Housing affordability in England.

Triggered by the state of the housing market and a change in the housing association subsidy system, housing affordability became a topical issue of discourse in Britain towards the end of the 1980s. Yet, there is little research both on the extent of the problem at the national level and how affordability should be measured. This research attempts to advance understanding in these issues based on data from the 1991 Family Expenditure Survey and the 1988 General Household Survey. In this thesis, a new definition of the residual income measurement has been proposed and threshold affordability ratios has also been established using a composite approach to affordability measurement combining the ratio and the residual income measurement, in additional to an experimentation on a behavioral approach to the measurement of affordability. Findings in this thesis suggest that, measured by the ratio measurement and the traditional residual income measurement, about a quarter of households in 1991 were in unaffordable housing. Social tenants and tenants in the unfurnished private rented sector, lone parents, the elderly persons and households with unemployed household heads and claimants of housing benefit were more likely to be in unaffordable housing. However, there is no evidence in support of distinct patterns in household expenditure between households who were affordable to housing and those who were unaffordable. It is also controversial to regard households who were unaffordable to housing but at the same time over-consumiing housing to be in voluntary unaffordability problem owing to the difficulties such households would have in adjusting their level of housing consumption. This thesis also points to the close relationship between housing affordability, housing benefit and social tenancy which suggests the inadequacy of the housing benefit system and state provision of housing in protecting households from the problem of housing affordability. A section of this thesis was devoted to the examination of the ability of tenants to buy in the late 1980s where tenure preference has been incorporated in the measurement of such ability. It was found that the majority of tenants in 1988 could not afford to buy and tenants living in London and the South East, single person households, lone parents and households on a low income were the least able to afford buying. Though the Right to Buy scheme would improve the capacity of these households in council housing to become home owners, they are still households who were the least able to buy

Telephone-based behavioral activation intervention for dementia family caregivers: Outcomes and mediation effect of a randomized controlled trial

Objectives:  The study examined the effects of a telephone-administered psycho-education with behavioral activation intervention (TBA) for family caregivers of person’s with Alzheimer’s dementia to reduce levels of depressive symptoms and burden and to enhance relationship satisfaction with the care-recipient Methods:  A double-blinded randomized trial compared TBA with telephone-based psycho-education with general monitoring (TGM). Ninety-six dementia caregivers were randomized. Both conditions received four weekly psycho-education sessions led by a social worker. TBA participants then received eight bi-weekly behavioral activation practice sessions delivered by paraprofessionals. TGM participants received eight bi-weekly monitoring sessions by paraprofessionals. Results:  As compared to TGM, TBA participants reported significantly larger reductions in depressive symptoms and burden and larger improvement in relationship satisfaction. Self-efficacy for controlling upsetting thoughts was found to have a partial meditation effect between TBA and the reduction of depressive symptoms. Qualitative feedback suggested that TBA participants expressed unique gains in awareness and developing new ways of reappraising the caregiving situation. Conclusion:  TBA was an effective intervention to reduce depressive symptoms and burden as well as to enhance relationship satisfaction in dementia caregivers

A Regime of Informality? “Informal housing” and the state-society relationship in transitional Vietnam

“Informal” constructions in Hanoi is commonplace, not just in terms of its extensiveness but also how such extensions been done creatively. Most importantly they refer to a wide range of housing forms and scales: from illegal extentions of balcony and roof-tops to the extra legal apartment hotels in the Ancient quarter, from the single middle class family houses to large scale master planned new urban areas. What is being “illegal” and “authorised” is oftentimes blurry or shifty as regulations are ambigous and conflicting and in constant change. The distinction between practices of resistance (by the residents/entrepreneurs) and complicity (by local government officials) is not always clear. This paper will examine such phenomenon by examining cases of informal/illegal construction covered in the media, studies of the changes and adjustments of building regulations, as well as in-depth interviews with local officials, construction entrepreneurs as well as the residents. Analysing the fluid and negotiating character of state society relationship in the transitional Vietnam, the paper highlights the role of the state and local government in maintaining and reproducing the regime of informality as a means to wield power and exercise of control

Vietnam’s Post-reform Housing Policies : Social Rhetoric, Market Imperatives and Informality

Following the economic reform (Doi moi), Vietnam’s housing sector has undergone comprehensive reform to create a housing market and encourage private sector’s housing production. The reform has brought about a vibrant housing market and an impressive growth of the housing stock. However, Vietnam’s housing development involves a paradox: the state-supported, corporate-led formal sector produced only a small share of urban housing while a hardly-acknowledge informal sector provided the majority of the urban housing stock. This paper analyses Vietnam’s housing policies to explore this paradox. It highlights the complex state-market relation and raises questions regarding policies towards small-scale actors and the role they play in housing development.Following the economic reform (Doi moi), Vietnam’s housing sector has undergone comprehensive reform to create a housing market and encourage private sector’s housing production. Housing reform has brought about a vibrant housing development scene and an impressive growth of the housing stock. Similar to many developing states in Asia and around the world, marketization has clearly led to a rise in corporate invested, commercial housing in Vietnam. However, what is notable for Vietnam’s housing sector is the predominant of the informal housing production. The development of Vietnamese housing sector can be seen to involve a paradox: On the one hand, we have a formal housing sector dominated by corporate actors that get major legal and financial support from the state but produced only a small share of urban housing. On the other, we have a large informal sector that was hardly acknowledged but provide the majority (75%) of housing in the urban areas. It is also the informal sector that provides a range of affordable housing options for the urban poor

Caught between Plan and Market : Vietnam's Housing Reform in the Transition to a Market Economy

The housing sector in Vietnam follows a ‘gradualist’ approach of transforming from asocialist system in which the state assumed effective control to a market-oriented system that thelaws of supply and demand rule. Yet the long and winding transition within such a dual systemproduces inevitable contradictions between the state and the market as well as between the economicand the political institutions. This paper explores the dynamics of such interactions andcontradictions in Vietnam’s transforming housing system, employing Hanoi as a case study.The paper analyses the functioning and teething problems of the new housing market as well asthe resurgence of the role of the state in solving the contradictions in the reform process