<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In various European and North American cities visited in the\nlast decade, housing has been a recurring theme, both as an everyday lived concern\nof residents and as a policy concern for city decision-makers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whilst there seem to be universal issues, generic across all\nsuch cities, each city has its own particular set of housing concerns shaped by\nthat city\u2019s culture, history and the interplay between local and national\nlegislation. Although many of the observations are at city level, it is\nrecognised that none of the cities mentioned are homogenous entities. Each city\nhas its variety of neighbourhoods and its diversity of residents: its physical\nand social nooks and crannies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This exploration has been based on looking at newspaper\narticles, journal articles and policy documents, as well as a degree of wandering\nand observing the day-to-day facets of a select number of similar cities. It is,\ntherefore, by its nature only a partial view of the complexity of things. It certainly\ndoes not set itself out as a well-referenced academic study, nor try to\nrepresent every aspect or every city. Any errors, omissions or assertions are\npersonal ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The housing concerns of cities looked at tended to centre\naround the same issues: affordability, renting, house-building rates, local renovations\nand redevelopments, levels of public\/private investment, land ownership and\nland use, homelessness, who gets to make which decisions, how we define \u2018home\u2019,\nand local\/national interplays. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Housing is seen as a key social and political issue for\nthose cities. Declarations and proposals are made at various levels of city\/regional\/national\ngovernment, with various ways forward being proposed. At the same time, despite\nstrong commitments to change, the difficulties do not seem to go away in other\nthan piecemeal ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What follows is a summary of some of the key points in those observations \u2013 not from the viewpoint of a housing expert but from the perspective of an interested bystander who puzzles why the same key issues continue to be revisited with, in many cases, few real permanent inroads being made to fix the problems<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Affordability<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The need for affordable housing is a strongly recurring\ntheme. This immediately raises the question of what is affordable, and by whom?\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n An affordable rent is often defined as one equivalent to 80%\nof the market rent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By extension, therefore, would an affordable house to buy be\none whose cost is at or below 80% of the local market house price? Or one that\ncan be afforded by someone on an average wage? Or one just branded with some vaguely\nundefined \u2018affordability\u2019? Affordability is sometimes a precise label and\nsometimes is used quite loosely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n London average house prices rose by a third in the period 2007-2015. House prices similarly rose in other parts of the UK, and in other cities in the US and Canada, often whilst many people\u2019s incomes stayed the same or went down in real terms. On this basis, housing in general has become less affordable over recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The increased proportions of low pay part-time jobs mean\nthat getting a job no longer secures getting out of poverty. Certainly, being\nin work does not necessarily mean being able to save and afford a home of one\u2019s\nown or being able to rent a decent home in a decent neighbourhood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The UK average ratio of house price to earnings, some years\nago, was 4. Now it is around 5.6. With low interest rates and high loan: value\nmortgages, there is a requirement for potential buyers to find higher deposits\nthan previously. Those most able to buy are those with ready access to cash. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Twenty years ago, an average working family could save a\ndeposit on a house in around three years. This now takes 19 years. Housing\ncosts swallow a larger and larger proportion of average household incomes; for\nthose renting this becomes even more acute. Housing is certainly affordable by\nsome, and clearly unaffordable by others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Working people on a low or average wage may once have been\nable to rent or buy a decent home near the city centre (where work often was)\nbut, despite talk of revitalising city-centre living, this is often not now the\ncase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As affordable housing gets squeezed out of central areas,\nthis creates pressures on outer areas in the form of higher rents and higher\nhouse prices. Those on low wages move further and further from the city areas\nwhere low-pay jobs might exist and pay a larger proportion of their income on\ncommuting. The alternative may be for the poor to pay high rents for\nsubstandard places as the only way to stay near to their job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Such housing pressures do not only apply to the poorest\nsector of society. The sharpest fall in UK first-time buyers has been amongst\nthose on middle incomes (earning \u00a320,000-\u00a330,000\/year).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even well-intentioned government schemes to help first-time buyers have ended up benefitting richer households rather than poorer ones, making higher cost housing more affordable to some. Although one scheme only required a 5% deposit, this was out of reach for many low-income families. It has done little for those in rented accommodation looking to secure a stable home. Fewer than 0.2% of privately renting families made use of the scheme in 2018-2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Where houses have been bought to let, at times of rising\ncosts, landlords may have felt justified in charging increased rents to cover\ntheir higher outgoings. Non-affordable purchase prices can thus link on into\nnon-affordable rents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though the overall trend is towards exclusion of many\nfrom the housing market, whether as purchasers or as renters, the processes\npushing housing out of affordability are not happening at the same scale and\npace everywhere. Within the same countries, different cities have different\nhouse price to resident income ratios: Calgary = 3.9; Montreal = 4.1; Toronto =\n8.9; MetroVancouver = 11.4 (within which West Vancouver = 25 and Vancouver City\n= over 30).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Affordability has often been rather simplistically linked to\navailability: Build more homes and the costs will fall, making the average\nhouse affordable again and, as house prices fall, rents will reduce\naccordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Housing supply and demand does not operate in these simple\ntextbook ways. At one level, homes are being built, but if much of this\nbuild is in the most expensive areas of the city, it will remain way above\nordinary affordability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the need being for affordable homes for large\nnumbers of \u2018average\u2019 people, a sizeable amount of recent city-centre build has\nbeen luxury apartments, driven by investment trends as global capital seeks opportunities\nin cities such as New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, Sydney, Singapore and London.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n In London, 80% of recent building proposals were for luxury\nflats with little to show in actual builds of houses with real affordability\nand (in 2015) for every one new affordable home that was built, five were sold\nin the social housing sector. In the UK generally, only 1 in 6 builds are\naffordable homes for rent, even though this is a key category of housing need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spending on new residential construction in New York in 2014\ngrew by 73%, but that only generated 11% more homes. Compared with any declared\npush for more housing, more affordability and a wider range of housing, the\ncity was in reality getting fewer units with each costing more money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, even where concerted efforts are made to build more\nhomes, there is no guarantee that this will create more affordability. The 100%\nrise in UK house prices since the late 1990s was driven as much by low interest\nrates as by lack of availability. Low global interest rates made it easier for homeowners\nand property investors to take on more debt, opening the potential for prices\nto be pushed higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is often a logic chain behind increasing prices: As demand grows (and interest rates make purchases easier), land prices go higher; so it becomes harder to fund \u2018affordable\u2019 projects, which are thus unattractive to private developers; who then build for those who can pay; who are increasingly those with wealth who want a luxury home in a high-cost central area close to key amenities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another chain of events that is all too common is: The developer submits a plan that commits to a required proportion of affordable housing; this moves through the planning approvals of the local council; developers then produce detailed documents making an economic case why the affordable proportion should be reduced on the grounds of economic feasibility ie the whole scheme may not go ahead with that scale of affordable builds; the local authority has had its in-house teams of staff (who would at one time have been available to work through such documents in fine detail) depleted by budget cuts; the developer\u2019s case, for reduced numbers of planned affordable homes, gets accepted relatively unchallenged; delays and revisions at the construction stage mean that things may end up with not even these planned numbers being actually built. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n What starts out as a proposal accepted on the basis of 30%\naffordability easily ends up as a reality of less than 10% of actual builds\nbeing affordable (still leaving the question \u2018Affordable to whom?\u2019). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Successive leaders and mayors of cities have set ambitious targets in their election promises eg \u201850% of homes built will be affordable\u2019 \u2013 only to set reduced targets once elected: \u2018I have set private builders a target of 35% affordable homes\u2019 \u2013 and then struggle to get more than a quarter of developments to attain this level in practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking at one city in particular: Affordability is a key\nfactor in Birmingham, both in terms of purchase and rental properties, even\nthough the city has avoided the excesses of high-cost development seen\nelsewhere. Those seeking to buy a home in the city typically face prices that\nare around 7 times the average income for the city. Average incomes in the city\nare relatively low, whilst market rents are rising. Social housing providers\nmanage a quarter of the total homes in the city, down from a peak but still\nhigher than the national average. Even when rents in this sector are set at 80%\nof market rates, large numbers of families are still not able to afford this\nrent level. 95% of privately rented properties have rents that would not be\nfully covered by the local housing allowance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the positive sides of Birmingham can have impacts on\nhousing issues in the city. Living costs are estimated to be up to 60% lower\nthan in London. Partly because of this, Birmingham has benefitted from the\nrelocation, into the city, of around 25,000 professionals between 2013-2016, adding\nmore pressure on housing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The city has 3 major universities, with a total of more than\n90,000 students to be accommodated. Birmingham is, additionally, a young city,\nwith around 40% of the population being under-25. If they stay in the city as\nadults, and add to its future, this is likely to mean more families needing\nmore homes. Even if there were sufficient homes for the young population these\nare often not affordable to those who are on low income, unemployed or subject\nto welfare benefit restrictions. The affordable housing needs of young people\nand young families is a key feature of the housing calculations of a number of\ncities, for example if young people continue to live with their family for\nlonger, sustaining a strong need for larger homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although housing is a key political issue, none of the above solely relies on which party is in power nationally or locally. Similar processes are in place under various administrations. City leaders do the best they can but seem to have been unable to get much leverage on those things that keep houses in the \u2018affordable\u2019 range. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Renting a home<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rental costs in cities have been on a recent upward trend. In\nUK cities, private renting used to be cheaper than owning a house, giving some\nfamilies the chance to save for a deposit. Since the financial crisis of 2008,\nmortgage interest rates have remained very low but rents have increased, making\nrenting a comparatively expensive form of housing. Despite this, renting\ndoubled over the 2005-2015 period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Greater London rents rose by 22% over the five years\n2010-2015. Economists suggest that, if the city is to become more competitive\nand to remain viable as a way of living for the majority, Londoners should only\nbe paying around 30% of their salary on housing compared with the 50-60% that\nthey currently pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are some predictions that the rate of rent rises may be slowing down. Still in the next decade to 2026, within current trends, 90% of Britons under 35 on modest incomes are likely to be frozen out of the possibility of home ownership. Responding to surveys, this is a proportion who say that they see no hope of owning a home unless a house, or a deposit on a home, gets handed on to them from parents. They anticipate living back with their parents for a while and then being renters for a good number of years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is the belief that continual rent rises are not a\nfeasible way forward for any city if it is to have a mixed, engaged population.\nA Joseph Rowntree Fund report \u2018Living Rents\u2019 suggested that, to make renting\nmore affordable, rents should be linked to a proportion of local earnings\nrather than to property values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Social housing at low rents has been the protection against\nhousing costs pushing people into poverty, but increasingly rents for new lets\nare linked to a dysfunctional private market so that, even in the social sector,\nrents have risen by around 20% (2010-2015). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Rents have been rising whilst incomes remain relatively\nstable and whilst those needing to rely on social housing are having their\nability to pay reduced as welfare caps have been lowered and welfare incomes\nsqueezed. Ever-increasing rents require more and more people to rely on housing\nbenefit support to be able to meet those rents. A system that was designed for\na time of more stable rents is now a major component of the welfare budget, as\nlandlord incomes are protected. Previous regimes of state-provided housing may\nhave been a normal part of social support but increasing numbers reliant on\nhousing welfare payments bring their own range of political and social reactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can social rents simply be reduced, to make them more\naffordable and to reduce the reliance on housing support? Based on predictions\nof rent\/incomes ratios to 2040, affordability might be maintained if social\nrents were to be cut by a small percentage each year over the next several\nyears. However, this would probably mean building fewer affordable homes over\nthat period since housing associations would have calculated the costs of such\nfuture builds as being offset by increased rents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The level of rent paid is important, but renter experience also\nrelies heavily on the quality and experience of their landlord. There are estimates\nthat a third of UK private landlords are well-meaning and do a good job; a\nthird are well-meaning but don\u2019t do a good job; and a third are unscrupulous\/do\nbad job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In this last category are those situations where sub-standard\nproperties are increasingly becoming normal for some families. In some cities,\nup to a third of private lets do not meet basic standards. There has been a\nrapid growth in illegal structures in back gardens (\u2018beds in sheds\u2019),\nsub-divided rooms, and the renting out of unsafe or unhealthy premises. Adverts\ncan be for rental of rooms with space for 4 people (at \u00a3200\/month each). Places\ncan be let to one person who sublets to others, who further sublet, resulting\nin shared premises with 15-20 people there. In some cases, a person may rent a\nplace then re-let it at 25% higher. There may, sometimes, be links to\ntrafficking and extortionate home+work arrangements. Some rooms are offered in\nreturn for \u2018benefits\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There have been demands for more regular and robust schemes of\nlandlord registration and inspection. There are calls to take even the simplest\nsteps eg changing the language from \u2018rogue\u2019 landlord to \u2018criminal\u2019 landlord.\nAnomalies are pointed out (eg Are there really more regulations to run a\ncattery in the UK than to rent out homes?). City officers do what they can,\nwithin reducing staffing and budgets, to visit and issue enforcement notices.\nMany landlords simply comply whilst the pressure is on, then ignore when things\nquieten down. Central government has often been opposed to legislating for area-wide\nregistration schemes, leaving the establishment of these to localised\ninitiatives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even in well-run properties, there are often constraints and\nrestrictions on what decorating can be done, whether pets are allowed, how many\npictures can be hung on walls etc. Agreements can be terminated or not renewed.\nFinancial guarantees and deposits can be asked for a range of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some cities are taking steps to make life easier for\nrenters. New York has its version of rent stabilisation ie restrictions on\nin-contract rent increases, length of contracts etc. Berlin is attempting forms\nof rent control that include better enforcing of existing controls, no rent\nabove 10% more than the average rent in each micro-neighbourhood, plus a 5-year\nhalt on any private rent increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vancouver has piloted a housing programme of purpose-built rental buildings with at least 20% set aside at below-market rents for those earning middle-incomes ($30-80k\/year). An agreement is struck that rents can\u2019t be pushed up when tenants move and tenants can easily move to a different home within the building. This is offset by allowing developers to construct taller buildings, with smaller units and reduced parking requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Without strong effective control over landlord\/tenant\nrelationships, cities could find themselves with more insecure young adults\nmoving more often to areas that are cheaper and less well connected – areas of\nsubstandard, unsafe, insecure spaces for rent at just-affordable levels, with\nthe build-up of a range of social issues: None of which contribute to cities\nbeing the flourishing, productive, liveable places they often aspire to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a more extreme level, proposals have been suggested for\ntenants to have a right to buy the privately rented flat they live in, at below\nmarket value. This is likely to have a set of consequences other than those\nsimply intended and, if it involves any form of compulsory purchase or\ncompulsory sale, is unlikely to gain broad public support. At the other end of\nthe scale, it has to be remembered that a number of effective landlords can\nbecome the victims of antisocial, or simply inconsiderate tenants. Tenant\nrights and tenant responsibilities need both to be addressed if there is to be\na thriving, adequate private rental system across a city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These are some of the immediate issues, but there are also\nlonger-term considerations. If people are currently paying 40% of their income\non rent, and if many people\u2019s incomes typically halve after retirement, then (even\nif rent rises are held at the same rate as increases in wages) those people face\nthe prospect of having to use 80% of their retirement income on rent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This could make more demands on state top-up support, or\nmean moving into unfit, cheaper privately rented accommodation, which may be\ncostly to provide the levels of heating necessary. Even if the state provides\nor subsidises homes for those less independent, the increasing numbers of older\npeople will, of itself, require the equivalent of at least an additional 21,000\nextra suitable social housing homes in the UK stock. Pensioner poverty has\nsteadily reduced in many cities, but the rental \u2018market\u2019 may start to unravel\nthis over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For those not yet retiring, straightforward renting remains\na major form of tenure and probably will remain so for some time, even if it is\nnot the only option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There may be more of a role to be played by institutional investors, such as pension funds, who can focus on long-term stability over generations. The financial reserves and social intentions of these organisations might enable them to build at scale for lower costs, which could mean lower rents. This, in turn, might make renting a more accepted part of the housing structure rather than, in some cases, being portrayed as \u2018for those who cannot buy\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other tenure formats are based on variants of residents\u2019\nmanagement companies, community trusts, or housing cooperatives where homes are\nowned by the community of residents who are able to exert some control over\ntheir own situations. Shared ownership schemes allow tenants to incrementally\npurchase larger shares of the home they live in. In the UK, this equity is bought\nin blocks of 10%, although there are proposals to make this easier by reducing\nthis so that smaller steps can be taken towards home ownership. This can, at\nthe same time, make things more costly since at each stage residents pay for\nvaluations, conveyancing and mortgage adjustment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cohousing encourages individuals to get together and buy\nurban sites to build housing with communal aspects. The structure is often around\na Community Land Trust, which purchases the land upon which mutual housing\nassociations put up the buildings, that are then sold or rented at affordable\nrates. In housing cooperatives people take responsibility for where they live\nas the onus for upkeep is shifted onto the user, freeing them from the vagaries\nof a poor landlord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These alternatives provide for some stability so long as rent\nis paid and rules are followed. They can also bring some increases in diversity\neg young savers + low-income seniors. Where they exist, these arrangements can\nbe in demand. In Toronto, a newly completed set of cooperative builds had 1200\napplicants for 12 available units. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Wrapped around all of this, other trends seem likely. Demographics look set to change; ratios of owners\/renters look set to change; current financial models may make private renting of a decent home an option for only a more affluent section of people. Growing social pressures and social change concerning renting seem inevitable. Renting issues are a consequence of city changes, but, themselves, also act as wider drives for change in cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What follows are different figures, taken from different (mainly\nUK) sources, and relate to different aspects of housing contexts. Taken\ntogether, however, they may give a surface sense of the concerns around the pace\nand scale of housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are 22.6 million households in England. 17% (3.8m) of\nthese rent via social housing, involving around 5 million people. UK projected\npopulation growth is around 200,000 households\/year. There were 171,000 net new\nadditions to the nation\u2019s housing stock in 2014\/15, up 25% on previous year,\nbut this trend didn\u2019t continue. The figure for 2018-19 was 169,770.