The Government’s Housing Strategy is a step in the right direction, but the goal of constructing enough homes for the projected increase in households is slipping out of our grasp.

Last week saw the concomitant announcement of the government’s intention to build almost half a million new homes by 2015, and a 99 per cent drop in affordable housing construction. Christine Whitehead finds the government’s strategy to be an encouraging move but it is essentially lacking in efforts to source a long-term solution to the housing crisis.

Miliband’s proposals: Old fashioned rent control or a better operating market?

Last week Ed Miliband unveiled proposals intended to benefit renters, which were quickly denounced as old-fashioned ‘rent-control’ by his opponents. Christine Whitehead examines the Labour leader’s proposals in detail, arguing that they do not definitively deal with the issue. The private rented sectors needs to be addressed by more coherent, nuanced and evidence-based policies

Solving the housing dilemma needs a much clearer vision and a far more positive approach than was set out by Ed Miliband

Following Ed Miliband’s pledge to build 200,000 homes per year if Labour were to win the 2015 general election, Christine Whitehead asks whether this is a suitable figure. Putting the current pledge into perspective, she finds it to be a very modest aspiration. In addition, it implies that there is likely to be very little additional money for social housing during the next Parliament

From social housing to subsidised housing? accommodating low income households in Europe

There were three main models of social housing in post war Europe: state housing as part of the communist offer; social rented housing as a pillar of the welfare or corporate state; and (limited) support for self- provision and owner-occupation in more rural family based systems. Within the welfare state model there have been two distinct approaches: housing available to all and housing concentrated on accommodating lower income households. As incomes rose, numerical shortages were overcome, public expenditure cuts kicked in and there was political upheaval in many countries, models of social housing also changed –becoming more diverse within countries but increasingly similar across much of Europe. This article first tracks changes over the post war period to provide a backdrop for discussing how the ways that social sectors have been financed have changed and the relative role of supply and demand side subsidies. It then asks who is now living in social housing to address the question of whether social housing has now become a residual tenure as other more desirable options have become available or whether it still plays a positive and innovative role

Housing as asset based welfare: A comment

This paper aims to provide a contribution to the debate about housing as asset based welfare begun in this journal in 2015. It suggests that there are strong reasons associated with life cycle earnings and consumption why owner-occupation can be a desirable option, especially for older households. However owner-occupation can be a high risk option for less well-off households while increasing both inequality across income groups and particularly through its impact on inter-generational income and wealth. Even so, housing inequalities, despite all the market failures associated with its provision and allocation, are more an outcome of broader economic fundamentals. Moreover housing policies can improve the lived experience for many. Policies should aim to provide a tenure neutral-taxation environment but also to reduce credit and other constraints to entering owner-occupation. At the same time there must be support for those with inadequate income to achieve acceptable housing standards

The increasing complexities of the welfare cap

The changes to the welfare cap introduced in the July 2015 budget—which lowers it to £23,000 in London and £20,000 in all other regions—break some of the principles behind the original policy and introduce considerable complexity to the system. In this article, Christine Whitehead and Emma Sagor examine the impact of the change

The density debate: a personal view

Density is an emotive term – but what we mean by density when we start to sound off is often very different from how others are interpreting what we are saying. This is not because everyone else is stupid – but because it is a term with many facets and each of us brings baggage based on our own experience – both professional and personal – to how we understand it