Model for the evaluation of the quality of housing 1 management

This article takes as its starting point the observation that “responsibility” is a concept widely used in housing management today and in connection with organizational change within housing management companies. Results of an anthropologically oriented organizational field study of the empirically given meaning of the “responsibility” concept are reported. The study concerns a housing company in which the concept played a central role in reorganizing local management. The managers and caretakers of the company were followed in their work and interviewed regarding a reorganization of the housing management service in which each caretaker was given “total responsibility” for an estate or housing unit composed of 65–180 flats and what this reorganization meant. The results are presented in narrative style and with illustrative case studies, the performative definition of “responsibility” here being focused upon.     

Constructing a Service: Context and Discourse in Housing Management

The intention of this paper is to make a theoretical contribution to the understanding of housing management as practised in the UK. Drawing on social theory, the paper examines the wider context within which housing management operates, and suggests that it is only through unravelling this context that the ambiguities and uncertainties of direction which characterise housing management can be explained. A framework is constructed which attempts to elucidate this context in terms of its constituent elements: the structural-the ideologies, values and beliefs held by society; the institutional-the activities and attitudes of institutions and agents; the organisational-pertaining to the organisation of housing management; the operational-the situations with which housing management has to contend on the ground; and the intersubjective-the way in which the delivery of the service is interpreted by those on the front line. Each of these is examined in turn, exposing the contradictions and discourses which are implicated in the construction of housing management. The result is a situation of complexity in which housing management is put in the position of having to reconcile and mediate between conflicting messages if it is to fulfil what is arguably its aim, of delivering a consistent and coherent service.     

The geographic distribution of social housing in Ontario,Canada: Comparing public housing and locally sponsored,third sector housing

This paper provides a perspective on the contemporary debate over the production of social housing. Its main focus is on the issue that geographic patterns of service levels may be related to the type of supply program in place. The paper describes the social housing programs in Ontario, Canada over the post‐war period. Two main approaches have been taken: public housing, an essentially centralized program; and locally sponsored, third sector housing provided through non‐profit corporations and co‐operatives. The programs operated in different time periods and the analysis suggests they do have distinctive geographic distributions. The distribution of public housing shows strong correlations with need as defined by the incidence of poor housing conditions and mother‐led families. Provision under the localized program is also strongly correlated with the incidence of mother‐led families; however, the most consistent associations are with measures of socio‐economic status. These results may be partly understood in terms of the changing concept of housing need over the temporal span of the study. Program influences may be that the centralized nature of the public housing program enabled the direction of allocations to high need areas; whereas under the localized program the distribution is more closely related to the social differentiation of leadership roles in service provision under a third sector delivery model. As this approach becomes more prevalent it may be important to examine its potential impacts on service provision.     

From Asset Based Welfare to Welfare Housing? The Changing Function of Social Housing in Ireland

This paper examines a distinctive and significant aspect of social housing in Ireland—its change in function from an asset-based role in welfare support to a more standard model of welfare housing. It outlines the nationalist and agrarian drivers which expanded the initial role of social housing beyond the goal of improving housing conditions for the poor towards the goal of extending homeownership, and assesses whether this focus made it more similar to the ‘asset based welfare’ approach to housing found in South-East Asia than to social housing in Western Europe. From the mid-1980s, the role of Irish social housing changed as the sector contracted and evolved towards the model of welfare housing now found in many other Western countries. Policy makers have struggled to address the implications of this transition and vestiges of social housing's traditional function are still evident, consequently the boundaries between social housing, private renting and homeownership in Ireland have grown increasingly nebulous.     

Demands,Expectations and Responses: The Shaping of Housing Management

There have recently been a number of claims that housing research is too much driven by the agendas of professionals and policy-makers, and that it should aim to be more conceptually focused through utilising analytical and interpretative methodologies. This paper represents an attempt to provide such an analytical and interpretative approach to one area of housing research, namely housing management as practised in the UK. The paper first examines the structural context of housing management, specifically the implications of the current social and legislative climate, before moving on to an analysis based on an Economic and Social Research Council funded project on the social construction of the occupational role of housing management. Both secondary sources and interview data are drawn on to show how there are multiple constructions of housing management, and that these reflect and reproduce institutional, organisational and personal responses to the demands and expectations placed on the delivery of housing management.     

