JRF Inquiry calls for greater use of Low Cost Home Ownership to reduce social exclusion
The report of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Inquiry into the Future of Low Cost Home Ownership, published today, calls for an overhaul of the Government’s mechanisms for funding housing and an end to insensitive use of planning powers that have reinforced the segregation of social housing tenants.
The Inquiry recommends that the term ‘social housing’ is replaced by the term ‘affordable housing’ and the current funding system is replaced with the introduction of an Affordable Housing Unified Grant (AHUG). This would allow housing providers to choose which affordable housing products best suited the objectives of individual schemes and could allow more imaginative use of low cost home ownership to blur the boundaries between renting and home ownership. Decisions on the mix, balance and types of tenures could then be taken at a local level. They could take account of the wider housing and economic considerations in neighbourhoods and the broader objectives of local and regional housing strategies.
The Inquiry report, which is being launched at the National Housing Federation's Home Ownership conference, finds that past housing policies and funding regimes have encouraged housing providers to concentrate in particular estates and areas, people with a range of economic and social problems. The report argues that British housing policy – by segregating the poorer members of society in this way – has reinforced social exclusion. This has led to ‘social housing’ – even if the quality of its building and management is high – becoming stigmatised and, in some areas, difficult or even impossible to let.
The Inquiry concludes that to tackle this, ‘social housing’ should be mixed amongst Low Cost Home Ownership housing and, sometimes, amongst owner-occupied and private rented housing too. Mixing tenures in this way means that ‘social housing’ is unlikely to be identified only with poorer households and makes it less likely that those living in housing supported by public funding will be branded as failures.
"On its own, mixed tenure housing – even with the flexibility for people to move up and down the home ownership ladder as circumstances change – cannot provide a guarantee against social exclusion," said Richard Best, Director of the JRF. "But the introduction of Low Cost Home Ownership on estates does provide an important means of removing the stigma of social housing which can undermine the vital contribution which it should be playing.”
