Access and Privilege: Governing the Social Housing Paradox

Abstract

Various forms of social housing privatisation have significantly depleted the quantity of social housing stock available. Applicants for social housing are therefore placed under an increasing burden to justify access to housing and the ongoing enjoyment of tenancies, with social behaviour and ‘active citizenship’ now the norm for securing ongoing access to tenancies, through evidence of 'deserving' status. This paper considers these burdens through Nikolas Rose’s concept of post-social societies, where the state has rescinded various social welfare provisions and enables less formal, often local, intervention to take its place. This reading of Rose develops three arguments within this article: first, that the scarcity of social housing places those in receipt under a perception of ‘privilege’; second, that post-social trends mobilise this perception of privilege to normalise informal interventions against anti-social behaviour; and, finally, that this agenda is extended and continued under the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition, albeit via alternative branding.