Reconciling Policy Tensions on the Frontlines of Indigenous Housing Provision in Australia: Reflexivity,Resistance and Hybridity

In Australia, significant recent reforms reposition Indigenous housing provision and management in remote and town camp communities under the mainstream public housing model. Two competing discourses surround this shift: a federal discourse of standardisation and state discourses of local responsiveness centred on the introduction of new community engagement processes into Indigenous public housing. This paper reports on qualitative research into the micro-scale of policy implementation to highlight policy-to-practice translation on the frontlines of Indigenous housing. Based on interviews with Indigenous housing stakeholders, this paper argues the capacity to support locally responsive housing management is problematic under the current arrangements. The analytical framework of realist governmentality reveals frontline housing professionals' role in the local resolution of tensions between federal and state policy levers. A focus on agent reflexivity and resistance on the frontline assists in capturing the dynamic (hybrid) identity of Indigenous public housing, as an atypical Australian example of hybridity in social housing.     

What women want: single older women and their housing preferences

It is increasingly recognized in Australia that single, older women are particularly vulnerable to housing-related stress and homelessness. This paper reports on a qualitative study that explored the housing experiences of single, older, non-homeowning women in regional New South Wales, Australia. Interviews were conducted with 47 participants living independently in precarious housing. This paper focuses upon the housing preferences expressed by the participants. A feminist standpoint perspective was adopted and thematic analysis was employed to interrogate the data. Findings showed the women’s primary preference is security of tenure in housing that is affordable and suited to their needs. Further, they want to feel they have autonomy in the private sphere. Over the participants’ life course, twin discourses of patriarchy and neoliberalism were identified as influential in shaping social arrangements, both in Australia and other developed countries. These findings may assist policy-makers in planning future housing for this ageing cohort.     

Exploring Dual Housing Tenure Status as a Household Response to Demographic,Social and Economic Change

This article proposes that single housing tenure categories do not enable an understanding of the ways in which households use, occupy and own residential properties in the context of broad demographic, economic and social changes. Adapting work on sub-tenure housing choice, housing tenure is overlaid with ownership of residential property to develop four tenure types: Owner, Owner-Owner, Renter and Renter-Owner. Applying this typology in the Australian case provides valuable new insights, with 1.5 million households having dual housing tenure status, including almost one in eight private renters. More broadly, reconceptualising housing tenure to include ownership of other residential property can contribute to theoretical debates about household income and wealth; social status and identity; and social practices and life planning, potentially generating new research questions such as the extent to which Renter-Owners reflect new patterns of living or a response to affordability constraints, and the social identity and political affiliations of those with a dual tenure status.     

Housing Policy as a Lever for Change? The Politics of Welfare,Assets and Tenure

The housing tenure structure has long been associated with different forms of welfare state capitalism in Western Europe. However, with the rise of owner-occupancy, this association has not been so straightforward. An alternative view is to view housing policies that promote owner-occupancy for households to acquire assets, as an attempt by the state to reform social welfare systems. The politics of welfare reform are related to the discourses of homeownership ideology. The ownership of (housing) assets agenda serves as a means to change the relationship between state, market and individual households. This view is mostly based on the British experience and this paper seeks to broaden it by examining the Netherlands and Spain. The paper shows differences, but also that housing policies play an important role in driving towards or maintaining market-dominated solutions. Housing is used to either reorient towards or maintain a welfare system where asset ownership and market dependency is deemed more appropriate than secure income and public expenditure.     

Democracy of housing policy as exemplified by Poland. Political and linguistic analysis

The subject of this paper is the issue of restrictions related to the democracy of housing policies within the context of welfare state reforms. The paper aims to provide answers to the following questions: Is housing policy affected by political discursive practices? If so, what effect do they have on the democracy of housing policy, particularly housing policy placed against the background of a welfare state subject to changes and reforms? An example is provided in the form of the housing policy in Poland for the period 1989–2014. The theoretical approach used in the study is based on the concept of deliberative democracy. The analysis verifies the research hypothesis according to which housing policy in Poland lacks the deliberative discursive practices which constitute an instrument of democratic housing policy.     

