scholarly journals Neoliberal Nomads: Housing Insecurity and the Revival of Private Renting in the UK

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Bone
Keyword(s):  
Social Housing ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Housing Tenure ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Major Contributor ◽  
Housing Crisis ◽  
Private Renting ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Rented Sector

This paper offers a critical analysis, including insights from the fledgling sub-discipline of neurosociology, with the aim of challenging some of the key assumptions informing the state supported revival of the UK private rented sector (PRS) as a mainstream form of housing tenure. As is widely recognised, the PRS's expansion has occurred in tandem with the long running decline of social housing and the more recent reversal in the longstanding trend towards increasing owner occupation. This paper asserts that the policies supporting this overall trend are misconceived on a number of fronts, as the loosely regulated UK private rented sector is not only a major contributor to the country's ongoing housing crisis but carries with it a range of unacknowledged economic and social problems including profound effects on personal well-being, some fairly evident and others less so. With respect to the latter, it is argued that coming to an understanding of the negative implications of private renting in the UK under current arrangements, in addition to the more evident issues associated with poor condition and high cost accommodation, also requires an appreciation of the deeper psycho-social effects of involuntary mobility, insecurity and socio-spatial dislocation.

scholarly journals Making a House in Multiple Occupation a Home: Using Visual Ethnography to Explore Issues of Identity and Well-Being in the Experience of Creating a Home Amongst HMO Tenants

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Barratt ◽  
Gill Green
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Housing Tenure ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Visual Ethnography ◽  
Housing Type ◽  
Personal Histories ◽  
Housing Research ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Meaning Of Home

Housing research and sociological research on ‘home’ has under-explored Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) as a form of specific and relatively marginalised housing tenure. In this paper we utilise data collected through participant photography and interviews with vulnerable HMO residents in a seaside town to explore their experiences of homemaking in HMOs. Drawing on literatures on home, identity and wellbeing we explore how HMO residents create a home in the space in which they live and how where they live simultaneously moulds their sense of identity. Our analysis is based upon interviews with, and photographs taken by, HMO residents. We highlight how home is created and experienced in a setting where basic levels of privacy can be hard to maintain, where space is constrained, and where residents would often prefer to live elsewhere. The meaning of ‘home’ in a HMO is influenced by personal histories and circumstances, by the normative attitudes towards housing in the UK, as well as by the space itself. The impact that living in a HMO might have on a tenant's identity and as a consequence their wellbeing is therefore highly contextual – not solely due to the characteristics of the property itself and the stigma some associate with this housing type but as an outcome of how the tenants relate to the property given their own preferences, conditioning and previous housing experience. There was variation in the extent to which respondents wanted their room to reflect, project or build their identity.

scholarly journals The invention of the ‘sink estate’: Consequential categorisation and the UK housing crisis

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 877-897 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Slater
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Housing ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Antisocial Behaviour ◽  
Social Suffering ◽  
Housing Crisis ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Family Breakdown ◽  
The Uk

This article explores the history and traces the realisation of a category that was invented by journalists, amplified by free market think tanks and converted into policy doxa (common sense) by politicians in the United Kingdom: the ‘sink estate’. This derogatory designator, signifying social housing estates that supposedly create poverty, family breakdown, worklessness, welfare dependency, antisocial behaviour and personal irresponsibility, has become the symbolic frame justifying current policies towards social housing that have resulted in considerable social suffering and intensified dislocation. The article deploys a conceptual articulation of agnotology (the intentional production of ignorance) with Bourdieu’s theory of symbolic power to understand the institutional arrangements and cognitive systems structuring deeply unequal social relations. Specifically, the highly influential publications on housing by a free market think tank, Policy Exchange, are dissected in order to demonstrate how the activation of territorial stigma has become an instrument of urban politics. The ‘sink estate’, it is argued, is the semantic battering ram in the ideological assault on social housing, deflecting attention away from social housing not only as urgent necessity during a serious crisis of affordability, but as incubator of community, solidarity, shelter and home.

The 2008 financial crash continues

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-106
Author(s):  
Bob Colenutt
Keyword(s):  
Social Housing ◽  
Banking System ◽  
Housing Crisis ◽  
Property Market ◽  
Housing Investment ◽  
The Us ◽  
Boom And Bust ◽  
Overseas Investment ◽  
The Uk ◽  
House Building

The 2008 Crash and its continuing aftermath have had a lasting impact on the scale and persistence of the housing crisis. The chapter explains that the Crash was largely caused by over lending to residential property in the US but the contagion spread to the UK banking system. It argues that the fall out continues to affect the market in a number of ways notably credit policies housing investment and cut backs in public expenditure. The banking system and the property market were bailed out and the austerity decade has reduced the capacity and ability of local government to build social housing or compensate for the fall in private sector house building. It is argued that the UK housing market is particularly subject to boom and bust fuelled by speculation and overseas investment yet the planners were scapegoated by the Treasury for the collapse on house building after 2008.

