Social housing in the uk: an anthropological insight

Helen Stephens

This essay explores the dynamic relationship between the state, housing and inhabitants. By focusing on the materiality of the built environment, I reveal structures which raise questions about the role of the state in providing safe and conformable housing for public sector tenants and how this affects their sense of self. I argue that an anthropological perspective on social housing reveals underlying socio-political structures that dictate the way people live. Having this anthropological perspective can also help to redefine a field, which is largely political, to help uncover various understandings of citizenship and the self. I look specifically at social housing within the UK because public sector tenants are often unable to manipulate their domestic space into an extension of their self, as home owners are able to, given restrictions implemented by the state or properties being left in disrepair which many public sector tenants are unable to afford to fix. In exploring anthropological perspectives on social housing I hope to shed light on the socio-political rhetoric underlying social housing. By doing so I have shown how anthropologists can help to identify how public housing systems often leave public sector tenants feeling helpless, but can also allow them to use the failures of the state as a heuristic device, making them more self sufficient.

Introduction

This essay explores how an understanding of social housing can uncover ideas of politics, citizenship, and inequality, thereby revealing the built environmentas an anthropologically rich domain . My voluntary work at Citizens Advice inspired me to research deeper into these problems which I witnessed during my time there involving the political and economic aspects of the built environment, with a focus on social housing. In addition to this, my family have relied on social housing for generations, including myself as a child, yet have managed to work their way out of poverty, giving themselves (and me) the best possible opportunities in life. Without the help of the state it is unlikely that I would be in the position I am today and for that I am forever grateful. Regardless of my personal connection to the topics discussed throughout this essay, I have drawn conclusions based upon facts presented to me, in order to achieve an accurate evaluation of social housing polices and the relationships formed between the state, the people and their respective homes.  Despite the poor housing conditions that public sector tenants were subject to, working at Citizens Advice I observed that their attitudes did not conform to stereotypes.  Instead, the majority of people with a house were satisfied because they had a roof over their heads. This is particularly important, as it sheds light on various aspects of social housing which often go unacknowledged in mainstream discourse. In this essay, I disrupt negative stereotypes of public sector tenants by highlighting the positive outcomes of being a public sector tenant, such as becoming more independent through using failures of the state and state-like bodies as a heuristic device.

I aim to evaluate the effectiveness of United Kingdom social housing policies on the quality of life of public sector tenants, and how they have shaped the way people perceive their home. I assess the political and economic motivations for social housing throughout history, revealing the contrasting experiences of homes between public sector tenants and home owners. In addition, the role of the state is analysed, revealing how social housing has often marginalised certain groups of people, therefore exacerbating pre-existing inequalities.

The Moral Economies of Housing

Focusing on the social aspect of housing reveals the complex relationships people form with their homes, which often contradict the negative perceptions of public sector tenants. Alexander et al (2018:122) aim to “redefine housing as an essentially contested domain where competing understandings of citizenship are constructed, fought over and acted out”. By exploring this, they reveal how anthropology aids in identifying and addressing issues of access to, redistribution of and maintenance of the built environment. This highlights how there are many overlooked methods of acquiring social housing as well as maintaining it which is often “undermined by, political rhetoric, state officials, loan terms and the law” (2018:122).  A Marxist perspective on housing reveals the discrete relationships between domains not necessarily acknowledged, such as inequalities, maintenance and citizenship (Marx, 1867).  Ultimately, I suggest that an anthropological focus on housing can shed light on how social housing conditions materialize the structural inequality caused by capitalist economies.