Beyond the Normative: Low Income Private Renters' Perspectives of Housing Affordability and Need for Housing Assistance

Housing need in Australia has typically been measured using a normative measure of the percentage of income spent on housing costs. However, this normative measure has tended not to correspond with the level of need as measured by the applications for housing assistance. This article reports on a research project commissioned by the Queensland Department of Housing in 2001, examining how low income private renters view their housing situation, with a particular focus on affordability. The Department wanted to better understand the reasons for why people apply for assistance, and how helpful normative affordability analyses are in describing and finding responses to housing need. The findings challenge the conventional wisdoms, dominant discourses and research standards which are commonly used and applied about affordability and housing need. In particular, the research raises serious questions about relying on quantitative analysis alone to appreciate the complexity of housing needs and the potential demand for assistance.     

The present and future of income‐related housing support: debates in Britain and the Netherlands

This paper examines income‐related housing support in Britain and the Netherlands. It considers the main issues that are at stake in current policy discussions, compares the arguments that are put forward in the two countries and draw conclusions about the future of income‐related housing support. In both Britain and the Netherlands political discussions about the possible introduction of housing vouchers are observed. The most complicated issues are the poverty trap and unemployment trap, and housing consumption incentives. Moral hazard concerns can result in complicated anti‐fraud measures that may add to the burden of administering income‐related support. It is expected that the way in which income‐related housing support schemes in both countries are designed and administered may come under closer scrutiny. Politicians want these schemes to be in tune with the need for labour and housing market mobility, wage flexibility, and the need to bring the public budget under control.     

Community Land Trusts and Indigenous Housing in Australia—Exploring Difference-Based Policy and Appropriate Housing

Previous work has highlighted the primacy of non-economic rights in Indigenous housing objectives. This paper builds on that work and Sanders' other work demonstrating the limited relevance of ‘mainstream’ home ownership for many Indigenous communities, exploring whether models based on community land trust (CLT) principles might be appropriate for articulating Indigenous housing aspirations. The paper describes current Indigenous housing scenarios in urban, regional and remote New South Wales and Queensland, and findings regarding the resonance of CLTs with Indigenous housing objectives. While dominant policy and public discourses promote Indigenous home ownership as an economic development strategy, or as requiring the alienation of Indigenous lands, the research found neither to be primary sector imperatives. The paper draws on difference-based arguments regarding Indigenous affairs arguing that a focus on diversity emerging from informed Indigenous choice finds a role for policy supporting diverse Indigenous housing aspirations.     

Divorce and the Housing Movements of Owner-Occupiers: A European Comparison

Divorce usually carries a range of economic consequences for both men and women, the housing situation of the ex-partners being among the most important ones. So far, however, the housing consequences of this life event, and in particular the way these are influenced by institutional arrangements, have been somewhat of a neglected topic. This paper focuses on one aspect of this process, more specifically the impact of divorce on tenure changes of homeowners, using comparative panel data for 12 European countries. It is concluded that although divorce significantly raises the odds of experiencing a tenure change for homeowners in all countries under consideration, this process is fairly similar across European welfare states. While institutional arrangements mitigating the economic consequences of divorce for women do not seem to explain much variation between countries, cross-national differences in tenure changes for homeowners are partly influenced by social housing policies and the extent of family support.     

Atkinson Housing Co-operative: A Leading Edge Conversion from Public Housing

In 2003 the Atkinson community became the first public housing project to convert into a non-equity co-operative. After providing a brief introduction to the development of non-market housing policy in Canada, this paper discusses the process of creating the Atkinson co-operative. The conversion of Atkinson has produced a new model of social housing, in that Atkinson operates neither as a pure housing co-operative nor as a public housing project, but rather as a synthesis of the two models, referred to as a hybrid, or an incorporated co-operative within the public sector. The features of the hybrid arrangement are grouped within the following categories: land/property; finances; property management and administration; governance and decision-making practices; education and community programs; housing charges/rents; and living in public housing. The final section of this paper locates the Atkinson experiment within the tenant-management literature in public housing and also discusses the conversion as a process in community development. Although it is premature to determine the efficacy of this model, the results are likely to influence the movement for increasing tenant involvement in the management of public housing.     

