Tag Archives | Social housing

Housing ambition and disciplining the poor

/ April 28, 2013 / Housing / Permalink

Group Of People Lifting Weights In GymLast week The Independent published an article on an initiative by Yarlington Housing Group, down here in the South West. Yarlington have introduced Household Ambition Plans for their tenants. Such plans will not necessarily focus on ambitions related to housing, rather they could include losing weight or giving up smoking. And whether or not a households is offered another tenancy will depend on how well they meet their ambitions.

This development has generated considerable debate in the housing world.

My discussion of the issue roamed wide and long(ish) so I have put it into Scribd rather than just treating it as a blogpost. You can read it below.

Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice
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Who is social housing for, and who should it be for?

/ April 10, 2013 / Bristol, Politics / Permalink

Yesterday I participated in a consultation event organised by Bristol City Council. it was designed to start a debate locally about the revision of social housing allocations policy. My talk, which ranged rather more broadly than simply allocations policy, is a bit too long to include in a blog post, so I have bunged it on to Scribd. It can be accessed below. Continue Reading →

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Housing strategies in challenging times

/ January 11, 2013 / Housing / Permalink

[On 10/01/13 I gave a brief overview of the context facing rented housing as part of an event called Housing Challenges in Exeter organised by Exeter City Council. This is the text to accompany my presentation.]

Building a StrategyOur housing system faces significant pressures. Short term pressures generated by the fallout from the financial crisis have been overlaid upon longer term problems. These pressures are felt particularly acutely in the rented sectors. Difficulties accessing home ownership boost the demand for private and social renting. Social housing is only able to rehouse a relatively small proportion of those on the waiting list. Difficulties accessing social housing boost the demand for private renting. But in many areas the demand of private renting is such that there are access difficulties here too.

These are challenging times for those seeking to ensure populations are adequately housed.

The other key component of the context is cuts. Continue Reading →

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Expensive homes for wealthy people

/ August 23, 2012 / Housing, Politics / Permalink

What’s new in the housing world this week? What have we learnt? The primary lesson so far would seem to be that rich people really don’t like living next to poor people. They’d rather the poor, and even the middling sorts, made themselves scarce and freed up the space for a few more members of the moneyed classes to move the average income of the neighbourhood up a notch or two.

Hold the front page.

Of course, the message wasn’t quite as crudely expressed as that. Perish the thought. Continue Reading →

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Cameron’s war on welfare

/ June 26, 2012 / Politics / Permalink

I was considering blogging in detail about David Cameron’s speech yesterday on welfare. But I decided against it. There are already several very good critiques of the substance of the speech. Plenty of people, including IPPR’s Nick Pearce, have pointed out that the speech was primarily about politics rather than policy. It was about “throwing some red meat” to the pack of feral dogs that apparently prowl the Tory backbenches. Tim Leunig of CentreForum has pointed out that the proposals pertaining to the removal of housing benefit for the under 25s are – how should we put it? – a little ill-thought out. CentreForum were also one of the first commentators to point out that David Cameron seemed to be criticising one of the Coalition’s own policies. We know Cameron isn’t a detail man, but that is pretty inept.

So I just wanted to make a couple of comments. Continue Reading →

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Where is the market?

/ June 23, 2012 / Economics, Politics / Permalink

A few days ago I blogged some thoughts on Seeking the limits of the market, having just read Michael Sandel’s recent book What money can’t buy. One of Sandel’s key points is that the logic of the market is slowly and insidiously colonising more and more areas of social life. His central concern is to problematize this process. He argues that it justifies close scrutiny rather than quiet capitulation. He notes that in some circumstances marketization may be unexceptional and carry no broader concerns. Yet, in other cases introducing market mechanisms will fundamentally alter or degrade important aspects of a social exchange. This needs to be recognised and weighed appropriately in the balance. And we can infer that Sandel considers that when the decision is approached more holistically it would result in the marketization process being more highly contested.

This is a vital argument that deserves a wide audience. Yet, the challenges involved in acting upon it are considerable. After all, where is the market? Continue Reading →

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Housing and the global financial crisis

/ June 5, 2012 / Housing, Politics / Permalink

One of most interesting dimensions of current developments in the housing market is the way in which global economic events are being refracted through housing policy: how a problem created in the private sector is being used to reconfigure the social rented sector and advance some long-standing objectives for the political right. In this respect it is a microcosm of the broader austerity agenda.

I have a paper forthcoming in the journal Housing, Theory and Society that has just become available on iFirst. It’s called The global economic crisis and the reshaping of housing opportunities. The paper is coauthored with my colleagues Patricia Kennett and Ray Forrest. We’ve worked together for 16 years and, after discussing a lot of possibilities, this is the first paper we’ve managed to coauthor. It’s in a special issue on the housing fallout from the global financial crisis. Continue Reading →

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Financing the supply of new housing

/ May 25, 2012 / Guardian Housing Network / Permalink

[Originally posted at the Guardian Housing Network, 23/05/12]

We all agree that Britain needs new homes. A significant shortfall has emerged over many years and the collapse in construction simply piles on further pressure. Increasing supply is central to dealing with some acute problems facing the housing system.

Simple, but pressing questions follow. Who is going to pay? And how are they going to do it? Continue Reading →

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Housing challenges

/ May 6, 2012 / Housing, Politics / Permalink

The other day I had to give a 10 minute summary of my take on the housing challenges we currently face.

I don’t claim any great originality in what I covered. But I thought it might be useful to set the points out here.

The next stage is to draw up some thoughts on what we might do to address these challenges.

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A new approach to housing policy?

/ November 24, 2011 / Dale&Co. / Permalink

[Originally posted at Dale&Co, 22/11/11, It is an earlier version of material discussed in Laying the foundations?]

The much anticipated, and heavily trailed, housing strategy for England – Laying the foundations – arrived on Monday. The Government’s claim is that the strategy will “get the housing market moving again”, while at the same time “laying the foundations for a more responsive, effective and stable housing market in the future”. How do those claims stack up?

The document presents a plausible portrait of the situation we find ourselves in, in terms of the housing shortages and affordability problems. And some of the diagnosis of the problem is equally sensible. The problems of the housing market are not of recent origin. They are the product of some longstanding failures. To take one example, as the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister observe in the foreword: “for decades in Britain we have under-built”. The Government is promising that it is taking “a new approach”, which “marks a decisive break with the failed policies of the previous Government”. I wouldn’t seek to defend Labour’s housing track record, but this seems a cheap shot, given the nature of the problems. It is also the case that some of the deep presumptions that have caused these problems – such as housing being the most appropriate vehicle through which households can and should accumulate wealth – are reinforced rather than questioned in today’s statement.

Much of the housing strategy document is, in fact, simply bringing together in one place a number of policies and initiatives that have already been announced. It is hard to argue that placing them between two covers transforms them into a coherent strategy. Continue Reading →

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