Intergenerational support for autonomous living in a post-socialist housing market: homes,meanings and practices

Abstract

This paper explores housing trajectories of young adults and practices of intergenerational support in Romania drawing on narratives of a group of people aged 25–39 living (quasi-) autonomously in Bucharest, and those of kin that support them. It describes three housing arrangements in which family (parental) resources and property play an important role, and argues that in this context of high interdependence, unequal relationships develop between parents and adult children marked by professed entitlement on the part of children and controlling generosity on the part of parents. It shows how interdependent practices of homemaking and material support combine to shape housing trajectories and define the boundaries of ownership over homes that are shared, gifted or given in use within kin networks, sheltering young adults from the vagaries of the market.     

The production of homelessness: From individual failure to system inadequacies

The paper is concerned with an exploration of images, definitions and debates about the nature of homelessness in capitalist societies, its causes and consequences. The paper begins by considering images of homelessness and whether homelessness is a private individual trouble or a public issue and the result of inadequacies not of individuals but of the housing system. The paper then reviews the debate over definitions of homelessness examining material from New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. The debate over definition demonstrates the necessity to reorganise research and analysis around a continuum of housing needs to place homelessness within a broader framework and prevent the marginalisation of the homeless both within society and within housing research. Further research should also examine the manner in which the homeless as a social group have been managed and therefore controlled. The paper then moves to a discussion of the characteristics and incidence of homelessness within the New Zealand population and shows how this group has emerged as a consequence of failures within the production, allocation and consumption of housing rather than as a result of individual inadequacies.     

Mobilizing social capital: Which informal and formal supports affect employment outcomes for HOPE VI residents?

Using a mixed-methods approach, this study examines the relationship between informal social support and formal support services and employment outcomes among residents of a public housing development relocated as part of a HOPE VI project in Charlotte, North Carolina. Informal social supports are resources accessible through family and friends within a neighborhood and formal support services are provided by case managers and service providers. We find that when former public housing residents are enrolled in case management longer and have high satisfaction with their case manager, this leads to better employment outcomes. In addition, having strong bonding ties among public housing neighbors has a negative influence on employment. This study sheds light on how case managers play a role in promoting economic mobility by mitigating social and economic crises and providing bridging capital for poor families.     

On Becoming a Social Housing Manager: Work Identities in an ‘Invisible’ Occupation

Social housing in Britain is managed by a large grouping of ‘housing managers’, an occupational label which is viewed as unproblematic by most housing academics, and therefore, is largely taken for granted. Urban sociologists posit that a collective identity is crucial to professional status, and hence have been sceptical of housing managers' prospects of furthering their aims collectively. The paper departs from this focus on the collective endeavours of housing management as a profession to examine how housing managers themselves create and present self-identities. Specifically, it argues that housing managers use the lack of a collective identity as an opportunity to manage the ‘spoiled identity’ of being in an ‘invisible’ and marginalised profession. In doing so, they construct individualised occupational trajectories which bear little relation to the domain professionalism of more established occupations.     

Band-aid or Panacea? The Role of Private Rental Support Programs in Addressing Access Problems in the Australian Housing Market

Australia has a significant private rental market with over a quarter of households renting their home from a private landlord. Many of these households are on low incomes and receive assistance from private rental support programs provided by each Australian state and territory. In spite of these large numbers, little is known about the effectiveness of policy initiatives to assist low-income private renters. Limited knowledge of the private rental support programs stands in stark contrast to the detailed research on programs established to address homelessness and problems within the public housing sector. This paper addresses this lacuna by reporting on the suite of initiatives currently funded by state governments to assist low-income households (for example, bond loans and rental deposits, advice and help with removal expenses). Based on a comprehensive study of Private Rental Support Programs (PRSPs) commissioned by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, it is argued that though policies to assist vulnerable tenants are acknowledged as a success by practitioners and clients, their effectiveness as a policy instrument is undermined by wider structural changes in the housing market. The paper concludes that the stress faced by many vulnerable households is likely to intensify over the coming years thereby compounding the pressure on state Housing Authorities to provide more comprehensive packages of support that extend beyond just a ‘one-off’ form of assistance.     

