Social Housing System Research Articles

Calculating the system-wide supply impacts of social housing estate renewal: new measures and methods

Estate renewal has come to be touted as a means of improving social housing supply both qualitatively and quantitatively, replacing ageing and under-maintained dwellings and increasing the total stock of social housing. In this paper, we examine the latter claim. We develop novel measures and methods for calculating the social housing supply impacts of estate renewal, taking account of the reduction in supply caused by tenant relocations and dwelling demolitions prior to the delivery of new social housing. Using administrative data on tenant relocations and dwelling completions for three projects in Sydney, we calculate the social housing accommodation deficit caused by the renewal process, subsequently, the time required for each project to deliver more nights of accommodation than this deficit. These measures illuminate the significant impacts of estate renewal on the social housing system and problematize its justification based on gross or net social housing supply. They constitute a valuable method for examining estate renewal, wherever it may occur.

Defying the odds? Multiple disadvantage as a source of entrepreneurial action

Purpose The link between entrepreneurial intention and positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship for established and nascent entrepreneurs has been well documented in the extant literature, with the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) viewing entrepreneurial intention as a pre-requisite for entrepreneurial pursuit. Whilst scholars generally agree on these insights, little empirical evidence exists on how marginalised social groups can convert their intentions into action. This study aims to understand to what extent the elements of TPB, the attitudes towards entrepreneurship, self-efficacy and subjective norms, help explain the emergence of entrepreneurial activity amongst marginalised demographic groups.Design/methodology/approach This research focuses on unemployed women residing in social housing located in a deprived urban area of the United Kingdom to empirically examine how multiple layers of disadvantage faced by this group shape their motivations and intentions for entrepreneurial pursuit. A multi-source qualitative methodology was adopted, drawing upon inductive storytelling narratives and extensive fieldwork on a sample of unemployed ethnic minority women residing in social housing in a deprived urban area of the United Kingdom. Community organisation representatives and housing association employees within the social housing system were included to assess the interpretive capacity of TPB.Findings The findings display that TPB illuminates why and how marginalised groups engage in entrepreneurship. Critically, women’s entrepreneurial intentions emerge as a result of their experiences of multiple layers of disadvantage, their positionality and the specificity of few resources they can activate from their disadvantageous position for entrepreneurial activity.Originality/value By illuminating the linkages between marginalised women’s positionality and their associated access to the limited pool of resources using the TPB lens, this study contributes to emerging works on disadvantaged populations and entrepreneurial intention-action debate. This work posits that despite facing significant additional challenges through their positionality and reduced ability to mobilise resources, women in social housing can defy the odds and develop ways to overcome limited capacity and structural disadvantage.

Who lives there now? Residualisation of social housing in Austria

Across Europe, there is a trend to re-focus social housing on the most economically vulnerable groups (“residualisation”). We investigate whether this trend is also observed in Austria, a conservative welfare state with a social housing system open to a broad range of households and a long tradition of municipal housing. Using data from 1995 to 2018, we estimate residualisation indicators that compare the income of social housing tenants with other housing sectors. Based on tenants’ income, we find that municipal housing has become more residualised. This contrasts with Austria’s social housing allocation policy, where generous income limits remain important cornerstones. For limited-profit housing associations (LPHAs), we observe a smaller residualisation trend (mainly outside the capital Vienna), which has gained momentum since the early 2010s. This remedies the Austrian peculiarity that the LPHA sector was a middle-income tenure rather than a safety net for the poor. For both types of social housing, a growing income gap with owners is noticeable.

Building Sustainable Social Housing System: A Singapore Case from New Institutionalism Economics Approach

Policymakers worldwide currently face challenges in planning, regulating, and managing the housing market. One of the primary solutions is the provision of affordable social housing fostering economic development, culture integration, technology empowerment, and social stability. Singapore is recognized as a successful model of well-balanced centralized legislation and market-augmented governance. However, current studies have mainly focused on urban planning and real estate finance fields. A holistic approach should be conducted to understand the effectiveness of the whole framework and policy conduit including affordability, inclusiveness, and connectivity. This study emphasizes the importance of the Housing and Development Board (HDB) governance and analyzes what policies make social housing schemes robust and sustainable by combining the Singapore case with the New Institutionalism Economics (NIE) approach. HDB decreases transaction costs by centralized planning and establishes a transparent system to increase housing affordability and ownership. Inclusiveness is achieved by inter-departmental joint force so that social capital can be maximized for diverse community cohesion. Socio-technical change and institutional evolution have mutual effects on each other for efficiency and connectivity. Digital innovations make sustainable communities and smart cities. As a result, this study proposes a practical framework for learning from Singapore's implications for national governance, institutional development, and policy formulation that holds universal reference value.

