Unblocking the impasse

2020 ◽  
pp. 141-158
Author(s):  
Bob Colenutt

The final chapter calls for a decisive break from the policies and practices and removal of the blockages that have strangled social and affordable housing development over the past 40 years. It calls for a national social housing drive to solve the housing crisis. The chapter argues that radical land and planning reforms are essential, and that local government will need to be refocused and re-skilled for this task. It warns of the likely backlash from the property lobby who will attempt to block any or all of these reforms. Therefore, continued community pressure and action is essential if reform is to be achieved.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valesca Lima

This paper explores the responses to the housing crisis in Dublin, Ireland, by analysing recent housing policies promoted to prevent family homelessness. I argue that private rental market subsides have played an increasing role in the provision of social housing in Ireland. Instead of policies that facilitate the construction of affordable housing or the direct construction of social housing, current housing policies have addressed the social housing crisis by encouraging and relying excessively on the private market to deliver housing. The housing crisis has challenged governments to increase the social housing supply, but the implementation of a larger plan to deliver social housing has not been effective, as is evidenced by the rapid decline of both private and social housing supply and the increasing number of homeless people in Dublin.


2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-366
Author(s):  
Gül Neşe Doğusan Alexander

The Turkish government promoted the building of housing cooperatives as a social housing program beginning in the second half of the 1930s. While these cooperatives received government aid, they did not produce affordable housing for lower-income groups. Instead, they provided fashionable modern houses to middle- and high-income homeowners. In architectural journals, these new houses were understood and critiqued as exemplars of a specifically Turkish modern style, rather than as pragmatic solutions to a housing crisis. Caught between Aspiration and Actuality: The Etiler Housing Cooperative and the Production of Housing in Turkey analyzes the transformation of housing cooperatives from a social housing program into a method to enable middle-class homeownership by examining the story of the Etiler Housing Cooperative, built between 1952 and 1957 in Istanbul. Gül Neşe Doğusan Alexander follows the story of Etiler through a detailed examination of laws, parliamentary minutes, popular media, professional publications on architecture, maps, and other published materials.


Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (11) ◽  
pp. 2432-2447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ravit Hananel

Over the past decade, in the wake of the global housing crisis, many countries have again turned to public housing to increase the supply of affordable housing for disadvantaged residents. Because the literature and past experience have generally shown public-housing policies to be contrary to the urban-diversity approach, many countries are reshaping their policies and focusing on a mix of people and of land uses. In this context, the Israeli case is particularly interesting. In Israel, as in many other countries (such as Germany and England), there was greater urban diversity in public-housing construction during the 1950s and 1960s (following the state’s establishment in 1948). However, at the beginning of the new millennium, when many countries began to realise the need for change and started reshaping their public-housing policies in light of the urban-diversity approach, Israel responded differently. In this study I use urban diversity’s main principles – the mix of population and land uses – to examine the trajectory of public-housing policy in Israel from a central housing policy to a marginal one. The findings and the lessons derived from the Israeli case are relevant to a variety of current affordable-housing developments in many places.


Author(s):  
Don Amila Sajeevan Samarasinghe ◽  

Housing affordability is a prominent issue across the world. There is a growing concern that the number of people experiencing homelessness is rapidly increasing. As a solution, many countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have introduced housing policies aimed at providing affordable houses to low-to-medium income families. Over recent years, several affordable housing policies have been introduced in both Australia and New Zealand, including public housing initiatives, rental subsidies, accommodation supplements, state housing programmes and the provision of social housing. New Zealand launched the KiwiBuild programme in 2018 to increase housing affordability. Unfortunately, in 2019, KiwiBuild was unable to deliver its targeted primary objectives set by the Government. This study features a comparative analysis, primarily focusing on comparing and contrasting affordable housing policies in Australia and New Zealand. Subsequently, it discusses the reasons why the KiwiBuild programme failed. It makes recommendations based on policies used in Australia with a view to improving affordable housing policies in New Zealand. This research contributes and adds to the existing body of knowledge about affordable housing policies in both Australia and New Zealand. The recommendations will be helpful for future researchers who wish to develop workable policies to assist with affordable housing-related issues in New Zealand.