Capturing the Castle: Tenant Governance in Social Housing Companies

In the contemporary landscape of social housing in Britain, the role of tenants on the governing boards of housing companies continues to be seen as deeply problematic. While tenant directors are recruited to bring a market-like influence to social housing governance, they appear to be approaching their positions as directors in a way that is contrary to the drive towards management efficiency. This paper adopts a social constructionist approach in order to recast the institutions of housing governance as contested articulations of ideology and the ‘problem’ of tenant board members as a hegemonic clash between discourses of governance. It concludes that tenant directors act as a significant dynamic in the political construction of social housing today.     

海外公共租赁房租金管理经验及对我国的启示

发展公共租赁房,为城镇中低收入家庭、新就业职工以及外来务工人员等“夹心层”住房困难群体提供基本住房保障,对完善我国住房保障体系,实现住有所居目标、扩大内需和促进经济平稳发展具有重大意义。该文借鉴美国、英国、日本、香港等发达国家或地区公共租赁房的租金管理经验,对比分析当前我国公共租赁房租金管理方面的做法及存在的问题,提出完善我国公共租赁房租金管理的合理建议。     

Social housing management: Concerns about effectiveness and efficiency in the Netherlands

Recently a discussion flared up in the Netherlands on the effectivenessand efficiency of providers of social housing. Though most people feel that Dutch housing associations are run effectively, there are no data to underpin this conclusion. The government is not clear about the criteria for each housing association: most of the criteria are unquantified and, to some extent, contradictory. Nor is it clear whether every individual housing association has to meet these criteriato the same extent. Many more doubts have been raised about the efficiencyof social housing providers, as housing associations do not act as if theywant to maximize profits.Several suggestions have been put forward to improve efficiency: periodicalexternal visitations, benchmarking, the introduction of a Real Estate Index,and outsourcing a substantial part of the management and development activities. The main conclusion so far is that we are under-informed aboutthe efficiency of housing associations. Some advisory bodies argue that theoverall efficiency of housing associations would improve if they were transferred from the semi-public to the private sector. They claim that thedemand side of the housing market could be strengthened by the introductionof housing vouchers and suggest that housing associations opt out of the public sector.These options fail to take account of the fact that we are insufficiently informed about the efficiency of commercial players on the housing market and the inherent shortcomings of free housing markets when it comes to accessibility, affordability and quality for low-income households, externaleffects and the cherry-picking of tenants by commercial landlords. Hence, weconclude that until more information is available on the true effectivenessand efficiency of housing associations, there are good reasons to continue their current hybrid status, which combines public tasks and market activities.     

Towards Zero Carbon Homes in England? From Inception to Partial Implementation

In 2007, the UK Government announced an ambitious zero-carbon target for all new housing in England. This paper shows how the definition and its associated policies emerged from discourses of environmental policy innovation; how the problem subsequently became framed as one of mainstreaming, consequent upon the apparent success of experimental schemes and defined in more detail through the interaction between pressure group politics and the technical analyses that accompanied the government's consultation exercises. Finally, it shows how regional and local variations in housing and property markets are likely to influence the ease of zero carbon development. The analysis uses concepts drawn from both the science and technology literature and the literature on policy implementation.     

From stigma to demolition: Australian debates about housing and social exclusion

Although the concept of social exclusion is well established in the UK and wider Europe, as an alternative to the use of poverty and inequality, it only recently entered Australian housing and urban policy debates. This paper explores the dominant debates that emerged about housing and inequality in two major reports, which investigated future options for East Fairfield (Villawood) public housing estate in New South Wales prior to its demolition. In conceptualising the debates, the analysis draws on the framework devised by Watt and Jacobs (2000, Housing, theory and society, 17(1), 14–26), which identified three different discourses of social exclusion in British housing and urban policy. It is concluded that the dominant debate at East Fairfield estate drew extensively on a moral underclass discourse that implicated public housing tenure as a major cause of inequality. Whilst there is little doubt that serious problems existed on the estate, questions are raised about the utility of this moral underclass depiction and the rationale it provided for adopting demolition as the definitive solution. The experience of East Fairfield demonstrates that demolition is not a low-cost solution in financial or social terms.     

