Supporters of an end to security of tenure might like to take time out to read a heavyweight new report that studies the life chances of four generations of social housing tenants.
Growing up in Social Housing shows the dramatic change in the profile of social tenants - with 27% of the least well-off and 11% of the best-off families in 1946 changing to 49% of the least well-off and 2% of the best-off by 2000. As Ruth Lipton, one of the team of authors from the Institute of Education and London School of Economics, says in this week’s Inside Housing there is also a widening gap between tenures in education levels and lone parenthood.
That concentration of deprivation has been used in other studies to justify radical changes to security of tenure and worklessness. But the report for the Tenant Services Authority, Scottish government and Joseph Rowntree Foundation begs to differ.
‘This report offers no support for reducing the attractiveness of social renting or the number of homes available,’ it says. ‘If anything, it suggests the reverse: we need to help social housing catch up with the desirability of home-ownership housing, and increase its social mix.’
‘Crucially, other areas of social policy, such as childcare and education, also need to more effectively tackle childhood tenure gaps as these cannot be effectively addressed through housing policy initiatives.’
As inequality grows, they argue, housing policy can do less about it - the answer lies in other policy areas. ‘The more that we target social housing on the disadvantaged; the less can be expected of specific housing policies (for example changes in tenancy conditions). In some respects we might expect other social policies targeted towards those who need social housing to do far more, and housing policy to do less, to ensure that the disadvantage with which people enter the social housing sector does not continue or get worse.’
That sounds like a pretty good case against the easy ‘solution’ of an end to the ‘tenancy for life’. Will it be the last word on the subject? Almost certainly not.
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Readers' comments (1)
michaelbarratt council tenant | 24/06/2009 10:21 am
I consider there is merit in reconsidering the future role of housing associations. Decades ago, I seem to recollect that housing associations provided housing and support for disabled groups at one polarity. At the other they were in effect co-operatives of likeminded individuals coming together to form a housing association sometimes with or without the involvement of a professional project promoter. Perhaps government/local authorites could consider providing finacial/land incentive based on mixed communities to encourage the florishing of such co-operatives amid council housing developments.
Rather than being a Trojan horse undermining the institution of council housing, housing associations should revert to a traditional role that complements rather than attempts to usurp local authority housing. I consider that the mission of housing associations should be rethought.
At a time of great austerity, between 1950-1970 more than twenty New Towns were built. In recent years a lack of central Government funding and an over reliance on private sector finance has reduced new home building to a trickle. In fact it has been calculated that it would take over a thousand years to replace Britain's existing housing stock at the present rate of replacement construction.
In a supply and demand economy rising house prices have made it difficult for many young people to get their foot on the first rung of the housing ladder. An alternative could well be the integration of local government and housing association homes in community neighbourhoods. The latter offering a wide range of affordable products specifically targeting key workers and young professionals that provide flexibility of tenure to accommodate career mobility and provide a platform of into the homebuyer market down the road in careers if they so choose. A combined and strong local authority/housing association construction and regeneration programme might also have the effect of moderating the prices at the lower end of the private housing market.
The Labour government cries poor claiming that years of neglect by local authorities had resulted in a deficit of £19 billion to bring the National local authority housing stock up to the Decent Homes Standard. The Government claimed an unaffordable sum and the only alternative was the mass privatisation of the entire stock. Yet a regional building society that ‘got too big for its breeches’ and got into financial difficulties, Northern Rock Building Society, was nationalised in a twinkly of an eye for £27 billion. Where are the priorities of this Government and whom are they kidding?
A number of online comments from readers in you journal have characterised council tenants as a bunch of Vicki Pollards.
When I lost my job in the early 1990’s, I had a young family and was I was fifty years of age and found getting job very difficult because I was told I was ‘too old’ to my face.
During those difficult years our family was very grateful for managing to get a council house roof over our heads. Our oldest ‘Vicki Pollard’ has since earned a BA degree and later a MA in journalism, our middle ‘Vicki is severely visually impaired yet managed a psychology honours degree and our youngest Vicki graduated with a BA returning next year to university to obtain a teaching qualification. Our son has represented English universities in his chosen sport, also represented Great Britain at the World Student Games and a number of other international appearances. He graduated with a BSc honours and MSc in spite of attending a secondary school only where of 19% -20% of male students managed 5 A-C grades in GCSE.
Of course education is not the sole arbiter of the worth of an individual far from it. Nor is the provision and security of a home going to ensure social competence and responsibility. Yet the security of our council home when we needed it was extremely important to my wife and I in our endeavours to provide a home and support our children in their younger years in spite of great economic deprivation.
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