Management of the maintenance process in social housing: A case study

AbstractDigital transformation of private and public entities is a process strongly encouraged by the European Commission. The social housing sector, which provides long‐term housing or subsidies for vulnerable households, struggles to reach a good digitalization level and needs specific solutions that address its technical, financial, and administrative peculiarities. Indeed, the social housing sector often faces issues related to insufficient available funds that can be used for optimizing assets' maintenance operations, ensuring the safety and wellbeing of building occupants with better management of financial resources. Furthermore, it is not a widely explored area by the research community. To provide digital solutions for innovating the management of the property assets and, specifically, the maintenance activities for social housing, the paper presents a case study from the Italian social housing system. Current available processes, data, and information systems are explored to propose a solution for the visualization and management of collected data at the provincial, municipality, and building levels. The main purpose is to support decision makers for maintenance activities. Scholars and practitioners in this research field can benefit from the proposed solution to lead actions for the digital transition of the social housing sector.

Environmental Protection Is Not Relevant in the Perceived Quality of Life of Low-Income Housing Residents: A PLS-SEM Approach in the Brazilian Amazon

Meeting the needs of users is imperative in construction, especially those of low-income people. This research looks into the perceptions of low-income users concerning green building (GB) and discusses how building sustainability can contribute to improving their lives. To this end, a model was developed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) relating the perceptions on residents’ quality of life with the GB criteria of Blue House Label (Selo Casa Azul—SCA), a Brazilian Sustainable Label. This model was based on data from a survey with 658 residents of the ‘Minha Casa, Minha Vida—MCMV’ (My Home, My Life) program, which is part of the Brazilian social housing system. The results of the model suggest that intangible issues such as the environmental protection criteria related to the construction of the building are not capable of influencing their perception of quality of life in the project. On the other hand, GB criteria capable of providing more practical benefits to low-income residents were broadly accepted, such as urban quality, GBT related to cost reduction, water management, and social practices. Furthermore, this article contributes to the discussion about sustainable social housing, the importance of adopting social criteria in GB, and the potential of environmental education to contribute to meeting sustainable development goals (SDG).

The remarkable stability of social housing in Vienna and Helsinki: a multi-dimensional analysis

The supply of social housing has been marked by erosion and decline in most Western Europe countries since the 1990s, albeit with considerable variation in timing, speed and degree. Recently, it has been suggested that the sector has kept a more prominent position at the local level, at least in some cities. This paper scrutinizes this claim by comparing the development of social housing in two cities in two distinct national housing systems that have traditionally had a strong commitment to social housing: Vienna and Helsinki. To do so, we build a multi-dimensional framework that encompasses sector size, stock privatization, new housing production, and residualization. We empirically demonstrate a remarkable stability along these dimensions in both cases, albeit with some differences in degree. A number of factors need to be considered to explain this stability. They relate to aspects of institutional design of the social housing systems, as well as to continuity in policies at national and local levels.

Towards an European framework for social housing assessment

Housing is one of the causes of the growing social gap in Europe, but it repre- sents an opportunity for innovation. National differences are a limitation for joint reflections between states. Therefore, starting from a desk analysis of European reports, the article proposes an innovative framework of eight indicators useful to define and compare social housing systems. The framework represents a possible tool to systematise knowledge on housing to facilitate inclusive actions and support shared choices.

Process View to Innovate the Management of the Social Housing System: A Multiple Case Study

All countries recognize the right to adequate housing for all human beings. Yet, in many countries, social housing is in a critical state: most buildings need to be restored and better services should be guaranteed. Such actions should be part of a larger plan aimed to overcome the organizational and technological backwardness of the agencies that manage the social housing system. With a not large, but old public asset, the Italian context may represent an interesting case to start investigating difficulties and problems in the management of the social housing system that, as it occurs in most Mediterranean countries, arise when the public housing rental model is adopted. In the paper, a multiple case study on five Italian regional public Agencies responsible for the social housing system is discussed. In particular, the theoretical lens of process theory and ambidextrous business process management are adopted to study the Agencies’ “problematic situation” and identify innovative solutions to address it. The paper contributes to research and practice on process innovation and digital transformation of public administrations: three important lessons are derived and discussed also taking into consideration Industry 5.0, the vision on the future of industry recently proposed by the European Commission. Finally, the adoption of process theory combined with ambidextrous Business Process Management is an underexplored research method in the field of Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Facility Management (AEC/FM) research. The results reported in the study reaffirm the potential deriving from its adoption also in such a field.

