Public Housing Tenants Research Articles

The Removal of Millers Point Public Housing Tenants in Inner-Sydney by the New South Wales Government: Narratives of Government and Tenants

In 2014, the New South Wales (NSW) government announced that it was to move all of the approximately 580 public housing tenants from Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks in inner Sydney, sell the properties and use the proceeds to build social housing. This article, drawing on government media material and in-depth interviews with tenants, examines the removal process and contrasts the government’s narrative with that of the tenants. What is argued is that the displacement reflects how in the current neoliberal climate, instrumental rationality is a central feature, i.e. little cognisance is taken of the human cost of policies.

“It was like leaving your family”: Gentrification and the impacts of displacement on public housing tenants in inner‐Sydney

AbstractIn March 2014, the minister responsible announced that all of the approximately 600 public housing tenants of Millers Point and the Sirius Building in inner Sydney are to be moved and the properties sold. Millers Point is probably the oldest public housing area in Australia. The Sirius Building was purpose built for public housing tenants in the late 1970s. The article briefly examines the gentrification process in the Millers Point area. However, the main focus, drawing on six in‐depth interviews with public housing tenants who are still residents in the area and 13 who have moved, is an examination of the impact of the government's removal announcement and the actual displacement of residents. What this article illustrates is that the place attachment of most of the interviewees was profound and the removal announcement and the actual move were devastating. Interviewees spoke of deep sadness and anxiety at the thought of leaving what they considered a unique and genuine community. Residents who had moved told of their isolation and melancholy at having lost their local social network. The research shows that the human cost of policies and not revenue should always be the central consideration.

Social housing mediation: education path for social workers

ABSTRACTSocial mediation constitutes an alternative method to legal proceedings, providing effective support for the management and resolution of the most common types of conflicts between individuals, within families and among neighbours, as well as other types of disputes that can arise from interactions between people. Over the last 20 years, urban areas in Italy with high concentrations of public housing have gradually become zones of social disadvantage in which conflict is widespread, due to a number of different factors. On the local level, some municipalities have started promoting innovative initiatives, thanks in part to the sharing of successful practices, both nationally and internationally. This paper presents the methodology and results of an innovative intervention of social mediation in public housing contexts, carried out in a number of municipalities in the Marche Region with financing provided under two projects of the European Fund for the Integration of non-EU Immigrants. Particular attention is given to training courses for social workers, as well as to actions carried out in public housing neighbourhoods, together with the public housing tenants, in order to manage the various issues related to housing and to prevent and deal with conflicts by reinforcing relations between neighbours.

The Right to Buy public housing in Britain: A welfare analysis

We investigate the impact on social welfare of the United Kingdom (UK) policy introduced in 1980 by which public housing tenants (council housing in UK parlance) had the right to purchase their houses at heavily discounted prices. This was known as the Right to Buy (RTB) policy. Although this internationally-unique policy was the largest source of public privatization revenue in the UK and raised home ownership as a share of housing tenure by around 15%, the policy has been little analyzed by economists. We investigate the equilibrium housing policy of the public authority in terms of quality and quantity of publicly-provided housing both in the absence and presence of a RTB policy. We find that RTB can improve the aggregate welfare of low-income households only if the council housing quality is sufficiently low such that middle-wealth households have no incentive to exercise RTB. We also explore the welfare effects of various adjustments to the policy, in particular (i) to reduce discounts on RTB sales; (ii) to loosen restrictions on resale; (iii) to return the proceeds from RTB sales to local authorities to construct new public properties; and (iv) to replace RTB with rent subsidies in cash.

Delivering Affordable Housing and Neighborhood Quality: A Comparison of Place- and Tenant-Based Programs

This paper analyzes the relative merits of large place- and tenant-based housing programs in Finland in terms of housing affordability and neighborhood quality. Using hedonic regression methods and household micro data, we find that rent savings to public housing tenants are less targeted towards low-income households than housing allowance. In addition, low-income public housing tenants live in poorer, less educated and lower quality neighborhoods than similar low-income households in private rental housing. This suggests that place-based programs may lead to more segregation than tenant-based alternatives even when neighborhood mixing is an explicit aim of the program, as in Finland.

