Histories of social housing: a comparative approach Peter Malpass, with Claire Levy-Vroelant, Christoph Reinprecht and Frank Wassenberg

Key questions how can history help to explain current differences (and similarities) between social housing systems in Europe? what can history tell us about the direction of travel in the future?

Perspectives on the History of Social Housing Convergence: structural determinism –M Harloe, The People’s Home?, 1995 Divergence: policy constructivism –J Kemeny, From Public Housing to the Social Market, 1995

Social structures of accumulation liberal capitalism – came into crisis in early 1930s welfare capitalism – came into crisis in mid 1970s post-industrialism, or post-Fordism

Mass and residual models The mass model implies a better standard of provision embracing ‘a range of lower- and middle-income groups, not just or even mainly the poor’ The residual model implies a focus on minimalist provision for the least well off as a safety net service.

Harloe’s periodisation Before 1914, when social housing began in a number of European countries, primarily as a form of voluntary, philanthropic activity targeted on helping the least well off. The period immediately after 1918, during which, according to Harloe’s analysis, the mass model of social housing dominated for a short while during the postwar recovery. From the later 1920s to 1939, when the residual model was reasserted mid-1970s, the period of postwar reconstruction, the golden age for social housing, when output levels were high and the mass model dominated, alongside attempts to tackle ‘slum’ housing. Since the mid-1970s the mass model has been challenged and has retreated as residualism has advanced.

To understand the development of social housing in the six countries with which we have been concerned [the USA, the UK, France, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands], it was as important to identify and trace the significance of some general political and economic changes in all advanced capitalist societies as it was to grasp the nationally specific circumstances in which these changes were experienced and which shaped the responses to them (Harloe, 1995: 528).

Social housing since 1970s deep cuts in new investment; moves to privatise sections of the stock and to narrow the socio-economic profile of those whom the sector accommodated; policies of decentralisation and attempts by government to reduce its political and financial responsibility for the sector (Based on Harloe, 1995: 498)

Key features of Kemeny’s divergence approach Emphasis on underlying, categorical, differences, not superficial similarities –Anglo-Saxon countries –Continental European countries Main drivers are –policy strategies and –financial maturation

Dual rental markets: the Anglo- Saxon strategy Pursuit of separate and distinct policies on social and profit rental housing produces a residual social sector, and high demand for owner occupation Social renting complements and underpins the market, but does not compete with it

European unitary rental markets governments have, in various ways, sought to minimise differences in rents, quality and social attractiveness between the social and private parts of the rental sector. ‘cost rental’ housing competes with profit renting

Drivers of divergence Policy strategies: governments can choose to go one way or another in response to: Financial maturation - –‘the growing gap between the per-dwelling outstanding debt on existing stock and the average new debt per dwelling that is either built, acquired, or renovated’ (Kemeny, 1995: 41).

History and the future Convergence theory suggests a general trend towards residualised social housing in a market dominated by owner occupation Divergence theory suggests that dual rental markets will go that way, but that unitary markets have the potential for cost renting to compete with both profit renting and owner occupation

However… Kemeny admits that even in unitary markets we may see, even in the medium term, rising owner occupation and apparently residualising social renting. But he argues it is necessary to look at the underlying reasons, not the superficial evidence

Moreover… ‘The hegemonic position of …market based unitary rental strategies in countries like Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland is much less strongly entrenched than the command economy model is in the English speaking countries’ (Kemeny, 1995: 145).

The transformation of social housing in the UK from growth to decline. from a broadly based tenure, accommodating a range of income groups, to an increasingly residual sector for the poor. from municipal housing to independent social landlords from local autonomy to increasing central government control of social landlords...

More transitions From ‘bricks and mortar’ subsidies to means tested assistance From part of the solution to part of the problem