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of the total population of adults with homes, around 2.5 million cannot afford where they live; more than 1.5 million live in substandard homes; and more than 3.5 million live in overcrowded conditions. Even allowing for overlaps between these groups, this is still somewhere near 10% of people. It is a political decision whether such a figure is acceptable or needs urgent remedial action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These are the kinds of headline figures used to make a\npoint. They rarely delve into the subtleties behind the numbers, and rarely\nrepresent any reality on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most recurring political commitment is to the number of homes that will get built. David Cameron\u2019s government (in 2017) pledged 200,000\/year, but the number of starts actually fell. Theresa May\u2019s government wanted to build 300,000 houses\/year from 2020 but said that it was also vital to assess any likely impact on local communities (a process likely to slow building down) and, as it turns out, her government didn\u2019t last until that date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The headline figures usually seek to maximise themselves by referring to builds of all types. The number of new builds that can be defined as affordable to low-income families is less than 10% of the total figure, and has been at this low proportion since responsibility for the provision of social housing was given to private developers (as a negotiated percentage of their total new builds) and to social housing associations (working on reduced or limited budgets). <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2010, with more than 1 million UK households waiting for\nsocial housing, there were 30,000 fewer social homes being built. Over 7 years (2010-2017)\nthere was a massive drop in the number of UK government-funded socially rented\nhomes being built each year as the money housing associations got from\ngovernment for each new home reduced from 50% to 20%. Instead of the 100,000 or\nso that might have been built, the figure in 2018 had reduced to 6,000. To get\nto a figure that would have some relation to need, the amount of government\nfunding required would be ten times the amount invested in that year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This reduced the overall stock of social\/affordable homes\nand left the responsibility for making up any shortfall with private developers.\nAs we have seen, private developers have often found reasons to not deliver on\nthis responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Statistics can get used in different ways. Defining the\nrelevant numbers is not straightforward; nor is the concept of \u2018need\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A major UK housing charity has put the number of additional\nsocial homes needed at 3 million. From a\ndifferent perspective, there is a need for 340,000 new homes\/year, year on year\nwell into the future \u2013 a figure not attained since the end of the 1960s. On\nother criteria, there is only an absolute \u2018need\u2019 for 60,000 homes (to house\npeople in temporary accommodation), or 90,000\/year for the next 10 years (to\nstart to clear the waiting lists for social housing \u2013 even though those lists\nare only around 50% of those needing homes ie do not include those unwillingly\nback home in the parental home, or those reluctantly sharing a home even though\na relationship has broken down). The rest is \u2018demand\u2019. In whatever way\nstatistics get presented and played around with, there is a generally agreed\nlack of sufficient good homes for the people who need them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The absolute number of new homes built is itself only part\nof the consideration. Numbers are important but (in addition to affordability) we\nalso need to think about quality, location and infrastructure. Yes, it is about\nhomes for how many people and whether any groups of people are a priority, but\nit is also about what gets built at what levels of density; designed to what\nstandards; the extent to which children have space to grow or older\/infirm\nadults can easily move around; and whether they are being built in the right\nplaces and at the right speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond that, there are the ideas that a home is not just a\nphysical box for living in or a dormitory to sleep in. Houses can be emotional\nspaces, allowing people to experience a sense of place and their role within it:\na contributor to some feelings of belonging and togetherness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2018, only 1 in 10 people in private sector built homes\nfelt that they were adequate for modern living. Some of this was to do with\nquality and some with design. Overall, only 7% of housing stock was determined\nas having basic accessibility features \u2013 nowhere near the level needed for the\nnumber of frail older people or people with disabilities that need a range of accessibilities\nbuilt-in, and certainly not a good base for any increase in those numbers. For\ntoo many people, there may be a house but not an appropriate home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, successive governments have tended to be\njudged solely against their headline target number of starts. This can be\ndifferent from the numbers completed in a reasonable timescale and doesn\u2019t\nalways mean that these buildings comply with accepted housing standards, or are\naffordable, or are best placed in relation to transport and green open spaces\nas well as to jobs and services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rate of completion is arguably more important than the\nnumber of starts. In one example, planning permissions increased by 60%\n(2010-15) but there was only a 48% increase in numbers of new homes built. Over\nthe same period, the length of time to build a house jumped from 24 to 32\nweeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Builders blame the planning systems of local authorities for\ndelays and shortfalls in housing builds. Planning decisions can take too long;\nor be too restrictive. Delays in starting to build can create pressures at the\nother end of a contract, with a rush to complete against schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the UK\u2019s largest housebuilding companies has made\nhuge profits from public \u2018help to buy\u2019 initiatives with much of this going out\nas disproportionately large bonuses for top executives. However, to meet\ncontractual commitments, the company worked at such a pace on numbers that\nhouses were handed over to purchasers with leaks, cracked windows, and dozens\nof other faults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Delivery of new homes may get restricted by a range of locational factors There is no endless supply of open tracts of build-ready land just waiting for contractors to put spade to soil. Sometimes contractors have to wait too long for the \u2018right\u2019 land to become available. There can be green belt regulations, land hoarding etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To counter some of the blockages that prevent houses being\nbuilt at the scale and pace needed, ministers have contemplated pushing\ndevelopers to buy publicly-owned land; to commit to rapid construction;\npromoting the use of ready-made homes built off-site; and splitting\ndevelopments across a number of developers via local plans that allocate enough\nsites of different sizes to be attractive to a range of building companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Public consultations can affect building rates, or whether\nanything gets built at all. London wanted to build hundreds of homes on\nouter-area tube station car parks: a proposal resisted as removing a key\nfacility for commuters. In Vancouver, objections were raised to houses being\nbuilt close to a hospice facility. These issues can be resolved through planning\nengagement processes. Such processes are valid and necessary but need to be\ntaken into account when predicting realistic numbers of actual builds to\ncompletion within a particular timescale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is all to meet some projected housing demand. Housing demand, however, is not a fixed entity. It is pushed by a generous tax system for property-owners; net immigration and demographic changes; local property tax levels; a perceived need to get an early foot on the housing ladder; housing seen as assets to trade not homes to live in etc. Dealing with such issues will antagonise whole sets of vested interests \u2013 but not dealing with them may itself create increasing social pressures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Responding to \u2018need\u2019 or \u2018demand\u2019 is only partly about building\ntotally new constructions from scratch. A significant part of housing activity\nis the conversion of old industrial and commercial premises. New possibilities\nopen up as contexts change. There is a current focus on the decline of UK local\nHigh Streets. Change of planning use means that former retail and commercial\npremises can be repurposed for housing use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As local council care homes get to the end of their viability,\nin terms of needing costly repair, they are being sold off to developers,\nsometimes for conversion into housing blocks. The care system itself, in a number\nof cities, is being contracted to large for-profit organisations. It is easy to\nlose sight that the new premises built by those organisations as modern care\nfacilities are still home for those who live there and not merely spaces to be\nlet at high rents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whilst, there has been a recent increase in traditional new builds (up by 8,860\/year to 163,940), property conversions increased the UK housing stock by 11% (30,600 units). Part of this change of use was 12,824 office-to-flats conversions. Some of these office blocks were bleak towers in suburban locations. In one London borough, a few years ago, 50% of available office space was empty. Much of this was 1960s blocks no longer suitable for office use but deemed OK for conversion into homes under new planning permissions. In many cases, these permitted conversions have produced \u2018units\u2019 that fail to meet accepted minimum space standards. Reduced space in homes has its own impacts on mental health, on children\u2019s developments, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New builds plus conversions added an equivalent of 190,000\nnew dwellings to the housing stock in England in 2015-16. This total was still\nshort of the 200,000\/year government target \u2013 which was itself below the government\nreview estimate of 250,000\/year required to increase the flow of new stock and\nto replace out-dated stock and, as we have seen, fell in subsequent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of house purchasing, buying new properties (whether\nnew builds or conversions) accounts for only around 10% of home transactions. The\nother 90%, the exchange of existing property, whilst not impacting on growth of\nthe housing stock, has its own impact on house prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further complications in the numbers game include the extent\nto which properties are left lying unused, the proportion purchased as\nhouses-for-rent and the uneven geographical distribution of available properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are various reasons why properties are left empty.\nSome are unfit properties awaiting demolition. Some is social housing earmarked\nfor renovation. Some are rental properties lying empty between tenancies. Some\nare short-term vacancies linked to student accommodation and university dates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Students can constitute one substantial group of residents\nthat needs accommodation. In some cases, cities and universities work together\nto ensure a concerted build of modern accommodation for students, releasing\nwhole areas of relatively cheap housing for sale or for rent by others. There\nare benefits to the youthful buzz students can bring to a city, and the fact\nthat some stay on after graduating and add to the creative base of the city. In\nterms of housing, however, there are downsides in the large numbers of\nproperties in the same streets that are used by students for only part of the year\nand on a high-turnover; and a hollowing out of the character of an area where\nthere are a proliferation of take-aways, little demand for school places, or few\ncommunity networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At other times, properties can be left empty for long\nperiods by an absent owner who retains it as an occasional base to stay at whilst\nin that city. In other cases, the property is deliberately left empty, with no\nintention of occupying it, as an investment in the land on which the building\nstands. In both cases, small areas can become almost ghostly in their lack of\nresident activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The scale of homes not-in-use can be very large. There are an estimated 216,000 long-term empty homes in England alone, up by 11,000 (5%) on the previous year. If these can be brought back into use as adequate homes, this will meet over 70% of the government\u2019s annual target for delivering additional homes in that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other cities have their own issues with levels of empty\nproperties and cities are generally aware of the political difficulties\nresulting from any substantial mismatch between housing need and the obvious\nexistence of large numbers of empty properties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes a major event can bring the issue to the fore. At\nthe time of the Grenfell Tower fire in London there was a need to rapidly\nrehouse those affected. Local surveys quickly identified a large number of\nunoccupied properties in the same area but matching these vacancies with the\nacute need was far from simple because of issues of ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nor is it just whole houses that are empty. It is calculated\nthat London has 92,000 more bedrooms than people. There are more than 2 million\nempty bedrooms in Toronto and hundreds of thousands of empty bedrooms in\nVancouver. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In Birmingham (UK) there are pockets of overcrowding in the city. In a third of the city there is a shortage of at least one bedroom in 10%-20% of homes.\u00a0 At the same time, in three-quarters of the city, half of homes (across all tenures) have at least one spare bedroom. There is a particular shortage of larger homes. Birmingham has had considerable success in bringing empty properties back into use, based on identification of empty properties and encouraging (or requiring where necessary) owners to unlock the potential of this wasted resource to create more good quality, affordable housing in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In various cities there have been calls for more to be done to support home-sharing between different generations, providing affordable housing for younger people and countering the loneliness or isolation experienced by some older people. It can sometimes be practicable to split larger homes to create separate units and thus free up the space to those looking for housing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The UK government encourages the renting out of spare rooms via tax breaks for homeowners but takes a more punitive approach in any home that receives welfare by imposing an income cut for \u2018spare\u2019 bedrooms. Initially, this had some surface logic to it as a way of getting people to move to smaller properties and free up unused space, but ignored the practicalities of rooms being used for disability equipment, rooms being kept for children away at university or in the army etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even without issues of non-occupancy, the distribution of\nneed and availability is not evenly spread across a country. In the UK there is\nan acute housing shortage in London\/the South-East and cheap homes available in\nsome Northern areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In cities such as Stoke it is possible to buy houses for as\nlittle as \u00a31. Purchasers need to take out a low-interest \u00a330,000 renovation\nloan; commit to staying in the house for at least 5 years before they can sell;\nhave to be a first-time buyer, in paid work and have a good credit rating or savings.\nThese actions have brought back into use properties that were built more than a\ncentury ago, but which are structurally sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Leeds, Liverpool and other cities, models have seen the\nlocal council working with other organisations and groups of potential\nresidents to bring dilapidated houses, that have been empty for years, awaiting\ndemolition, back into use as modern warm serviceable homes. The people moving\nin have been supported in learning the skills necessary to improve their\nadopted houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even in the case of more standard construction models, the number\nof more recently built homes available in different neighbourhoods can be\nheavily reliant on local planning regulations and assumptions, such as zonings\nand the density at which housing can be built. Density in New York, Madrid, Moscow\netc has traditionally been linked to the norm of 8-12 storey buildings, whereas\nLondon\u2019s Victorian\/Edwardian homes were more usually constructed over only 3-6\nstoreys. The current city trend is for high-tower builds. Cities need an\nappropriate mix of density done well, often using new construction methods,\nenabled by sound planning assumptions that can be adapted to new possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are relentless debates about numbers. These range\nacross a number of aspects: need vs demand; starts vs completions; new builds\nvs existing properties; affordability vs exclusivity; location and density;\nfully-occupied vs partial-vacancy \u2013 all contributing to the scale of the\nhousing issue and the pace with which it gets addressed. Within all of this, focusing\non the numbers themselves can be a distraction from exploring the underlying\nstructures and processes that led to those numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gentrifications, renovations and redevelopments<\/strong> Such upgrading of an area is not necessarily, in itself, a\nbad thing. There are poor neighbourhoods where finance is hard to borrow,\nhousing improvement is beyond the reach of most people, landlords are reluctant\nto renovate, and modern enterprises are absent ie they remain places that, even\nat the basic level, don\u2019t flourish. Where there are issues are when a perfectly\nadequate area\u2019s existing community gets progressively displaced by the process and\nits networks get broken apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More recently, the term has been applied not to such\npiecemeal change but to the wholesale reconstruction of an entire neighbourhood.\nLarge-scale redevelopments, if done well, can improve the existing community. New\nmoney coming in can, however, be both an answer and a problem. It depends on intent.\nThe focus can be one of simple financial investment for profit by clearing\nspace for high-cost homes unaffordable to existing residents, or the focus can\nbe on how any incoming investment balances improvements for existing residents\nand for new ones moving into the rejuvenated area. There is a big difference\nbetween opening high-end shops and wine bars and opening low-end supermarkets\nand extra social facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There has been a recent surge in estate renovations with residents\nbeing promised like-for-like replacement of their homes, then half as many\nhomes being let at \u2018social rent\u2019 as were there before redevelopment, or even no\nsocial housing built at all. Private rents get set at higher levels and\nprevious tenants find themselves priced out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Even smaller-scale developments can follow the same trend. A\nsingle house on a large plot can be purchased by a developer at a price above\nthat able to be paid by a regular buyer, the building demolished, and denser multi-storey\nbuilding erected in its place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether at the whole-community redevelopment level or at the\nlevel of individual landlord renovation of a single set of apartments, where rents\nget hiked up and there are no available alternative properties in the locality,\ndisplaced renters have no choice but to leave their community. This has\nknock-on effects: children change schools; travel to work costs go up; there\ncan be longer hours away from home, pushing up other costs such as childcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The more these kinds of displacements happen the more renewals\ncreate tenant and activist reactions. Campaign slogans emerge around social\nhousing not social cleansing; housing becoming playgrounds for the rich; rich\nputting money into bank vaults in the sky; loss of neighbourhood diversity and\nvitality; housing policies tearing communities apart; and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cities are all too aware of these effects but there are\nvariations in how they respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In some cities, individual landlord renovation plans are scrutinised\nby officers to ensure that the proposed changes are really needed ie are not simply\nartificial opportunities to push up rents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vancouver councillors recently proposed significantly\nincreasing the compensation to renters evicted so that buildings can be\nredeveloped. The proposal only applies to new development permits and not to where\nan owner is simply renovating. Landlord organisations argue that this could\nprevent much-needed developments from happening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Toronto has had a high level of investment in its inner-city\nareas, often involving the high-rise condominium towers preferred by private\ndevelopers. The approach was the planned re-urbanisation of the city centre to\nattract more creative-class workers, by refurbishing brownfield sites. This has\nhad some success in bringing in new populations but also seems to be fostering an\nincreasing separation of the city into neighbourhoods based on wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In UK cities, most recent large-scale city redevelopments have relied on the same large private developers. Where councils themselves, rather than private developers, take responsibilities for large-scale redevelopments then there can be a different focus \u2013 one on placemaking for citizens. Some time ago, however, the Thatcher government removed such local government right to build. Although this was restored to some extent, it has constantly been under threat, local authority finance restricted, and expectations established that large-scale work is best left to the private sector or is only feasible if taken forward via public\/private partnerships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some local authorities have taken advantage of the removal\nof restrictions on their being allowed to build. One third of London boroughs\nhave set up their own local development companies. Other cities have done the\nsame, with their own in-house architects. This brings back the local aspiration\nto create a long-lasting stock of homes, and to create flourishing and sustainable\nneighbourhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Older or unsuitable housing will still need demolition or rebuilding, but it can be done far more carefully if under some form of local control eg by the sequential refurbishing of one block then another, enabling residents who wish to remain to still be rehoused in the locality whilst work is underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There have been calls for an acceptance that gentrification\ncan bring benefits to a neighbourhood and a recognition that this is likely to\nraise the locational value of properties making them more attractive to buy-to-let\ninvestors and land speculators. Rather than taxing property, the proposal is\nthat the process gets based on a tax on the value of the land. In that way the\nadded value that comes from local improvements has a chance of being reinvested\nback into local communities rather than flowing out to investors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sitting behind some of this lies the issue of who decides what\ngets done. When change is proposed for an area, to what extent is that taken\nforward behind closed doors, or with some structured form of consultation, or\ncould it be resident-informed? Some cities are looking at formal structures to\nlook at, and make decisions about, a range of housing issues. In some cases,\nthis takes the form of representatives, along the lines of a selected panel or\na citizen-jury, who review city proposals and priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regeneration is just one more facet in the complexity of\nhousing issues where city officers and politicians find themselves caught\nbetween the interests of local citizens and the reliance on development\ncompanies to improve the localities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n External investment and ownership<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Housing a city\u2019s residents may seem, at first, to be a purely\nlocal issue but we have already seen the reliance not just on local\ndecision-making but also on national government decisions. An influence from\nfurther afield is the flow of international\/global finance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New developments are not necessarily promoted locally but are\nsometimes initially launched on overseas markets. It has been suggested that\nthe proportion of new inner London developments that never get advertised in\nthe UK may be as high as 75%. Certainly, foreign purchasers were (in 2015) buying\n80% of properties in a series of riverside developments in London. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the case of one 50-storey apartment complex in London the building is 62% foreign owned. The 5-storey penthouse is owned by the family of a Russian oligarch; 25% is owned by off-shore companies; the rest is distributed across various nationalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are varying reasons why London property is attractive\nto overseas purchasers. Some is bought as dwellings that are then left empty\nfor part of the year as people move between countries (so are more like private\nhotels rather than homes). Some is to provide a base in a city where their\nchildren may go to study. There is also the simple prestige of having physical\nties with particular global cities. A small proportion is simply investment with\nno intention of anyone living there as the property slowly dilapidates and the\nland increases in value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 1970s\/80s, there was a noted increase in land and building acquisition by individuals, corporations and wealth funds from oil-rich countries in the Middle East. Two decades later, money was coming from Russia and the post-soviet states. China has been one recent strong source of overseas property purchasing in key cities. This has partly been due to an outflow of finance from China driven by fear of devaluation of the yuan. Partly it is a result of a resurgence of the Chinese economy with a rise in middle incomes accompanied by people seeking an investment portfolio, with property-management seen as a relatively easy option. There are indications that the rate is starting to decline for various reasons associated with falling currency rates, increased checks on the sources of money, falling house prices as Brexit uncertainty looms etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a number of cities, there are signs of nervousness about\nthe scale of these investments from abroad, even if it still only adds up to\n5-10% of the total in the city. One concern is that a proportion of the activity\nrelies on dodgy or dirty money, and this may foster a reputation of the city as\na base for money-laundering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The more investment there is, the more likely that measures\nmay be introduced to protect local buyers. Many cities (Hong Kong, Singapore,\nNew York, etc) limit overseas non-resident acquisition of property. Vancouver\nand other cities impose an overseas-purchase tax. Where a city is determined to\nact, the situation can be substantially influenced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Land<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Control of large tracts of land rests with a tiny number of\npeople. Some landowners are private corporations, some are the established\naristocratic families. Land ownership and land use is a relatively neglected\nissue in British politics. Land has key connections to many of the sections\nabove but relatively little appeared in the articles, news reports, and\nconversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 1995, land values in the UK have risen by 412%. Homes have become so expensive not because costs of bricks and mortar (or construction wages) are higher but because the land that they sit on now accounts for 70% of their price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There have been dramatic surges in wealth over the last\ncouple of decades since deregulation, particularly recently as asset-rich\ngroups have made use of cheaper debts and mortgages to acquire further assets\nsuch as agricultural land. When planning permission is then granted on this agricultural\nland, its value can rise 250-fold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Land assets can further benefit from various tax exemptions\nand regulations. In the UK, the profit from land-trading is taxed as capital\ngains at a lower rate than the tax on earned income. The power of landowners\nand construction companies, and the tax benefits they accrue, can largely shape\nwhat gets built, where, at what speed and in what volumes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n City authorities can themselves be significant landowners.\nOver recent years, where there have been pressures on city budgets, disposing\nof land assets has been seen as a way of solving immediate budget issues.\nFurther down the line, cities have found themselves needing land and even\nhaving to pay more to repurchase land already sold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Housebuilders prefer to build on open land rather than\nconverting brownfield sites. Countering the desire of some landowners to sell\ngreenfield sites for building on, there are areas that are protected as Green\nBelt, areas of natural beauty or areas of scientific interest. Encroaching on\nthese public assets usually generates some strong reaction. In the drive to\nincrease housebuilding some of these sites, on the outer edges of cities, are\ndeclassified. The justification for this is often based on projections of city\npopulation growth. Some argue, however, that such projections are based on old\nor unreliable predictions that are higher than more recent statistics would\nsuggest. Houses then get planned for people who are unlikely to materialise, and\nthis results in sites being released but only half the number of homes being\nbuilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pending any overhaul of land ownership, planners and\ndevelopers have to use what land is most readily available at a price that is\naffordable. Inside London\u2019s green belt, on post-industrial land, there is space\nfor more than 400,000 new homes and thousands of unimplemented planning\npermissions for this land. In New York, 75% of empty lots have been unused for\n30 years or more \u2013 and half of these can be built on. There is land. It simply needs\nbuilders to get on and build. Or maybe things are never that simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To expect private builders to build at speed is, however, to\nexpect them to use up land when price might be rising and to have to account to\nshareholders for this use of their assets. To offset any loss of valuable\nland-asset, a solution is to build more homes, smaller homes, more cheaply on\nany single piece of land. Profits can then be maintained and houses can be somewhat\naffordable \u2013 but at some social costs to individuals and to society as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Small actions can be taken by cities. In Vancouver, for\nexample, where a lot is empty because it is awaiting planning permission, a developer\ncan get reduced city business rates if they allow the space to be used, in the\ninterim, as a community garden or an urban dog-exercise space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Birmingham, the City Council is the single largest\nlandowner in the city, holding the largest land estate of any UK local authority.\nThe population is estimated to grow by 150,000 over the next 15 years. This\nsteadily increasing population will place a high demand on the existing housing\nstock and on the need for new sites to be brought forward for building on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The city has millions of square feet of industrial and\ncommercial floor space. The city can also identify day centres, sheltered\nhousing schemes, and other such properties, which are no longer fit for purpose\nand can be redirected for housing development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the priority demand for housing in Birmingham, sites\ncan be accelerated to provide affordable homes by early granting of outline\nplanning permissions, allocation of the site for custom\/self-build; and ensuring\nearly development by using Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust as the leading\ndeliverer of housing in the city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Homelessness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Homelessness figures are rising in many cities. In England,\nhomelessness is at its highest level in more than a decade. As a result of\nyears of austerity, changes to welfare regulations and rising rents, one family\nbecomes homeless every 4 minutes. The overall numbers are unacceptably large.\nUK figures released in 2019 showed more than 260,000 households facing a crisis\nof homelessness of one kind or another. This headline figure can hide a variety\nof things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to the 126,000 children in officially homeless\nfamilies, and the 90,000 placed in temporary accommodation or \u2018sofa-surfing\u2019\nwith families, there are an estimated 375,000 children in households that are\nbehind with rent or mortgage payments and thus at risk of homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Discussions around homelessness can be clouded by varying\ndefinitions. There are categories of homelessness within homelessness within\nhomelessness. At the same time, each homeless person is a unique individual in\ntheir own right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 2016 estimated (England) figures was that 3369 people\nslept rough on any one night in 2015. This was up a third on 2014 and double\nsince 2010. This was, however, only a proportion of the 54,000\nassisted-homeless; itself part of the 112,000 people making a homeless\napplication for help. So, homelessness isn\u2019t simply a matter of people sleeping\non the streets in dangerous conditions. This exists, obviously, and at relatively\nstable numbers but for every 2 rough sleepers there are 98 homeless hidden from\nview. Homelessness in cities, it seems, needs a different narrative than the\nsimple focus on one visible particular group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who are a city\u2019s homeless people? There are some groups\nconsidered to be priority categories: families,\npregnant people, vulnerable individuals, and care-leavers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The biggest group receiving help are families evicted from\nprivate rental accommodation and unable to find any local alternative, or whose\ntenancy ends with no affordable alternative to go to. A similarly large group\nare those where families and friends are no longer willing to offer temporary\naccommodation. Around half of those a local authority is obliged to assist are\nsingle parents (cf these being 9.2% of households) often in low-paid work with\nchildcare costs to meet. A strong complicating factor, particularly in the UK\ntoday, is where personal finances are thrown into disarray by delays and errors\nin welfare system payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A large recurring group is single young men moving to cities to seek work. After a while a proportion return home or move on elsewhere. Some stay, as a trade-off for the social benefits of the city lifestyle. For some of these it is OK to sofa-surf when single, but everything changes when they have a family. For a remaining few the future is one of drifting from one homeless hostel to another or spending time sleeping rough \u2013 in street doorways, in parks, increasingly clustered together for safety, with a growth in unofficial tent-based developments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 25% of families at risk of homelessness, in the UK, have at\nleast one adult in work. This ranges from almost 50% in a few areas to nearer\n15% in areas where housing costs are cheaper. So, whilst unemployment is a\nstrong determinant of homelessness for many people, being in work is certainly\nno protector against homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are sometimes, in addition, a range of drugs\/ drink\/ mental health\/ relationship issues where homelessness is a symptom not a cause. From that point on, though, homelessness becomes a contributing factor to the continuation of an individual\u2019s social problems. What such individuals really need is housing with support; with interactions; with links to services, if their lives are to get out of any downward spiral into some hope of getting back on a better track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 2018 UK Homeless Reduction Act puts specific duties on local councils, who do what they can in difficult circumstances. They are leasing privately rented houses, renovating disused sheltered housing, buying and assembling modular homes for erection on council-owned parcels of land, and using static caravan-style accommodation. Where not enough houses are available, the temporary response is to house families in Bed and Breakfast accommodation. Where there are large increases in demand, this can mean councils breaking the law and putting families in temporary accommodation for longer than 6 weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n London councils end up paying private landlords more than\n\u00a314 million\/year in incentives to house homeless people at a time when grants\nfor support services are being cut. \u00a38,300 \u2018sweeteners\u2019 are given away in\naddition to rent, when the better solution is to build more social housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n City councils are expected to deal with spikes in housing\nneed. When council budgets and staffing are not sufficient to adequately meet\nthe needs of an increase in numbers coming forward for help, there can be huge pressures\non frontline staff. In these contexts, it is easier to focus on short-term\nfixes than on the longer-term social restructuring. This can easily become a tightening\nin definitions of \u2018need\u2019 and a hardening culture around \u2018take our first housing\noffer (wherever\/whatever\/ however suitable or unreasonable) or we no longer have\nany responsibility for you\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There have been examples of cities giving homeless people\none-way tickets to other places. This may help to meet some local target\nreduction in numbers but doesn\u2019t change any overall situation, and certainly (in\nitself) does nothing to improve the lives of those moved on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Successive national and local governments commit themselves\nto tackling homelessness. Any efforts to change things are against the backdrop\nof the same structural issues still being there: housing instability; soaring\nrents; declining social stock; cuts to housing benefit rates; cuts to tenant\nsupport services; and loss of legal aid. Any attempt to tackle homelessness has also to\ntackle these other issues. Additionally, there will need to be linked work\nwithin the care systems, the health system, the welfare system and the justice\nsystem \u2013 