Housing tenure, body mass index and health in Australia

A national survey of Australian adults shows higher levels of obesity among public housing tenants and home owners with a mortgage compared to outright home owners. These results are to an extent due to higher instances of illness and disability among public housing tenants, and are also associated with known health risk factors. Yet differences in body mass index between tenures persist after controlling for a range of risk factors and socio-demographic indicators, suggesting the presence of cultural differences and different consumption patterns. Public tenants are by far the most likely to smoke on a daily basis, with private renters and home owners with a mortgage also more likely to be smokers than are outright home owners. Further investigation is required to establish the nature and extent that patterned health inequalities and associated risk factors are linked to housing tenure. If Australian mortgagees are more likely than outright homeowners to be obese, as our findings indicate, pursuing the ‘Australian dream’ of home-ownership may contain a hidden cost to one's health.

Public housing renewal and social determinants of health

ABSTRACTThis article draws on the concept of residential context of housing and its relationship to health. It considers a bundle of changes through implementation of a housing renewal initiative as part of the Carlton Housing Estate Upgrading Project in Melbourne, Australia. Beyond the quality and appropriateness of the housing, pertinent factors explored include social networks, safety and security, and green open space. Data collection for the research project included in-depth interviews with public housing tenants, private residents, and service providers who live on and service the estate, as well as neighborhood observations and participation in on-site events. A key finding was that the relational processes of how tenants were related to by others–specifically, the way housing was reallocated during the processes of renewal–affected social housing tenants’ self-perceived health and well-being.

Does the first impression matter? Efficiency testing of tenure-choice decision

The efficient market hypothesis states that rather than utilizing previous irrelevant information, rational decision-making is based solely on current information. In this paper, we test the efficient-market hypothesis with respect to the timing of home purchase. We use data obtained from the privatization of the public housing program in Israel to estimate the weight given to current, as opposed to the first, reduction rate offered to public housing tenants. In line with the relevant psychological literature, results indicate that the first impression generates a very effective and long-lasting imprint: only 40% weight is given to the current reduction rate, compared with 60% weight given to the first reduction rate public housing tenants encounter. When the sample period is stratified by governments in office, this weight rises (drops) to 50% (0%–30%) among tenants who accelerate (defer) the purchase. Research findings thus stress the strong reliance on irrelevant information in tenure-choice decision in response to a series of varying reduction conditions offered to tenants.

Welfare as Wrecking Ball: Constructing Public Responsibility in Legal Encounters Over Public Housing Demolition

Scholarship on welfare privatization illustrates how the process often curtails and undermines public responsibility for the poor. In this article, I examine how recipients, policy makers, and judges participate in the legal process as a means of challenging and defending privatization. I look at cases of litigation initiated by public housing tenants between 1985 and 2012 to fight the demolition of their homes to explore the changing meaning of public responsibility within a shrinking public sector. My findings show that as legislative and administrative reforms steered courts toward a more flexible understanding of public responsibility, courts gave increasing attention to the economic hardships experienced by the state itself, while downplaying the plight of low-income tenants.

ЖИЛИЩНЫЕ ОТНОШЕНИЯ, ПОЛИТИКА И УСЛОВИЯ

Since the beginning of 1990s all the housing strategies, programs and Russian government projects were focused on the creation of the housing market and proprietary class. The tenants being the most numerous group in the USSR are now a minority. This type of households does not have a social homogeneity and equal living conditions. Half of them are public housing tenants; the remainder is equally represented by the private housing tenants who take on lease on commercial or gratuitous basis. The commercial tenants are young people who are mobile and have high income. Renting a house is a temporary solution to the housing problem in a situation when the family status is changed (separation from parents; divorce). The housing groups are different in terms of the characteristics of the occupied housing: small surface for the commercial rental and poor condition for the municipal housing. The data show that the privatization reserve is exhausted; from now on to become the owner of the housing one need to purchase it.

Disrupting the order of things: Public housing tenant organizing for material, political and epistemological justice

Since the advent of public housing in the U.S., tenants have played an integral role in both fostering environments where they can flourish, and, when needed, organizing to hold public housing authorities and government officials accountable for providing the material resources necessary to maintain and enhance residents' quality of life. In the current era of public housing demolition and redevelopment as mixed-income communities, these organizing efforts have not only centered on minimizing forced displacement, but also for the right to participate as meaningful stakeholders in governing the transformation of the places they call home. While these material and political dimensions of tenant organizing have been the focus of many studies, relatively little research has focused on the epistemological work that organizing performs in challenging and disrupting abstract representations commonly deployed in spatial policy discourse that marginalizes public housing residents as being both victims and causal agents of concentrated and intergenerational poverty. We examine these themes through an analysis of tenant organizing in Nashville, Tennessee's largest public housing development that is slated for demolition and redevelopment. Our study finds that the material and political achievements of tenant organizing were predicated on the epistemological work that residents engaged.

