolitan areas. In line with these developments, important duties and responsibilities have been imposed on municipalities, which are the closest administrative units to the public. In this context, the relationship between social municipality and urban poverty, which is the subject of the research, is important in terms of fighting against poverty. In the first part of this study, which consists of four parts, information about social policy, poverty, the causes of poverty in Turkey and methods of struggle are given. In the second part, social municipality is discussed within the framework of the relationship between social policy and poverty, and in order to better understand this relationship, the understanding of social state, local government and social municipality, and the historical development of social municipality in Turkey are explained. In addition, the functions, problems and practices of social municipality are also discussed. In the third part of the research, the social municipality practices of Kepez Municipality, which is the local government unit of Kepez district, which has a relatively lower xii socioeconomic income compared to other central districts in Antalya, receives a lot of immigration and has intensified urban poverty, were evaluated in line with the information obtained from their own websites. In the last part, semi-structured interviews were made with the personnel working in the units that carry out the social municipality practices of Kepez Municipality, and the perception of social municipality, practices, the problems experienced, the effect of the pandemic and their self-evaluations were analyzed using the MAXQDA 2020 program. It has been seen that the participants perceive the concept of social municipality through the units they work in, and the concept is mostly understood through social assistance, although there are various perspectives on the concept. Also, it has been understood that they are based on a human-oriented social municipality practice.