Being recipients of authoritative rule, public sector tenants can often be blind to their position in negotiating with the state, reflecting how ideas of politics and inequalities are intertwined with social housing. State functions can marginalise specific groups of people who have no other option than social housing, thus exacerbating inequalities already present. Alexander et al. (2018) critique the welfare state by questioning what legitimises specific bodies as the ‘state’, and who can be held accountable for housing problems, drawing attention to complex issues around responsibility. Collier (2011:85) explores this in the context of Russia, where people’s understandings of the power dynamic between public sector tenants and the state was in terms of a social contract in which all aspects of housing were fabricated to manipulate people into following specific social structures and behaviours, which Collier describes as “the Soviet social”. By adopting this focus, it transforms the way in which people interpret various infrastructures, shifting from the function of the physical building to a focus on these buildings materialising spaces for politico-economic purposes. Housing in Soviet society also encompasses studies of feminism, exemplified in 1919, when women had a more established role in Soviet society given they had a comparatively more liberal lifestyle than those in America, due to their ability to work as well as conduct household chores (Smith, 1991). According to Smith, Russian women had more rights, transforming the way they perceived the home, which historically was fabricated upon household chores such as cooking and cleaning (1991:166). Whilst not all sexist behaviour towards women was eradicated, it was an important step that reduced the extremities of female inequalities (Atkinson et al., 1977). Ethnographies of the built environment can therefore enable us to look beyond these broad historical shifts, and appreciate inhabitants’ relationship to their homes and the social function of materials and infrastructures.

Social Housing in the UK: Post-War and Beyond

Complex relationships between states and state-like bodies with public sector tenants have occurred throughout history. For example, after World War Two, Clement Attlee began building over one million homes, with 80% being allocated for council housing specifically. Then, in 1951, when the Conservative Party were elected into power, they continued Labour’s legacy by building these homes. Towards the 1960s, their focus was aimed at transferring people from poor quality housing into better quality accommodation of the newly built high-rise blocks (Wheeler, 2015). 

The effect this had on people’s lives was significant, as they were given luxuries they had never experienced before and were able to live a life of much higher quality. The new facilities included indoor toilets, front and rear gardens, and the view of trees, subsequently facilitating decent sanitation systems, reduced population density, and overall improved hygiene (Wheeler, 2015). Whilst this obviously improved the material standard of housing for many tenants, it could be argued that the public’s welfare was not in the building development company’s interest.

The letter above states: “it would greatly assist firms in starting new industrial undertakings in Development Areas if accommodation could be provided for executives in houses of a larger type than local authorities are at present” (Brigadier and Lewis, 1948). This comment suggests that the company employed to carry out the works in the ‘Development Areas’ would only be able to work at a faster pace if they were given “large” houses near the area of development. Although it is relatively reasonable for these employees to be given accommodation whilst carrying out the work, as transport would have limited their accessibility to the site during this period of time, it would have been unreasonable for the government to prioritise the workers over people who were generally in need, such as single parents, those escaping from abusive partners, or the elderly. Furthermore, it would be unfair for these workers to be given much larger properties than they needed, since this seems to be a luxury, as opposed to a necessity. This reinforces what Alexander et al’s (2018) point regarding power imbalances forcing those subject to inequalities to be further disadvantaged.

On the other hand, this dynamic was acknowledged in the past, reflected by the introduction of the Children’s Act of 1948which prioritised “children deprived of a normal home life” (House of Commons on Health - First Report, 1998). This significantly shifted the way in which public sector tenants were assessed in that it gave those in urgent need of housing greater priority than other groups, such as contractors working for the government. However, as I shall explore, the Children’s Act of 1948 was an unsustainable implementation that did not address other pressures faced by tenants.

A recurring problem with social housing has been the need for maintenance and renovation to fix problems such as holes in walls, rising damp and mould that can all lead to dangerous living conditions for tenants. This is exemplified by the housing situation before the implementation of the Right to Buy Act in 1980. Due to population growth and a dearth of rules and regulations governing social housing, public sector tenants were subject to extremely poor living conditions, characterised by overcrowding and poor maintenance with little maintenance from landlords or the state. Children in particular were at higher risk, with an estimated 975,000 living in social houses being subject to poor living conditions, relatively higher than 845,000 children living in privately rented houses (House of Commons on Health - First Report, 1998). Such a lack of maintenance from the state caused a reconfiguration of how public sector tenants experienced and imagined authority, shifting how people perceived the social and moral economy of housing. This shift led to the use of social housing as a heuristic device to improve the quality of life independently from the state.