Social mix, ‘[A] very, very good idea in a vacuum but you have to do it properly!’ Exploring social mix in a right to the city framework

Implementing mixed tenure projects is an ongoing practice in Australian cities despite questions raised about the soundness of the underlying assumptions. This paper draws on the concept of ‘right to the city’, based on Lefebvre's work as an organising framework to investigate the findings of empirical research on social mix policy through the case study of Carlton Housing Estate Redevelopment Project in Melbourne, Australia. From Lefebvre's work we understand the right to the city as a right to participate in and influence decision-making, and to enjoy and access local urban spaces. Data collection included in-depth interviews with public housing tenants, private residents and service providers, as well as neighbourhood observations and participation in on-site events. The findings reveal that public housing tenants' opportunities to influence and participate in decision-making processes for the redevelopment project have been limited and privatisation of public space has created ongoing symbolic and physical barriers to their fully accessing on-site ‘open’ space. Numerous tensions are revealed in the processes of implementing social mix policies particularly in terms of tenants' opportunities to participate and fully enjoy newly designed open spaces in their community; in effect tenants have been denied a right to the city.

What is the Meaning of ‘Social Mix’? Shifting perspectives in planning and implementing public housing estate redevelopment

ABSTRACTThis paper unravels a variety of perspectives about the concept of social mix, drawing on a case study of the implementation of a redevelopment project in Melbourne. The first part provides a theoretical overview of two internationally predominant academic debates around policy interpretations of this concept, namely social mix as a means for promotion of social inclusion; and as a state-led form of gentrification. These two arguments are usually presented as one, with social inclusion and reductions of concentrations of disadvantage one side of the ‘social mix policy’ coin, and state-led gentrification the other. This paper contributes to the national and international literature on public housing estate regeneration and social mix policies through exploring the question of whether these two ideas about social mix were shared by different stakeholders as the ‘messy’ process of redevelopment unfurled. Interviews were conducted with public tenants, homeowners and homebuyers, private renters and local service providers at the Carlton Housing Estate to explore the diverse perspectives of various stakeholder groups as estate design and implementation shifted. The study identified that as a result of the global financial crisis and the developers exerting pressure on government there was a gradual move away from perceiving social mix as a policy tool for encouraging social inclusion at Carlton, between public housing tenants and private residents, towards a different form of social mix and inclusion. Contrary to intentions, the revised form of social mix at Carlton was perceived as a means to harness market capital and attract higher income residents to the inner city.

The human right to housing and community empowerment: home occupation, eviction defence and community land trusts

Critics of human rights are hesitant to reject them outright for fear of undermining the work they may do in resisting oppression. This pragmatic justification is central to celebrations of human rights as well, but is it more than a failure to move beyond liberal hegemony? I argue that human rights have radical potential because the act of claiming such rights uses the ambiguous but universal identity of ‘humanity’ to make claims on the established terms of legitimate authority. The potential of human rights to fight for social change is examined by looking at the movement for a human right to housing in the USA. I explore how homeless individuals, public housing tenants and low-income urban residents realise their human right to housing through eviction defences, the occupation of ‘people-less’ homes, and attempts to remake the structure of home ownership through community land trusts.

Linking public housing, employment, and disability benefits for working-age people with disabilities

Since the 1990s, US housing policy has emphasized increasing the economic self-sufficiency of assisted households. However, an estimated 41% of working-age public housing tenants have a disability, and many participate in multiple public benefit programs. We explore this policy dilemma by asking: (1) do levels of employment vary between people with disabilities who are and who are not residing in public housing, and (2) do the types of disabilities vary by those who are and who are not residing in public housing? We also consider whether or not answers vary based on household receipt of public disability benefits. Results from the Current Population Survey suggest that working-age people with disabilities who live in public housing but do not receive disability program benefits are significantly less likely to be employed than disabled non-beneficiaries who do not reside in public housing. No differences in employment levels are noted between Social Security disability program participants who do and do not live in public housing. Some significant differences in types of disabilities were noted among disability program participants who do and do not reside in public housing. We discuss policy implications and suggestions for further research.

