Series: CASE Studies on Poverty, Place and Policy
Poverty is still a real issue within Britain today and this essential series provides evidence-based insights into how communities and families are dealing with it.
Published in conjunction with the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics, this series draws together fresh research and sheds important light on the impact of anti-poverty policy, focusing on the individual and social factors that promote regeneration, recovery and renewal.
CASE Studies on Poverty, Place and Policy
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Chapter 10 explores the shift in social policy under the Conservative-led Coalition government to ‘welfare austerity’, away from attempts at equalisation. Housing budgets were cut, both capital and revenue, and Housing Benefit was capped, underlining the scale and direction of change in the welfare safety net. These radical reforms severely impacted people who live and work in low-income communities, while the weakening welfare system made housing more problematic.
Five changes affected the lowest-income communities and social landlords. First, the welfare system was amended to such an extent that it no longer provided a reliable safety net. Second, many public services suffered, including health, especially public health. Third, the growing need for social care left big gaps between the most and least deprived areas. Fourth, although the provision of childcare to children over three allowed parents to work, it downplayed child development. Fifth, there was a measurable slowdown in progress toward greater equality. These shifts in direction made the role of social landlords more, not less, pivotal.
Social housing continues to decline as existing tenanted homes are sold to their occupiers and run-down council estates are demolished. Demonstrating the value of the ‘Housing Plus’ approach –investment beyond “bricks and mortar” – this book outlines the role social landlords can play in tackling community problems. By investing in estate renewal, helping to house the vulnerable, offering a wide range of tenures and encouraging community housing, this approach builds links between housing design and a wider social value agenda.
With the voices of tenants and frontline staff at the forefront, Anne Power demonstrates how policy and practice can shift the bias against social housing in favour of its re-expansion.
The radical Conservative government of 1979, with Margaret Thatcher as prime minister, transformed the shape of council housing and other tenures in Britain.
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The Right to Buy, introduced in 1981, gave all sitting council tenants of five years’ standing the right to buy their rented council home at generous discounts.
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The government proposed the voluntary transfer of council housing to alternative landlords, mainly housing associations.
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The government freed up the private rented sector from virtually all controls, including rent levels and security of tenure.
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The privatisation of public services became standard. This involved competitive bidding for contacts to run parks, environmental services, transport, and even housing management.
These changes reflected major policy shifts, taking rented housing further from government control. The changes were accompanied by the rapid expansion of housing associations and tenant-led organisations. Due to cuts in grant support and privatisation pressures, housing associations grew bigger through mergers to fund development through private finance. Local authorities examined more closely how they managed their rented housing stock.
Three big shifts have shaped modern housing conditions dating from the 18th century. First, urbanisation began in the 16th and 17th centuries but greatly accelerated as the Industrial Revolution got underway in the 18th century. Second, industrialisation led to the mechanisation of production and a great increase in wealth, alongside extreme poverty. The industrial revolution was coupled with an agricultural revolution, which drove people off the land and fuelled extremely rapid urban and industrial growth in the 19th century. Third, the emergence of modern local government and democracy in response to rapid social change generated action on living conditions. We look at early interventions by philanthropists, social reformers, and non-profit landlords in tackling atrocious housing conditions. The models of housing provision which we describe evolved and proved their worth in this turbulent era of explosive growth, leading to housing reform and the building of millions of bylaw, terraced homes.
Chapter 4 explores how the drive to provide a decent home for all, at a price within their means, created the ambition to design and build ‘homes fit for heroes’, capturing the successful elements of the late Victorian garden city and model village movements. But this bold ambition was undermined by the start of World War I. The outbreak of war put an abrupt stop to all building and led to draconian, long-lasting rent controls. With five million soldiers demobilised at the end of the war in 1918, acute shortages resulted from the wartime brake on building and rapid disinvestment in private renting due to tight rent control. The government responded to the housing crisis through state action. Local authorities received effectively blank cheques to build council housing for whoever needed a home. But by 1930, council housing had become far more modest, due to high costs, and it was increasingly targeted at overcrowded families. The most extreme conditions were tackled by ambitious slum clearance programmes, and virtually all rehousing was targeted at poorly housed, displaced residents.
Beyond Bricks and Mortar explores the story of UK social housing, that is, subsidised rented housing for people who cannot afford to buy a home or rent a home at market rent, who live in insecure, overcrowded, or ‘slum’ conditions, or are threatened with homelessness. These problems are common in different forms across Europe. We document the evolution of social housing through councils and housing association landlords. We consider the impact of 14 years of austerity and withdrawal of financial and policy support. We highlight the wider role of all social landlords in meeting community needs – what we call ‘Housing Plus’. This book is in four parts. Part I looks at the origins and history of housing that is provided for the public good, including the rapid growth in council housing between World War I and the 1970s. Part II sets out what went wrong with our ideal vision of homes for all and why council housing became so troubled, and it explores what can be done about it. Part III examines the record of New Labour in targeting the poorest areas, and how it took on the wider challenges of urban decline and environmental damage. Part IV documents the radical shift in focus from universal welfare underpinning to a more broken-up, individualised approach. It explores how social landlords respond to the challenges of a radically new environment. The book concludes that local management of rented housing is vital to success and that maintaining and renewing existing properties far outweighs the gains from demolition and rebuilding.
Social housing is valuable to society not only as a housing resource for those who need it but also as a community asset that strengthens the ability of households on low incomes to manage their lives with very limited resources. Social landlords make the poorest areas and the poorest communities more viable through the services and support they provide, despite the funding shortfalls. It is hard to measure the added value they add to society accurately, but we show through documenting the grounded experience of providing social rented housing, just how valuable their work is. It is hard to imagine how big a gap would emerge in our overall housing system and our social structures if the four million social rented homes were not there. It is even harder to imagine how that gap could be closed.
The wide changes in the welfare system and the weakening of the social safety net had major ramifications for the organisation and delivery of housing services. Social landlords were obliged to respond to pressing social needs and, where possible, to close the gaps that were opening up. At the same time, while people became more vulnerable, and social conditions worsened, the supply of affordable homes shrank due to sales and demolition. Rented housing therefore became harder to access, more expensive, and less secure. Many more tenants were threatened with homelessness or became homeless. As a result, homelessness became a litmus test for wider housing problems. The number of people sleeping rough and numbers in temporary accommodation rose as the fallout from 13 years of austerity became clear. Drastic government cuts to housing budgets prevented the reduction in homelessness, and tenants in all tenures paid the price through insecurity, high costs, and shortages, although social housing tenants were somewhat protected.