Planning for Mixed Use: Affordable for Whom?

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Mixed-use zoning is widely advocated to increase density; promote active transportation; encourage economic development; and create lively, diverse neighborhoods. We know little, however, about whether mixed-use developments affect housing affordability. We question the impact of mixed-use zoning on housing affordability in Toronto (Canada) between 1991 and 2006 in the face of waning government support for affordable housing and increasing income inequality due to the occupational restructuring accompanying a shift to a knowledge-based economy. We fi nd that housing in mixed-use zones remained less affordable than housing in the rest of the city and in the metropolitan region. High-income service occupations experienced improved affordability while lower wage service, trade, and manufacturing occupations experienced stagnant or worsening affordability. Housing in mixed-use zones is increasingly affordable only to workers already able to pay higher housing costs. Our findings are limited to Canada's largest city but have lessons for large North American cities with similar urban economies and housing markets.

Takeaway for practice: Mixed-use developments may reduce housing affordability in core areas and inadvertently reinforce the sociospatial inequality resulting from occupational polarization unless supported by appropriate affordable housing policies. Planners should consider a range of policy measures to offset the unintentional outcomes of mixed-use developments and ensure affordability within mixed-use zones: inclusionary zoning, density bonuses linked to affordable housing, affordable housing trusts, and other relevant methods.     

Editorial

This article deals with the questions of how different organizational models of housing management affect employee and residential influence over management decisions and how they affect housing costs. The answers are drawn from my own and other empirical studies of Municipal Housing Companies and housing cooperatives concerning their organization, costs, and residents. Another source has been a special study of management employees holding positions in their local trade unions. With growing size of housing management organizations, there has been more functionalization and specialization, as well as more centralized decision‐making. This study shows that residents often see this as diminishing their influence and lowering the service level. Caretaking employees have experienced a division of personnel with varying degrees of direct individual influence for different groups. The employees’ formal collective influence appears on the other hand to be greater in large than in small organisations. A decentralized management organization gives more room for both residential and employee influence and a wider professional role for the employees. The study has not confirmed any large‐scale effects, such as lower costs, that could be expected from larger management organizations.     

英格兰保障性住房的发展及其对中国的启示

回顾二战以来英格兰保障性住房①的发展历史,总结了当前英格兰保障性住房的定位、类型、受益人群、供应机制以及空间绩效调控。结合英格兰的经验和我国的具体情况,从宏观、中观、微观三个层面对我国保障性住房发展提出启示:政府必须而且能够在保障性住房供给上发挥积极的作用;进一步完善、细化保障性住房的供应类型和监管机制;加强特大、大城市的保障性住房建设,注重空间绩效调控。     

Themes and contradictions in housing management: An analysis of bureaucratic discourse

The aim of this paper is to examine the ways in which housing management is socially constructed through analysis of the language and meaning used in one policy document, the Housing Management Standards Manual, produced by the Chartered Institute of Housing. Four recurrent themes are identified in the Manual which illustrate the ways in which language is used to construct the nature of the housing management task and build the professional and organizational structure which provides the framework for relations between housing managers and tenants. An analysis of the document illustrates the impact of contextual factors such as economic change, government policy and the restructuring of public sector management, which are facing housing management in Britain. The research on which this paper is based was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Lise Saugeres worked as a Research Associate with Bridget Franklin and David Clapham in the Centre for Housing Management and Development at Cardiff University on a two-year project on ‘the social construction of the occupational role of housing management’, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. She has recently obtained her Ph.D. from Manchester and has now been appointed as a Lecturer in Human Geography in Plymouth.     

