UK Politics
The property ladder of life
Published 01 November 2007
Our concept of a home is changing.
Social housing, we easily forget, wasn't always a ghetto for the socially excluded. At least until the mid-1960s, even quite well-off families lived in what were then called council houses. In the 1930s and 1940s particularly, they were often better designed, more spacious and more lavishly appointed than homes built for private sale. The rents were often beyond the poorest people and tenants were typically skilled workers, tradespeople and clerks. For a young family, a council house might be a better option than owner occupation even if they could afford to buy.
I was reminded of all this by a report from a team at the London University Institute of Education, launched at a Smith Institute seminar on 24 October (The Public Value of Social Housing by Leon Feinstein et al). It contains some startling data. For children, social housing is now associated with an early exit from education and poor life chances. Yet council-estate children of the 1950s and 1960s, the report reveals, generally did no worse in adult life than contemporaries from similar family backgrounds, though there were some limited problems for girls. For both boys and girls born in 1970, however, social housing carried very strong risks of later disadvantage. This holds true even when other factors are taken into account. A socially housed boy, for example, was nearly twice as likely as one living in owner occupation to leave school without qualifications, even making allowances for family background, IQ, parental aspirations and school peer group. The authors of the report admit they cannot prove cause and effect.
Social housing has increasingly been allocated according to need and, therefore, inevitably accommodates more disadvantage than it used to: for example, a 30-year-old in social housing is more than twice as likely as the general population to suffer depression, four times more likely to be addicted to drugs or alcohol and nine times more likely to be a single parent. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that social housing, far from helping poor people and their families, now increases their disadvantages.
The Tories' "right to buy" policy clearly accelerated changes in the character of social housing. It creamed off not only the more affluent and aspirational tenants but also the better property. What was left was poor quality housing in less desirable areas. The enormous cut in new building and repairs - down to £1.4bn in 2004 against £13bn in the early 1970s - created an increasingly decrepit social housing stock. Slums were once in the private sector; over the past quarter-century, they have moved to the public sector.
But we can't undo the results of the "right to buy" policy even if we wished to. In any case, as Feinstein and his team show, the Tories merely sealed existing trends. The move towards owner occupation among all income groups, not just the middle classes, began in the 1940s. Up to the 1960s, home ownership among the bottom fifth of the population grew quite steeply. Since 1975, however, ownership among this group has declined, another example of how national inequalities are widening.
So what should be done? Feinstein and his team insist their historical data proves there's nothing inherently wrong with housing provided by the state. But as one critic has argued (Tim Dwelly in Rethinking Social Housing, published by the Smith Institute last year), "the very concept of a home is changing". A home is valued as a marketable asset, not just a place to live, and more people also see it as a base for work. Perhaps social housing just isn't a good idea any longer.
Perhaps we should start afresh, looking at individual housing needs and aspirations, and provide varied solutions. For instance, the market could offer, with state encouragement and supervision, short-term tenancies and shared equity.
I am inclined, though, to start from the opposite end. Social housing isn't working, to be sure, but nor is owner occupation. Young people struggle to get on the housing ladder. Old people soldier on in homes that are too big for them, so as not to blow the kids' inheritance.
Debt has reached unprecedented levels and housing sucks up too much of the country's wealth. If we could break our national addiction to owner occupation, which has been encouraged by successive governments, we might all see social housing in a new light.
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