recognising the impacts these can have on the likelihood of people\nbeing made homeless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Things are being done in various places. Four city examples\nfollow: Manchester, Birmingham, Helsinki and Vancouver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Manchester, in the years after 2010, had a steeper than normal rise in those sleeping on its streets. In 2017, the mayor was elected partly on a pledge to end rough sleeping by 2020. Instead of opening homeless shelters only when temperatures plummet, the city offers every homeless person emergency shelter for the night then helps them find stable accommodation \u2013 funded by government grant plus a payment-by-results social impact bond (private investors get paid if people worked with stay off the streets). Opening up shelters means people can return to the same bed each night and thus get engaged more by volunteers. Beyond this, finding longer-term solutions, still relies on engaging with the negative impacts of central government actions: stopping landlords evicting tenants at short notice (biggest cause of homelessness locally); giving local staff more discretion to sort out problems with Universal Credit; and so on. The city of Manchester, together with a number of Greater Manchester nearby towns was one of 3 pilot areas funded by the government to bring in some form of Housing First approach to give people a stable home from which to tackle other issues and thus to help counter the revolving-door nature of some people\u2019s homelessness experiences. The greater Liverpool area and the West Midlands area with Birmingham at its centre were the other two areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Birmingham is a city with 3 times the level of priority homeless as the national average; and double the rate for comparable cities. The number of street-sleepers has increased by 53% in the last year and by 588% since 2012. Around 20,000 households are supported each year by preventing homelessness or responding to homelessness once it has happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A new 5-year strategy, from 2017 onwards, focuses on\npreventing people from becoming homeless in the first place and supporting\nthose who are already homeless to build a more positive future in good health,\nsustainable accommodation and long-lasting employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The city\u2019s approach to homelessness recognises different\ncategories of homelessness and that, since the journey into and through\nhomelessness is different for everyone, the responses have to be\ndifferentiated, flexible and efficient. Previous approaches have focused too\nmuch on securing accommodation and not enough on assisting people to avoid (or\nmove on from) homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Waiting until people\u2019s lives are in crisis is complex,\nexpensive and often unnecessary. The city has a stepped approach which ensures\na positive pathway whereby most people have reliable information and are\nsupported to make good choices; there are early interventions to head off\npreventable problems; there are actions, and sufficient appropriate\naccommodations, to limit the impact of homelessness once it has happened; and\npeople are helped to recover and move on into more stable lives in homes they\ncan afford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where information, guidance and early interventions have not\nworked, and there is an immediate crisis in people\u2019s housing, outreach services\nmake contact with the city\u2019s street homeless population; specialist refuges are\navailable; there is immediate access to hostel provision; temporary\naccommodation is found (minimising its use by families, having zero use by\n16-17 year olds, and ensuring any use really is only temporary); and there is\neffort put into rapid rehousing into decent-standard homes via Housing First\ninitiatives. The work to move people on into sustainable housing options is\nexacerbated by a lack of continuing supply of suitable, settled accommodation.\nSolving this is a key structural action to reducing ongoing homelessness with\npeople trapped in supported accommodation, blocking others from moving on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Birmingham there are also around 12,000 people who require support in accessing and retaining accommodation. This includes people with learning difficulties, those with mental health issues, refugees and other recent arrivals, those having spent recent time in prison\/institutions or the armed forces, vulnerable children and young people (including those leaving the care system), people with multiple\/complex needs, and people experiencing family breakdown or at risk of domestic abuse. Finance for programmes dedicated to supporting these people has been reduced lately and support models are changing. Unless Supporting People activities are securely in place, there will always be chances that people in these groups face homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Birmingham\u2019s approach recognises the interactions between the risk of homelessness and other social aspects such as adverse childhood experiences, being a care-leaver, teenage pregnancy, lack of access to employment, poverty and low incomes, health issues of various kinds, and so on. Having a comprehensive approach is commendable. The test of any city\u2019s approach is the extent to which it leads to all forms of homelessness being reduced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Operating consistent approaches takes money. Other countries\nspend more than the UK, more strategically, and create less homelessness\nthrough their central government actions re housing and welfare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finland has not entirely eliminated homelessness \u2013 5500 are still\nclassified as homeless, nationally, but levels have fallen 35% over 10 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The approach there is based on the Housing First principle \u2013 a model devised a decade ago. It is an approach that costs money. Finland has spent large sums creating new homes and hiring 300 extra support workers but has made savings in emergency healthcare, social services and the justice system (such savings can add up to as much as 15,000 euro per homeless person in properly supported housing).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their previous model was a staircase one: people moving\nthrough different stages of temporary accommodation as life got back on track,\nwith an apartment as the final step. Helsinki made housing unconditional, as a\nsecure foundation for solving other issues – the addictions, mental health\nissues, medical conditions that need continuing care. The city got rid of night\nshelters and short-term hostels, as these were not getting people out of\nhomelessness, and converted them into 3500 permanent homes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tenants have contracts and pay rent. There is a communal\nliving\/dining area, a kitchen and an activity area. Staff offer basic life skills\nof cleaning and cooking, and support the residents to navigate work, education\nand training systems. The challenge is to offer this level of support in all\ncases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As in Manchester, city mayors can be looked to as a major\nforce for taking things forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Vancouver: a series of mayors have campaigned to\nreduce\/eliminate homelessness (at some level) – eg end street homelessness by\n2015 – but the issue is still there. The Liberals spent millions building\nsupported housing sites, bought and renovated more than 20 single-room-occupancy\nhotels, leased other former hotels for temporary housing, provided rent\nsupplements, and so on. The National Democratic Party later spent $66m to\nprovide 606 relocatable temporary modular housing units for more than 500\npreviously homeless people in the city. 25 housing projects (for 2498 homes) are\nin development in Vancouver. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, the city\u2019s homelessness figures have continued to rise and the most recent count put the numbers at 2223 on one night \u2013 an all-time high. This is not simply a matter of population growth (which runs at 1% – compared with the growth in homeless of 2%). The federal government promised $40bn on a 10-year national housing strategy that would cut chronic homelessness by 50% – but little money has yet trickled into the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n City homelessness is rarely regarded as some lifestyle\nchoice but can still be seen as an unfortunate consequence of the way society\nis today. Although it is heavily reliant on national issues around welfare\nsystems and funding for support services in general, there is further to go in\nviewing it as a local social safeguarding issue where various services can work\nbetter together and where the death of a homeless person could trigger a\nserious case review into what went wrong in that person\u2019s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are, in most cities, concerns about homeless people. Politicians\nmake pledges; there are projects; models are committed to; money is made\navailable. Yet homelessness is still there in most cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some partial solutions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There thus appear to be a number of recurring issues,\nmanifested in different ways, to some degree across various cities. Are there,\nsimilarly, a range of recurring solutions to these issues?<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is unlikely to be a single, comprehensive solution\nthat meets the needs in all cities. What might take things forward in a better\nway is an acknowledgement of a framework of fragments that can be aggregated in\nappropriate ways to make best progress within each particular context. These\nfragments are a number of intertwined responses to the issues of affordability;\nsupply\/demand numbers; security and decency for renters; protection and\nengagement around community redevelopments; the availability and use of land; who\ninvests in housing and why; the determination of local and national policies; the\nprevention of homelessness; and so on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Various initiatives have been put forward, from time to\ntime, as proposed housing exemplars. Often such solutions are at the level of\nindividual projects in a single city, rather than contributing to this coherent\nframework of actions within which any city can customise the solutions to its own\nversions of the problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of these disconnected initiatives have been noted\nearlier. Others are listed below, in a way that may read rather disjointedly\nsince that is the nature of the initiatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A district of London wished to rehouse those in Bed and Breakfast\nemergency accommodation. The proposal was to house them in a pop-up village, on\na vacant brownfield site, until the longer planning procedures (for\nsocial\/private build on that site) got completed. Factory built flats,\nassembled on site could later be quickly removed and used elsewhere. These units\nhave a lifespan of 60 years; are well-designed and well-insulated. They have\nadequate space and can be easily reconfigured by moving internal walls so a\n2-bedder can immediately become an accessible 1-bedder. Lightweight timber\nconstruction keeps costs down because foundations only need be half the depth\nof those for a traditional brick-build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vienna has a strong low-cost housing policy. The city\u2019s\nambition is that residents have an affordable place to live + green spaces +\ncheap public transport. 