As an example of the poor material conditions of social housing, Fennell (2011:48) examines how social housing reforms  were established in Chicago that addressed the sensory politics in public housing. People often had no other choice than to live in unsatisfactory conditions: “life in ‘cold water flats’, [where] units lacked both hot water and a mechanical heating source, leading tenants to improvise”. This reflects how the often unacknowledged material conditions (which are often worse than those living in private accommodation), such as noise, isolation and temperature impact the sensory lives of public sector tenants, and are directly influenced by policy and reform. However, Fennell (2011:48) states that “insufficient or improvised heat courted dangers like illnesses and house fires”, suggesting that not all forms of ‘DIY’ are beneficial, but can, instead, lead to further deprivation, thereby creating a dichotomy of feeling empowered from the independence created by house maintenance, but anxious about how this will impact one’s life long-term. Anthropological perspectives of housing-based political structures can help illuminate the connection between social policy, sensory experience, and citizenship.

Housing and Identity

The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin (2003) explored the role of the Parisian arcade, a covered, well-lit and tiled alley with shops on either side, as the turning point towards consumer culture after the World Wars. The passages were highly decorated and ornamental, which Benjamin interpreted as a reflection of the desires and habitus of the public in the new consumer age. He developed a concept of ‘dwelling’ from the idea of the built environment reflecting those within it: “The original form of all dwelling is existence not in the house but in the shell. The shell bears the impression of its occupant. In the most extreme instance, the dwelling becomes a shell” (2003:220). Benjamin therefore suggested the shell, the place in which a person resides, is what they make their mark on, conveying how people manipulate and alter their material surroundings until it is a perfect depiction of themselves. As a result, the concept of architecture can be described as a literal embodiment of habitus, which is also supported by Buchli (2002:209) who describes architecture as “an empirical and durable expression of its more abstracted forms of ‘social structure’”. Habitus dictates one’s cultural capital through social assets such as intelligence and nationality which form the foundation of social life and predicates one’s position within the social order. This is reflected in the architecture of homes, particularly with regards to access and the restrictions in attaining higher cultural capital.

Garvey (2001) examines how people express their  identity and desires through decoration and reordering,  suggesting that routines of change to the built environment are embedded with self-image. Gradual or sudden transformations in a house can parallel changes to self-identification, which stem from the interaction with other conditions and surroundings. Garvey highlights how decorating and reordering homes is the product of the desire to relocate one’s positioning in relation to one’s social environment, as well as one’s own domestic sphere. A continuous revision to this décor of the home and their domestic built environment can result in a coherence in identity. Garvey (2001:55) exemplifies this through several domestic narratives expressing how reordering and redecoration accords with the inhabitant’s self-defined identity, and reposition relations with their own material environments.

However, I suggest that public sector tenants may lack the social and economic meansto access such cultural capital as a result of their restrictive living conditions and the failure of states and state-like bodies to maintain their houses (Alexander et al., 2018). As per the governments’ recommendations, own home improvement for UK public sector tenants is dependant on the type of tenancy one has. For example, ‘introductory tenants’ are restricted to minor redecorating and improvements whereas ‘secure tenants’ may have rights to carry out more intensive modifications to the house, depending on the council’s decision (Council Housing, 2020). Therefore, social tenants’ social assets often limit their cultural capital through enforced restrictions on being able to parallel their own identity and desires through their material environment, which non-public sector tenants are able to achieve. As a result, Isuggest they are subject to indirect discrimination by the state given building maintenance is often limited, in addition to their already disadvantaged position, which fails to permit a desired expression of their identification as most home owners are able to.