Operationalizing a Responsibility Agenda in Australia’s Indigenous Communities: Confused, Doubtful and Subversive Public Housing Tenants

In Australia, significant current reforms to Indigenous affairs emphasize the mutual responsibilities of government and citizens. Under these new arrangements, government is mainstreaming many programmes and services for Indigenous people, whilst demanding that they assume greater responsibility for their own welfare. For its part, housing welfare in remote Indigenous and town camp communities is being repositioned under the mainstream public housing model. This paper reports on qualitative research on the micro-scale of housing policy implementation to highlight the local operation of a responsibility agenda in these settings. Based on interviews with Indigenous housing stakeholders, it argues that the outcomes of an ethopolitics in housing welfare are necessarily contingent in these milieus. The analytical framework of realist governmentality assists in capturing the relationship between government technologies and the actions of governable subjects. Specifically, new understandings of tenant reflexivity and resistance clarify why the prescribed tenant identity – the responsible tenant – fails to materialize in practice.

Employment of Public Housing Residents in Australian Cities

This article explores the current employment status of people who live in public housing in Australian cities, and asks how this has changed over the past 30 years? The data sources for this article are the 1981, 1996 and 2011 ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) Census of Population and Housing. It summarises the contextual factors that have influenced public tenant employment participation over the previous 30 years. The overall employment trends for Australia then are set out, followed by an analysis of public tenant workforce participation at a metropolitan and sub-metropolitan scale for the east coast capital cities. The main finding is that the rate of public housing tenant employment is higher in many locations than might be expected, and is also subject to significant variation both between cities and regions and within cities. The article concludes with a discussion of the empirical work's implications for the future of public housing in Australia.

What has happened to Australia's public housing? Thirty years of policy and outcomes, 1981 to 2011

This paper uses the release of the 2011 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) census results and other recent and historical data sets to explore how Australian public housing has changed over the period 1981–2011. It summarises the contextual factors that have influenced housing provision and consumption in Australia over the past thirty years. The overall supply trends by tenure for Australia and each capital city are set out, followed by analysis of the demographics of public housing tenants, including age, household type, income, mobility, and workforce participation. Issues identified in the paper include insufficient stock and increasingly targeted households, representing a social and financial problem for housing agencies. The current stock is ill‐adapted to tenants' needs; if housing agencies re‐profile the housing to meet such needs, then they risk creating inflexible stock. The paper concludes with reflection on the future of public housing in Australia.

Social mix and the role of design: Competing interests in the Carlton Public Housing Estate Redevelopment, Melbourne

The social mix policy approach has become a common reaction to the multiple-disadvantage increasingly present in public housing estates in western cities. This approach and its social effects on socially-mixed communities have been studied widely; however the physical form or arrangement of models that such communities are formulated around have been largely missing from this discussion. The importance of design principles as well as the barriers to their implementation in mixed-tenure communities has been largely overlooked. We investigate these factors in a case study of the Carlton Public Housing Estate Redevelopment in Melbourne, Australia, using an analysis of in-depth interviews with public housing tenants, private residents and service providers. The findings show how the implementation of design ‘principles’ was contingent on political and economic decisions made by government and private enterprise stakeholders. Perceptions of whether the physical design of the redevelopment contributed to the lack of successful social mix varied between tenants, government officials, private developers and private residents. We conclude that partly due to the way that economic interests compromised the implementation of preferred design principles undertaken in the Carlton Redevelopment Project (Stage 1), neither housing tenure mix nor social interaction has been successfully experienced by public and private residents in the estate.

Public Housing Residence and College Performance: Evidence From the Nation's Largest Urban Public University

Despite clear implications for human capital accumulation, there has been little research on the postsecondary educational experiences of students living in public housing. While there is significant and growing research exploring outcomes for public housing tenants, even in the education sphere, little of this work focuses on postsecondary outcomes and what role, if any, public housing plays in human capital accumulation. Our case study, New York City, is home to both the nation's largest urban public university system and the largest public housing authority. In this work, we use matching techniques to identify and describe the residential characteristics of students at the City University of New York. We explore how students who live in public housing developments differ from their peers in terms of characteristics associated with success in college, including demographics, neighborhood poverty, and high school preparation. We use regression techniques to test the relation between public housing residence, neighborhood income, and two indicators of early college performance: successful completion of credits attempted and one-year retention. In a naive model (including only residence and high school characteristics), public housing residence is negatively associated with our outcomes of interest, but less so when we control for other factors, including neighborhood income. Specifically, for students pursuing an associate's degree, we find a negative relation between public housing residence and credit completion and a less pronounced negative relation with retention. We find no significant relation between public housing residence and either baccalaureate outcome.