Author(s):  
Bob Colenutt

This chapter explains how the housing shortage has become a numbers game played by Government. Rather than focusing on the fundamental housing crisis issues of affordability, quality and good planning, it has made the supply of private housing numbers the key objective, even though in this objective it has failed. Supported by data on declining affordability, and spiraling rents and prices, the chapter argues that the diversity and affordability of supply is nowhere near matching the diversity of need. The social housing stock has fallen sharply because of Right to Buy and Buy to Let and lack of new social house building. The concept of affordable housing has become meaningless because of the way Government has defined it.


Housing Shock ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Rory Hearne

This Chapter details how the Irish housing systems, and housing systems across the world, are experiencing a structural ‘shock’. We are in the midst of an unprecedented housing and homelessness crisis. This details the dramatic increase in housing inequalities and exclusion, from the rise in homelessness, mortgage arrears and foreclosures, to the collapse in home-ownership rates and, in particular, the emergence of ‘Generation Rent’ and ‘Generation Stuck at Home’. This new Generation Rent is being locked out of traditional routes to affordable secure housing such as home ownership, social housing and secure low-rent housing. They are being pushed into private rental markets with unaffordable high rents and insecurity of tenure, or forced into hidden homelessness, couchsurfing, sleeping in cars, or pushed back to live with their parents. Ireland has had the largest fall in home ownership rates among European Union (EU) countries in the past three decades. This chapter shows that the current housing situation and crisis is not a temporary blip, but a deep and profound structural crisis that is in danger of becoming a permanent crisis. Our national and global housing systems are in crisis and this is a key juncture.


The housing crisis has become a major concern among Algerian citizens seeking a decent life. Low- and medium-income Algerians are facing this issue, despite various policies introduced by the state to ensure everyone is having access to housing provision. Based on the literature, majority of low- and medium-income Algerians are unable to own or buy a decent house, this leads them renting low-quality houses. The article aims to describe the current housing policies and the various housing programmes implemented in Algeria. An analysis on the architectural design of a sample of social housing units will also be discussed in this article. The findings of this research highlight the deficits, and the inferior quality of social housing in Batna city as a particular case study. Therefore, the collaboration of different stakeholders including government policies, architects and designers are needed for good quality social housing development.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-33
Author(s):  
Alan Morris ◽  
Andrew Beer ◽  
John Martin ◽  
Sandy Horne ◽  
Catherine Davis ◽  
...  

For an increasing proportion of Australian households, the Australian dream of home ownership is no longer an option. Neoliberal housing policy and the financialisation of housing has resulted in a housing affordability crisis. Historically, Australian housing policy has afforded only a limited role to local government. This article analyses the results of a nation-wide survey of Australian local governments’ perceptions of housing affordability in their local government area, the possibilities for their meaningful intervention, the challenges they face, the role of councillors and councils’ perceptions of what levels of government should take responsibility for housing. Almost all of the respondents from Sydney and Melbourne councils were clear that there is a housing affordability crisis in their local government area. We apply a framework analysing housing policy in the context of neoliberalism and the related financialisation of housing in order to analyse the housing affordability crisis in Sydney and Melbourne. We conclude that in order to begin resolving the housing crisis in Australia’s two largest cities there has to be an increasing role for local government, a substantial increase in the building of social and affordable housing and a rollback of policies that encourage residential property speculation. JEL Codes: R31, R21


SEER ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-252
Author(s):  
Marsida Feshti ◽  
Ela Golemi ◽  
Greta Petriti

Housing is a particularly important example of what might be thought of as a standard function of central and local government, a consequence of the increased requests of citizens for housing and an attempt to find the best way to realise these. Clearly, it represents an issue of significant social importance. Albania has approved Law No. 22/2018 On social housing, an essential act in the fulfilment of social housing programmes. The objective of the law is to define the rules and administrative procedures as regards the means of planning, insuring, administrating and distributing social housing, with the purpose of creating opportunities for suitable and affordable housing, relying on the capacity to pay of families in need of housing with the assistance of responsible state institutions. This Law is a very important step because, within its desire to facilitate social housing programmes, one part is dedicated to women as survivors of violence, a further step towards meeting the standards of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.


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