The Right to Buy Act of 1980

Before the Right to Buy Act was implemented in 1980, local authorities were permitted to sell council properties to their tenants, as per the Housing Act of 1936, providing the government approved any formal requests. Consequently, 16,000 council houses were sold between 1957 and 1964 in England, yet in 1968 a ‘circular’ (a written statement of government policy) was released which restricted the yearly housing stock sold by local authorities to their public sector tenants (Jones and Murie, 2007). However, when the Conservative government came into power in 1970 these guidelines were overwritten, and local authorities were able to sell council properties without any limitations (Jones and Murie, 2007). Regardless of this significant event, only few council houses were being sold at this time, which may have been because they were expensive, and public sector tenants had relatively low incomes and were unable to purchase their houses. However, in the late 1970s council house sales increased rapidly as a result of the gradual rolling out of policies that gave social tenants a greater chance of buying their properties. In 1970, seven thousand council houses were sold, and this figure grew rapidly to nearly forty-six thousand in 1972, therefore offering a chance for public sector tenants to become home owners and to expand their cultural capital, which Garvey (2011) has suggested allows for a better self-reflected home (Wilson, 1999).

When the Thatcher Government came into power in 1979, the country was experiencing a huge economic deficit, since the UK was still recovering from the war effects, and paying back its debt. There was a significant increase in UK debt, from £650 million in 1914, to £7.4 billion in 1919, which further increased after World War Two to £24.7 billion in 1946 (Debt-Bombshell, 2009). Thatcher recognised the urgent need to improve social morale and stabilise the country’s economy, which she believed could be assisted via the use of housing policy. Baron Michael Heseltine, a Conservative politician (from 1966 to 2001), said “here is in this country a deeply ingrained desire for home ownership […] that [is] the bedrock of a free society” (Moore, 2014). Heseltine suggested society needed motivation, believing that the Right to Buy Act of 1980 would help achieve this, and secure the public’s confidence by giving them what they desired, and required, thus revealing the dynamic relationship between housing and society.

Initially after the Right to Buy Act came into force, the rate of council house sales and housing developments were very similar, therefore there was not a huge concern over the long-term impacts to the government and future generations requiring social housing (Government, 2012). However, following the privatisation of many social houses, difficulties have arisen due to the lack of social housing available, therefore questioning how sustainable the Right to Buy Act was for improving living conditions, and tackling homelessness and poverty. A major concern is that social interaction is significantly reduced as more affluent tenants move away from specific areas, leaving a population of less wealthy households ‘trapped’ in council estates. Consequently, crime rates are likely to increase given their positive correlation with low income (Fainzyber, Lederman and Loayza, 2002). Evidence also indicates that there was a lack of replacement homes after so many were privatised, and since there are fewer of them, the cost of renting may be higher. This could lead to Londoners who have not been fortunate enough to utilise their Right to Buy, due to the restrictions implemented, having extreme difficulty in finding or affording a place to live. In fact, according to Fainzylbler et al., (2002:6), re-lets in the local authority sector have declined from 221,000 lettings to new tenants in 2000-2001, to 83,000 lettings in 2013-2014. This impacted the public tremendously by making property unaffordable, thereby forcing people into homelessness and poverty, or to move away in search of cheaper housing. This reifies how Collier (2011:28) interprets different infrastructures, by suggesting that if one is spatially organised with a permanent presence, interpretations can become ahistorical. It is therefore important for governments to consider holistically the sustainability of the Acts they introduce, which ethnographic research could help achieve by not only tracing developments of material and non- material relationships but also the future impacts on all parties involved.