Underpinning reflective practice in social care and housing provision through collaborative knowledge exchange

Since 1988 Scotland has had a policy of providing care in the community for people with disability, through social housing. A number of specialised housing and social care providers are active in this area. In response to an emerging anecdotal understanding of how changes made in the built environment of housing had impacted on the quality of life of service users and care provision, one such provider in Scotland entered a collaborative knowledge exchange process with academic institutions, aiming to better understand the nature of this impact. Through a government and research council supported Kowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) this collaboration verified the anecdotal experience of service staff across a structured sample of housing locations and types provided by the housing association, and reviewed this in the light of existing published knowledge. The outcome confirmed the experiential learning of the housing and service provider and has permitted knowledge exchange between academia and the housing provider. This paper describes the process of close collaboration that was established to enable this knowledge exchange. The KTP process underpinned a new approach to continuing reflective practice within the housing association, and provided this with a robust evidence base for marketing and policy activity, reinforcing its ongoing re-structuring in a changing policy and funding context for the housing and care service providers. In addition, it synthesises the findings from the research, benchmarked by the wider literature.     

房地产产品售后服务体系构建研究

以房地产产品中的商品住宅为例,在明晰房地产产品售后定义的基础上,结合商品住宅的特性及其售后服务的内容,制定商品住宅售后服务体系的原则,阐述了该体系的构成及其运作程序,针对售后服务主体,提出保障售后服务体系高效运行的服务制度。     

The policy and implementation of the housing role in community care—a constructionist theoretical perspective

This paper contends that academic analysts, working within the discipline of ‘housing studies’, have misrepresented the meaning and significance of the housing role in community care, and that this has resulted from their unwillingness to utilise an explicit multi‐disciplinary and theoretical approach to its study. The first half of this paper attempts to provide a new and alternative definition of housing's community care role by locating its analysis within a constructionist theoretical framework. Then, using the research findings of a study undertaken in Wales, the second part of the paper analyses the critical questions of ‘what did and did not happen and why during implementation?’, which a theory of policy and implementation must claim to be able to answer if it is to justify itself as an analytical framework. The paper relates particularly to community care for people with mental and physical disabilities, rather than older people.     

Improving housing outcomes: the value of advice and support for vulnerable older people

Theories of household decision making stress the importance of access to information in informing residential choice. The difficulties in gathering and processing information on housing options, however, are compounded in later stages of life, with push factors to expensive forms of residential care assuming greater significance as individuals reach a crisis through deteriorating health and restricted physical ability. The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which the provision of a UK government-backed advice and support service, named FirstStop, altered the housing outcomes of a sample of vulnerable elderly individuals on the verge of a crisis and living in inappropriate housing for their needs. The paper concludes that not only can such a publicly-funded service facilitate independent living for longer; it may also delay or prevent the need for more expensive institutional care which is costly to both individuals and public finances. As this initiative is the first of its kind internationally, evaluating its benefits not only informs UK policy makers but also those in other countries considering replicating such a service.     

Portfolio Management in the Social Rented Sector: Valuation,Risk Analysis and Strategy Development

The financial aspects of social housing management are becoming more important for housing associations in Western Europe, due to changes in their economic and institutional context. As part of a trend towards the privatisation and decentralisation of public services, housing associations are becoming more self-reliant. Government financial support is decreasing and parts of the housing market are changing in response to low demand. To ensure that housing associations run an economic, efficient and financially sound business, knowledge of the financial performance of their stock is becoming more important for their investment policy. In the Netherlands, these general changes in housing policy, management and market have been a prominent feature of the last decade, and have resulted in a variety of responses under the general heading of asset and portfolio management. This paper describes methods for valuation, risk analysis and portfolio management for housing associations. The paper sets out the context within which Dutch housing associations operate. Existing methods for valuation and risk analysis are evaluated for their applicability to social landlords. These methods are placed within the business planning process to show how the methods can be used to inform asset management strategy. Finally the paper reflects on the implications for practice in social housing management.     

房地产开发企业的界面管理

房地产行业是集开发、经营、管理和服务等职能于一体的综合性行业,是学科资源和社会资源整合的行业,界面管理较复杂。随着房地产开发企业同业竞争的日益激烈、社会分工更加细化等变化,房地产开发企业界面管理显得尤为重要、紧迫。