80% of people rent; two-thirds live in municipal\/publicly\nsubsidised housing; 80% of flats being built have some city subsidy (via city\nspend on subsidising construction). This generates an adequate range and\nquality of homes, with rents held down at levels that low-paid citizens can\nafford. Rents can be around 20% of take-home pay. Often centrally located, tenants\nenjoy the amenities of the city, with short commutes to jobs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In Vancouver it is recognised that City officers and private\nsector developers need to find common ground re the redevelopment of areas of\nthe city. The aim is to work with the market, bending it a little. Developers\ncan make different levels of profit on different types of build, but the most\nprofitable ones may not be what is needed. Conversations are held around how to\nincentivise developers to build at scale, at pace and to take less profit eg to\nshift from 15% profit condominiums to building 5% profit rental homes. One\nfocus is on reducing commutes to minimum income jobs. Another focus is on how\nto get 100% of all housing aimed at earners on the living wage ($30k-50k\/year)\nto be funded solely by government at one level or another; and maybe to ensure\nthat a third of housing is aimed at middle earners ($50k-80k\/year) and\nmaybe a third aimed at low-income residents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The largest local authority in the UK, Birmingham has an\nambitious agenda. Its vision is to create a city of inclusive growth where\nevery child, citizen and place matters. To make the best use of the existing\nhousing stock, the City works in partnership to promote mutual exchanges to\nhomes of a more appropriate size; minimise the time properties are vacant; give\npriority to those able to release a large home; match length of tenancy to\ntenant need; promote shared housing and live\/work schemes for young people;\ncheck on the quality of rented homes; and promote self-regulation of landlords\nwith the option of using enforcement actions with the worst landlords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many housing initiatives are determined at the level of city\nofficer\/politician decision-making. In a different, more community-based\napproach, the Prince\u2019s Foundation for Building Communities visited communities\nand talked to 8000 people about what they want from housing. People do not want\ntheir area to lose a sense of identity; do not want green space to become urban\nsprawl; do not want too many big\/tall buildings; do not want change to be too\nrapid\/overwhelming, They want: employment opportunities; want green spaces; want\ndevelopments to have some sense of place\/ quirkiness; and want traditional\nhomes that look like houses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Housing providers can gain by working collaboratively with\norganisations that have housing concerns of their own. In the UK, housing associations\nhave teamed up with the local National Health Service Trust to develop single\noccupancy rooms or one-bedroom flats housing key-worker staff. These rental\nhomes are subsidised by building other homes for sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another example of homes being linked to the NHS is in the building of a residential home for those with mental illnesses, with NHS staff on site. This is not just about building houses; it is about improving people\u2019s lives. Fewer get admitted to hospital and any stays are substantially shorter. There are savings for the Health Service. One place in London resulted in1300 fewer hospital bed-days; generating just under half a million pounds in savings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A further example is the 10-bed housing accommodation\npurpose-built for older people with dementia. On discharge from hospital they\nhave immediate access to a secure home with on-site support, often also releasing\nlarger personal properties for others to use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In various cities, there has been some sense that housing associations have drifted away from their original purposes: amalgamating to save on basic costs, getting too large to retain local sensitivities, over-reliant on computer-based management of people, contracting responsibilities out to service companies with a tendency to inflate costs, and becoming too commercially driven. Whilst national finance structures may have pushed them in those directions, many housing organisations are refocusing (or strengthening a retained focus) on support for their tenants eg through specialist welfare and employability teams; or having staff who will do walkabouts with residents highlighting which communal areas feel unsafe, which door locks don\u2019t work properly, which grounds need more maintenance, and so on. Because of their already established close relationships with tenants, locally-based housing organisations can do this work at relatively little cost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the past, most initiatives to address housing numbers were\nbased on mass-build of properties to some limited range of standard designs. Whether\nbuilt for purchase or for rent, there is an increased demand for housing to be\nmore than uninteresting, disconnected boxes for living in. The aim is for \u2018homes\u2019 not \u2018units\u2019; and for\nneighbourhoods not locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Design quality is crucial. City planners currently struggle\nto process the large volume of applications that come before them, so decisions\ncan be more the result of market-led pressures with less focus on architectural\nquality and urban design. The outcome can be the standardised delivery of areas\nof simple houses of reduced size, built with costs in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some cities push for examples of better architecture, on the logic that 70% of the city is made up of dwellings, so one should try to make them interesting. A London district wanted 26 dwellings built. Normally this would have been a block of flats, but the architect in this case went for low-rise around a communal courtyard. Other cities are varying the housing stock by having a variety of floating buildings, self-builds, quality conversions, prefabrication of flexible constructions, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An increased feature of design principles is the involvement of people \u2013 looking at the social needs of the locality before setting out the construction plans; protecting existing infrastructure; going for integration rather than displacement. None of this needs to be costly, nor does it need long drawn-out procedures. There are recurring messages from people-consultations across numerous cities as varied as Cambridge and Salford listing those things that people see as contributing to wellbeing: Access to local shops, transport and other services; a sense of shared belonging without feeling on top of each other; a social sense of home or belonging; good natural light; well-proportioned spaces; access to green areas; effective insulation and ventilation; efficient use of fuel; mixed housing, well laid out, that has visual interest; common entrances that are welcoming yet secure; play areas and quiet seating areas; ready access to repairs, support, warden-type arrangements where necessary; and so on. None of these need to be expensive enough to push costs into the unaffordable ranges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are current initiatives that seek to move beyond the\nusual use of concrete and plastic. Concrete is a huge contributor to greenhouse\ngases in production: 8% of world total; of which UK 1%; US 14%; China 29%.\nAlternative builds are looking to wood as a material that can withstand large\nseasonal changes in temperature. The challenge is going beyond that traditional\nfor small wooden constructions and designing for high-rise in wood. These\n\u2018plyscrapers\u2019 are being tested in several cities. Similarly, the construction\nindustry uses almost a quarter of all plastic produced in the UK. Each house\nbuilt contributes to the skipfuls of polystyrene and other plastic packaging. Making\nconstruction plastic-free may not be the best goal \u2013 plastic has its uses \u2013 but\ndesigning out waste is in most people\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Design is one driver. Getting more units on a plot of land\nis another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Micro-housing formats are being built in many cities. These\ncan have an average rent well within the reach of those on average wages. Some\nhave wifi, communal rooms, gardens, or a gym built into the complex of homes. The\nmodules are constructed in partnership with private developers, can be\ncontemporary and constructed at relatively low cost without compromising on\nquality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are explorations putting modular apartments inside\ndisused industrial building shells. Apartments of varying size, complete with\nmodern kitchen and bathroom, can be lowered into place and connected to\nexisting services. There is less delay and disruption as most of the\nconstruction work takes place offsite, in weatherproof facilities. There is\nless reliance on securing the in-demand traditional construction skills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To get more decent houses of these kinds a city will need a\nbold, properly funded, modular housing industry; with more medium-rise or\ncourtyard housing; well-designed and pleasant to live in. At the moment too large\na focus is on developing modular units as a quick-fix solution to a city\u2019s\nhomeless problems. The aim is that these provide some stop-gap solution until\nmore affordable homes can be built locally. Once delays to housebuilding set\nin, these temporary solutions have a habit of becoming more permanent than\nintended. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the more contentious end of these developments is the use\nof repurposed metal shipping containers stacked on top of each other. A block\nof homes for more than 60 families can be assembled on disused council land in\nless than 25 weeks. These are an improvement on much of the existing temporary\naccommodations. Tenants have their own bathroom and kitchen. There are\ndisadvantages. They are small with little storage space. There is no wifi,\nrestricting children\u2019s study and adults\u2019 access to online services. They can be\nhot in summer. Conceptually there are difficulties accepting the idea that\nfamilies can be housed in metal boxes \u2013 \u2018families in tin cans\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cities are also creating more housing, in short timescales,\nby reclassifying the use of empty space above shops, or the redesignation of\noffice space or redundant official buildings as suitable for housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Initiatives of the above kinds are likely to be only partial\nsolutions if there is not, at the same time, some robust connectivity with\npolicies around wage levels, welfare systems etc. This then leads into the contested\nterritories of access to reliable information; to advice re money\/employment;\nto levels of welfare support, welfare regulations and tenant support; and to\nopportunities to challenge decisions of developers or government agencies<\/p>\n\n\n\n A city needs leaders who will make a difference, who can\nreassure residents that things are being done to make lives better, who can go\nbeyond headline promises. This leads on to the need for comprehensive,\nfeasible, fundable housing policies without relying on predetermined plans that\nmay not deliver with the flexibilities that changing city contexts require. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Policy: providing effective leadership<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There is nothing new about concerns around housing, density,\nliving conditions, homelessness and the role of the state in relation to the\nprovision of housing. There have been shifting policies designed to fix the\nissues, with a history to all of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the UK, we can go back to feudal arrangements around tied\ncottages; or to Dickensian inequalities in living conditions at the core of\ncities; or to a company providing homes close to work for its employees,\nincluding the early planned community models; or back to the era of slum\nhousing needing massive clearance programmes so that cities could modernise; on\nto the building of large peripheral estates, often of high-rise blocks; and so\non. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a slow start to the practice of house building by\nlocal authorities. Around 1914, only 24,000 council houses were in existence.\nThere were then boosts and declines in the rate of building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Post 1945, in the UK, one immediate housing approach was the rapid erection of prefabricated bungalows to replace some of the 200,000 homes that had been war-destroyed. In15 days, a team of up to 16 men erected 65 modern aluminium houses in Birmingham. Similar construction was commissioned across other areas of that, and other cities, as part of a national policy drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other housing policy solutions were seen as slum clearances,\nnew estates, New Towns and new Garden Cities. The original New Towns had land\nassets, purchased at agricultural-use levels. As land values rose any money\ngenerated was reinvested in local facilities. From the beginning, therefore,\nthey were designed as always more than suburban\/dormitory housing. They were\n\u2018decent homes for everyone\u2019; \u2018an essay in civilisation\u2019 (Lord Reith). <\/p>\n\n\n\n One new town, Stevenage, was built to these principles.