Public choice theory and rental housing: an examination of rental housing contracts in Ghana

This paper extends both the literature on rental housing in Ghana and the global literature on the critique of public choice analyses in terms of focus, methods and positioning. It argues that, contrary to the assumption that all housing policy changes are driven by internal national processes, in the case of Ghana at least, neither tenants (through their use of their greater numbers) nor landlords (through the use of their stronger financial and hence political power) exclusively influence housing policy. Both parties have some power, but landlords use theirs to change rents arbitrarily and decide whom to invite or keep as tenants, whilst tenants seek to use their power by lodging complaints with the state, albeit to little effect as the power of landlords is overwhelming. There is a strong basis to call into question the public choice argument that it is fair for landlords to extract windfall rent from tenants since their efforts or talents do not increase rent.     

香港公屋建设监管的研究与启示

基于创新和完善保障性住房建设监管体系的视角,针对十一五期间保障性住房建设中存在的问题,深入分析和总结香港的成功做法和经验,提出我国内地加强保障性住房建设监管的措施。     

Hidden from History? Housing Studies,the Perpetual Present and the Case of Social Housing in Britain

This paper examines the use and abuse of historical method in the field of housing studies, with specific reference to predictions about the future shape of social housing in Britain. It reflects on the debates about council housing in the early 1990s and sets these against subsequent policy developments. The paper suggests that this exercise reveals some shortcomings in dominant paradigms within housing studies, such as the misreading and misrepresentation of tenants' responses and reactions; the over-emphasis on consumption in assessing processes of housing sector change; the neglect of increasing spatial differentiation in housing markets across Britain; and the failure to appreciate the causes behind increasing volatility in some local housing markets. The paper argues for a more nuanced historical sensibility and a more adventurous methodology when forecasting the future direction of housing policies and the future characteristics of housing systems.     

'Changing the mix': contestation surrounding the public housing stock transfer process in Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania

This article presents the findings of a study examining the rationale and practices of stock transfer from state housing authorities to community housing associations in three Australian states--Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. It begins with an analysis of the policy context that has informed debates about housing management and supply options in Australia. The main section of the article draws on written documentation and interviews with policy actors and tenants in each of the case studies to highlight the conflicts and tensions that surface in moves to reconfigure the management of public housing. Alongside a brief discussion about the policy themes that emerge from the findings, it is suggested in the conclusion that the continuing contestation and uncertainty about the stock transfer process is symptomatic of the national 'policy vacuum' about the future direction of public housing in Australia.     

Kuy-e Narmak (1952–1958): the growth and change of an urban community in Tehran

ABSTRACT

This article examines the growth and change through time of Kuy-e Narmak, a housing neighbourhood developed in the 1950s under the auspices of Mosaddeq’s Modernization Program. The project was designed by a group of young-leading European-educated Iranian architects that collaborated with the government to develop affordable housing solutions in Iran. To design this project, these architects advanced solutions that explored a cross-pollination between the principles of the functional city, and references from vernacular architecture. Over the last 6 decades, the number of households living in Narmak increased dramatically, from the initial goal of accommodating 7500 families, to the 90,000 families that currently live there. This article discusses the extent to which the initial design decisions were instrumental to cope with this extraordinary increase in the district’s density. We have used typological and morphological analysis, combined with site surveys and interviews to investigate the district’s growth and change through time. This article argues that the designer’s critical combination of modernist planning concepts with elements borrowed from Iran’s vernacular tradition resulted in a socially inclusive urban community. The plan’s rigid urban form has become instrumental in defining a neutral background to accommodate the ever-changing social and spatial practices of its inhabitants.