The Fight against Squalor

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony F. Heath ◽  
Elisabeth Garratt ◽  
Ridhi Kashyap ◽  
Yaojun Li ◽  
Lindsay Richards
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Housing Market ◽  
Demographic Change ◽  
Social Housing ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Housing Conditions ◽  
Housing Crisis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Oriented Approach ◽  
Increased Pressure

Beveridge was right to identify poor housing as a distinct giant since housing conditions have important implications for people’s well-being. Britain made great strides initially in building new houses, reducing the level of overcrowding, and improving amenities. Progress subsequently slowed; overcrowding remained at the same level after the late 1980s, and homelessness increased. Demographic change increased the demand for housing while rising prosperity also increased pressure on the housing market. Increasing income inequality was reflected in increasing inequality in access to housing. Another important part of the explanation is the declining affordability of housing and the increase in rents in both the private and the social housing sectors. The move in the 1980s to a more market-oriented approach to housing, combined with increasing economic inequality, must be a major factor in explaining the current housing crisis.

Redesigning Housing Policy

2019 ◽  
Vol 250 ◽  
pp. R69-R74
Author(s):  
Kate Barker
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Social Housing ◽  
Home Ownership ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Regional Distribution ◽  
Housing Supply ◽  
Housing Crisis ◽  
Executive Summary ◽  
Housing Benefit ◽  
Rented Sector

Executive SummaryDiscussion of the UK's housing crisis is of long date, and tends to focus on a simple story about a mismatch in housing supply and demand and the consequent need to build more homes. Yet the reality is more complex with multiple sub-plots including social housing, stress in the private rented sector, benefits, subsidies and ultimately taxation of home ownership.At the bottom of the market, the crisis is real and acute, as manifested in a sharp increase in homelessness and rough sleeping. The inescapable answer is to increase the depleted stock of social housing and widen eligibility criteria. An increase of 100,000 social units a year in England would help address this problem, as well as alleviate the financial squeeze on tenants of the private rented sector, whose number has grown sharply in the past 15 years in tandem with a steep rise in the housing benefit bill. Recent efforts to curb housing benefit have further increased distress, so it will be necessary to consider increasing benefits again alongside regulatory interventions with private landlords.In the home ownership market, recent government intervention has taken the form of the much-criticised Help-to-Buy Equity Loan scheme. This market policy to support new-build homes should be wound down and replaced by a scheme to endow all young people with a capital sum that they could use for second-hand homes as well. More generally, a more sophisticated approach to planning home-building is needed, both for assessing overall numbers and their regional distribution and in financing the supporting infrastructure.But none of these measures is a panacea for a housing crisis that is in large part a symptom of problems in the wider economy, such as low relative wages for young people, a lack of clarity about environmental issues, and failing places. A successful policy package to address the distorted structure of the housing market must also grasp the most difficult nettle of all – namely the way the tax benefits of owner-occupation incentivise overconsumption of housing and a widening wealth gap between renters and home owners, and between owners in different parts of the country. If we spend more to help those who struggle to afford decent housing, then it is only just to raise more taxation from those who benefit from restrictions on housing supply – whether through reform to council tax, a wider wealth tax or a limited form of Capital Gains Tax on principal residences.

Introduction: the repositioning of social housing and welfare provision

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Kelly Bogue
Keyword(s):  
Social Housing ◽  
Tax Policy ◽  
Housing Affordability ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
The Social ◽  
Housing Benefit ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
Rented Sector

This chapter sets out the background and context to the UK’s implementation of austerity measures following the financial crash of 2007/08. It examines the principles underlying the enactment of the Bedroom Tax policy before outlining the new regulations on room restrictions that have been imposed on those claiming housing benefit in the social rented sector. It discusses the controversy surrounding its implementation as well as the ways in which it has impacted different regions of the UK. This chapter also reflects on changes to housing benefit more widely and suggests that we are seeing the return of the ‘housing question’ in post-industrial Britain as austerity policies undermine housing affordability. The final part of this chapter outlines the structure of the book.

A positive psychology study and intervention on the well-being of French PhD students in biology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Marais ◽  
Rebecca Shankland ◽  
Pascale Haag ◽  
Robin Fiault ◽  
Bridget Juniper
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Large Fraction ◽  
Reference Sample ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Attrition Rates ◽  
Human Costs ◽  
The Uk ◽  
And Control ◽  
Health And Well Being

In France, little data are available on mental health and well-being in academia, and nothing has been published about PhD students. From studies abroad, we know that doing a PhD is a difficult experience resulting in high attrition rates with significant financial and human costs. Here we focused on PhD students in biology at university Lyon 1. A first study aimed at measuring the mental health and well-being of PhD students using several generalist and PhD-specific tools. Our results on 136 participants showed that a large fraction of the PhD students experience abnormal levels of stress, depression and anxiety, and their mean well-being score is significantly lower than that of a British reference sample. French PhD student well-being is specifically affected by career uncertainty, perceived lack of progress in the PhD and perceived lack of competence, which points towards possible cultural differences of experiencing a PhD in France and the UK. In a second study, we carried out a positive psychology intervention. Comparing the scores of the test and control groups showed a clear effect of the intervention on reducing anxiety. We discuss our results and the possible future steps to improve French PhD students’ well-being.

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