Before the Right to Buy Act of 1980 was implemented, tenants were able to buy their homes. However it was not until it was enacted, and tenants were given discounts of 35 - 70%, when a flood of sales took place -- on the condition that the buyer had been a public sector tenant for at lease three years (Ministry of Housing Communities & Local Government, 2018). However, with sales exceeding expectations, the government capped these maximum discounts that could be claimed in order to earn a larger profit, reinforcing their economic focus. Another example of eligibility criteria which came into force is the cost floor rule, which was made effective on 11 February 1999, stating that the maximum discounts will be significantly reduced if a landlord has spent a substantial amount of money renovating the property, since it would have a greater market value based on these modifications (Government, 2016). There was a time frame of ten years in which the maintenance costs affected a tenant’s discount, unless one was buying under the Preserved Right to Buy Housing Act, in which the period was 15 years. There was another catch: a tenant was required to pay the whole discount given to them (as per percentage of property value) to the Government if they sold the property within one year of purchase, and the repayments reduced in relation to how long one had lived there following the sale; after five years no repayment was required (Government, 2012). Despite these restrictive requirements, it was a huge benefit for people purchasing their homes, as despite some form of repayment needed it motivated families to move forward, whilst also stabilising the UK’s economy; an opportunity both parties would not have had without this Act.

In contemporary British society, owning a home is viewed as one of the most secure investments in one’s lives (providing negative quite does not occur from falling house prices), since it leads to stability and provides families with the confidence of financial security through this property asset. Additionally, should one need to take a mortgage in order to purchase a property under the Right to Buy, one’s credit score would also increase, thus improve one’s quality of life, by enabling the purchase of other necessities on credit without much difficulty. Although interest rates could potentially pose problems since in the long run people would be paying more than required, this would ultimately be a step forward for families desiring to better themselves in a socioeconomic sense. People also had the opportunity to move into an area they felt more comfortable in. Public opinion was generally universal, and according to The Guardian, 85% of the population regarded owner-occupation as the best form of housing tenure (Pros and cons: right to buy, 2002). However, since council properties were being sold, the government did not have an obligation to spend money on maintaining the now-private properties. Although this was advantageous for the government, the public sector tenants able to purchase their homes may have found it difficult to carry out or pay for more significant maintenance and repairs themselves, since they were dependent on the government’s help for at least three years. In addition, despite owner  occupation being more secure, there was no gradual introduction of the associated responsibilities such as paying one’s own mortgage and bills on time. This is particularly problematic as it could lead to families becoming homeless from their houses being taken away, or falling into debt. Despite the possible negative impacts the Right to Buy Act of 1980 had on people, it is important to recognise the advantages which arose. In particular, the maximum discount available was 70%, allowing many people to prosper since they would not have been able to afford their homes without this (Wilson, 1999). Overall, therefore, the Thatcher government met their goal of helping to boost public morale and improve people’s quality of life whilst simultaneously shifting former public sector tenants’ notion of a home.

Conclusion

This essay demonstrated the extent to which housing is intertwined with politics and economics, whereby changes to governmental rules can drastically change social housing for people. It is evident that the Right to Buy Act of 1980 had longer term benefits to council tenants than any other public housing reforms because they improved the quality of life for many public sector tenants. However, current social housing methods are in need of being reassessed in order to prevent the unnecessary struggles tenants face such as increased danger from using unsafe heating techniques, or people moving far away from their livelihoods, or not ensuring the basic maintenance of many buildings. The Right to Buy Act caused a variety of impacts both positive and negative, but upon reflection, it could be argued that this Act is the cause of the current housing situation whereby the housing stock is too low to home many of the UK’s most citizens. By comparing the housing situation of the past, and their impacts on public sector tenants with current situations it has been revealed that the way people view their houses is vastly different between public sector tenants and home owners. This is primarily due to the ability of home owners to fulfil their desires and express their identity through their material surroundings, unlike public sector tenants who have many restrictions limiting their ability to modify their house. It is important to understand this anthropological perspective on social versus private housing, as it can redefine a field which has led to various perceptions of citizenship, and wider appreciations of the built environment. Through ethnography, anthropologists can help to identify how people in public housing systems relate to their surrounding infrastructures, and the broader political structures forming these relationships.

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