\nSince then homes have been sold fairly cheaply (with subsidies), resold, become\nbuy-to-let properties, rented out at 3-4 times the council rents, such that the\nchildren of the original families can\u2019t afford to live there. There are social\nhousing pressures, with long waiting lists for an affordable home. To address\nthis need, some properties have been leased back by the council that owned them\noriginally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the second half of the 20th<\/sup> century, memories\nof post-war slums started to fade and, for a while, it was more taken for\ngranted that people had the right to a decent home \u2013 whether owned or rented,\nwhether publicly-provided or privately-provided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The former local authority council systems that had managed\nhousing until then were not beyond fault. By the mid-60s they were becoming\ncharacterised as overly bureaucratic and open to corrupt practices, but people\nwere unprepared for the rapid change of policy direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the 1940s until 1980s, public housing was the bulk of\nUK accommodation. <\/em>In London, the\npeak year for council\/social housing was 1976, with 60% of existing homes owned\nor managed by the local authorities. The\ncomparable figure now stands at 10-15%. One key driver in this reduction was\nthe Thatcher government declaration that council tenants could, after a few\nyears\u2019 occupancy, have the right to buy their rented property at a discounted\nprice. This, in itself, was not the problem. The difficulties arose when the\nmoney from the council house sales did not go back to the local authorities in\norder to build replacement housing but went to central government with only a\nfraction finding its way to support local housebuilding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n During the 1980s national policy was established as: Cut\nback on social building; lift restrictions on mortgages and landlords; don\u2019t\nbuild more council homes; sell off existing stock by expanding tenants\u2019 Right\nto Buy; let Housing Benefit take the strain (was never envisaged that rents\nwould rise so much). Home ownership became the ideal even if there was some\nabandonment of the Parker Morris standards (minimum sizes for council homes\nadopted in 1969) so that housing in the UK became smaller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the last 50 years, housing associations have taken on\nthe role of providing affordable housing for poor and vulnerable people. At\ntimes of welfare cuts and changes and in the face of shrinking government\nsubsidies they face new struggles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It can be argued that recent housing policy has made worse\nthe balance between supply and demand. Governments have pursued policies where\nthe focus is on the demand side. There is little comparative activity on supply\nside issues such as pressures on developers sitting on land etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The other long-term strand to policy has been the push (in the US, UK and elsewhere) towards promoting deregulation. Reducing bureaucracy became a popular rallying cry with little acknowledgement of why regulation was needed in the first place. One outcome of 30 years of this trend, alongside broad financial pressures and some acceptance of shady practices has been safety deregulation and safety avoidance as contracts focus on value-for-money, but in reality, focus only on the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where later, 1960s-70s, estates were being built around the\nperiphery of cities, these were originally decent homes in desirable\ncommunities but all too soon construction faults showed through and estates became\ndefined as problem areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The idea of Garden Villages has been revisited recently \u2013 as\nlocalist solutions preventing top-down impositions and bolted-on estates. If\nplaced well these can ensure that an area can gain in various ways eg\nincreasing the number of young families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More recently, the city trend has been for brownfield sites\nto be developed; for previously neglected areas to get artisan bakeries and\ncraft breweries. The trend is towards an integration of leisure, work and\nhousing. The end result has often been a trend to luxury just beyond the reach\nof the average renter. As rents get pushed up in the area there is a\nprogressive displacement of those early settlers \u2013 the art studios,\ncooperatives, independent bookshops, and so on: those very things that made the\narea attractive to developers and residents in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As practices change, cities need to adjust their thinking.\nThe growth of property platforms, such as Air BnB lettings, has led to high\nvolumes of city accommodation being taken out of the long-term rental market\nfor higher gains from short lets. The effect this is having on removing\npotential accommodation from a city\u2019s resident population is creating reactions\nin Barcelona, Berlin, New York and some tourism-heavy Italian cities. It brings\nincome to city residents, or prompts renovation by landlords but also drives up\nlocal rents and takes properties out of the reach of those seeking a secure\nhome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Housing policy formulation and implementation operate at a\nnumber of levels (differently in different countries). National policy gets\nintertwined with, or over-rides, regional or city policies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n National or city housing policies should be concerned with\nthings like: % of social\/private; rate\nof house building; mix of housing tenures within localities; tax regimes that\nshape housing practices; ratios of costs to incomes in different localities;\nwhat to do with underused\/overused buildings; size\/safety\/decency\/appropriateness\nof housing; the protection and balancing of various interests; the sufficiency\nof the housing stock and flow; supported routes to adequate housing for all;\netc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This suggests a degree of long-term thinking. The reality is\nmore often short-term proposals, media soundbites, and a preoccupation with\ngetting one\u2019s party elected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At election times, there are declarations re numbers of\nhouses to be built. These can come across as some fictional bidding war, with\neach party seeking to out-number the others. The latest UK bid, as a proposed pre-election\npolicy, is a commitment to build a million affordable homes. Less gets said\nabout building communities ie places that work for those who live there \u2026 and\nless on what might be done for struggling existing communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With housing, as with other things, policy can get shaped by perceptions of what will capture voters\u2019 attentions. Current housing policy is biased towards the \u2018already haves\u2019 \u2013 the asset rich; the older generation. As more people are pushed into renting, their votes may become more significant than the votes of homeowners. There are signs that the demands of young people are getting more traction into policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n UK policy has often been said to be informed by snobbery,\nlack of respect and denigration; within a wider national culture based on\nblame, suspicion and punishment. There are easy slippages of language: Affordable\n\u2013 social \u2013 welfare \u2013 inadequate \u2013 not deserving of much. Even recently, the then\nPrime Minister could openly admit that too many people, including too many politicians,\ncontinue to look down on social housing and its tenants, as they formulated\nsocial housing policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once in power, promises have to be delivered on or explained away. Progressing policies into practice hinges on legislation, on public attitudes to housing, and to the extent to which there is deemed to be a civic right to decent housing. Parties have their stances on the extent to which housing is to be viewed, in policy terms, as a commodity; an investment; an individual home; or part of the essential fabric of a society. Where housing is in short supply, people are more likely to feel in conflict with other groups over these scarce resources. This can too easily feed into wider political discourses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Housing policy itself gets steered by wider social policy eg\nIf gains on selling principal home are tax-free, this steers people to buying\nreal estate as an investment that can be easily bought and sold on. Related to\nthis, there has been a push by financial institutions and by the media to\npromote particular views of housing. These can be ambiguous, arguing both sides\nof a situation \u2013 decrying bankers and directors\u2019 bonuses whilst pushing the perception\nof houses as an asset not a home, even though a good proportion of those\nbonuses went into purchasing but-to-let properties. Property became equated\nwith wealth generation. Certainly, a number of TV programmes (1990\/2000) dwelt on\nhow to maximise profit from housing and the need to get on the housing ladder\nas a way of securing one\u2019s financial future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coherent approaches to policy are aided by having stability\ncoupled with competence and a sense of social purpose. This is not helped where\na country (or a city) has political turmoil, where there have been 4 UK Housing\nministers in just over 2 years, or where city responsibilities get changed with\nevery election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The current housing situations in a number of cities get\nreferred to as crises, with various figures and estimates used to substantiate\nthis. The scale of housing crises in cities is possibly worse than official\nestimates indicate, but that is even more motivation to do something about it. On\na number of counts housing situations are unacceptable if cities want to\ncontinue portraying themselves as modern, progressive, liveable and\nenterprising. There may, or may not, be some set of housing panaceas \u2013able to\nbe expressed as policy \u2013 some framework that enables local changes to be made\nfor the better. To do anything significant, major cities will need clear and\nactionable measures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Get policy right and cities, and the lives of their\nresidents, flourish. Get it wrong and people\u2019s lives can be brought to ruin by\nforces over which they have no control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A socially productive framework for city housing is likely\nto include interconnected elements such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Housing policy objectives such as the above are easy to\nlist. However, housing is not an isolated policy fragment. It has to be seen in\nthe light of other decision-making processes around jobs, transport, education,\nchildcare, welfare etc. Policy, in the field of housing, has to range well\nbeyond numbers, density, architecture and planning regulations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, housing policy is heavily reliant on national\nfiscal approaches \u2013 the willingness or otherwise of governments to tax income\nfrom land at the same level as earned income; the tax systems around second\nhomes; the levels of chief executive pay and bonuses relative to average wages;\nand so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At one level it soon begins to be seen as too complex, too\ndifficult: Simpler to focus on some headline house-building targets without\npolitical commitments to make them feasible; simpler to dwell on a few isolated\ninitiatives, to set up working groups, to write generalised statements of\nintent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n UK housing has been described as an ongoing national public\npolicy failing. In 1951 the then housing minister said that he really didn\u2019t\nhave a clue how to set about putting any proper housing policy in place. There\nis little evidence that things have leapt forward in the 70 years since then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Countries and cities don\u2019t need any more policy papers. They\nneed leaders who will guarantee the delivery of better outcomes by doing all\nthat is necessary to ensure that citizens have the right to decent affordable\nhousing, with sufficient support to secure and maintain that housing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In various European and North American cities visited in the last decade, housing has been a recurring theme, both as an everyday lived concern of residents and as a policy concern for city decision-makers. Whilst there seem to be universal issues, generic across all such cities, each city has its own particular set of housing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewordsthething.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewordsthething.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewordsthething.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewordsthething.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewordsthething.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=873"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thewordsthething.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":896,"href":"https:\/\/thewordsthething.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873\/revisions\/896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewordsthething.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewordsthething.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewordsthething.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nGentrification, initially, referred to the gradual upgrading of individual houses\nto the extent that the nature of the streets gets changed. Eventually, there is\na transformation of working class areas into middle class ones as more and more\nhouses are bought cheaply and renovated to add value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n