Distinct immune and transcriptomic profiles in dominant versus subordinate males in mouse social hierarchies

Social status is a critical factor determining health outcomes in human and nonhuman social species. In social hierarchies with reproductive skew, individuals compete to monopolize resources and increase mating opportunities. This can come at a significant energetic cost leading to trade-offs between different physiological systems. In particular, changes in energetic investment in the immune system can have significant short and long-term effects on fitness and health. We have previously found that dominant alpha male mice living in social hierarchies have increased metabolic demands related to territorial defense. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that high-ranking male mice favor adaptive immunity, while subordinate mice show higher investment in innate immunity. We housed 12 groups of 10 outbred CD-1 male mice in a social housing system. All formed linear social hierarchies and subordinate mice had higher concentrations of plasma corticosterone (CORT) than alpha males. This difference was heightened in highly despotic hierarchies. Using flow cytometry, we found that dominant status was associated with a significant shift in immunophenotypes towards favoring adaptive versus innate immunity. Using Tag-Seq to profile hepatic and splenic transcriptomes of alpha and subordinate males, we identified genes that regulate metabolic and immune defense pathways that are associated with status and/or CORT concentration. In the liver, dominant animals showed a relatively higher expression of specific genes involved in major urinary production and catabolic processes, whereas subordinate animals showed relatively higher expression of genes promoting biosynthetic processes, wound healing, and proinflammatory responses. In spleen, subordinate mice showed relatively higher expression of genes facilitating oxidative phosphorylation and DNA repair and CORT was negatively associated with genes involved in lymphocyte proliferation and activation. Together, our findings suggest that dominant and subordinate animals adaptively shift immune profiles and peripheral gene expression to match their contextual needs.

Living with Quality: Strategies for Transferring Social Housing Development to After-war Syria

Obtaining a home in Syria has been an equivalent to a strategic goal around which the life of the Syrian citizen revolves. Housing was one of the problematic crises before the war, which accelerated due to the war. Moreover, this turned into a humanitarian disaster, and the situation has become more urgent and requires immediate treatment. The solution of this demolition is not limited to an easy rebuilding and needs a more sustainable and qualified policy in order to prevent to turn back to the existing crisis before the war. This paper focuses on finding an appropriate strategy to respond to the housing crisis in Syria in the light of successful implementations of social housing. In order to achieve that, after a literature review of the general context of social housing, the Singapore social housing experience has been analyzed. Considering the housing problems and implementations in Syria (before and after the war) in a comparative evaluation with the Singapore experience, some strategies have been suggested, along with discussing the transfer of this experience to the Syrian context. A list of recommendations for developing a social housing strategy based on a clear legal framework also provides a base for social housing.

Funding resilient and fragile social housing systems in Ireland and Denmark

This article explores the impact of social housing financing arrangements for the fragility and resilience of this tenure as evidenced by its propensity to shrink or expand over the long-run. To do so, it examines the cases of Ireland and Denmark and employs and develops the concept of ‘financial circuits’. This concept refers to dynamic flows of capital and revenue which move through the built environment in ways which are structured by the different funding streams which make them up, and by their interaction with the wider socio-economic context. The key insight offered here is that the cyclicality, permeability and breadth of financial circuits are key to understanding finance’s impact on the size and trajectory of the social housing tenure. The Danish social housing sector has doubled in size since the 1960s partially because it draws on broad financial circuits which consist of many different types of finance, including government, non-profit and financialised private sources. This insulates the sector from reductions in funding from any single source and avoids the boom/bust investment cycles common in Ireland where the sector relies almost entirely on government grants for funding.

How Much State and How Much Market? Comparing Social Housing in Berlin and Vienna

This article examines the effect of two different social housing systems on housing-market characteristics and affordability using a case study of Berlin and Vienna. Despite comparable framework conditions, both cities pursued very different social housing policies. While both cities are currently challenged by growing populations and rising house prices, we show that Vienna is more successful in providing affordable housing as it has created effective institutions to attract and retain private actors in this sector. In Berlin, in contrast, the current crisis reveals the lack of institutional capacity to actively pursue housing policy. We argue that different housing market outcomes can be attributed to fundamental differences in the organisation of social housing provision reflecting divergent state-market relations. While in Berlin social housing has been seen as a provisional measure to correct temporary market imbalances, Vienna’s continuous state participation in the housing market has created a framework of balanced rights and responsibilities for social and private actors to achieve social policy goals. Differences in funding arrangements and institutional embeddedness influence not only housing outcomes but also feedback on the state’s capacity to intervene successfully in housing markets.

Social Housing Systems: Perspective of Ghana, Nigeria, United Kingdom, and Netherland

The assertion made by Kaufman (2003); ‘Safe, affordable housing is a basic necessity for every family. Without a decent place to live, people cannot be productive members of society, children cannot learn and families cannot thrive’. This assertion motivated the researcher to make a clear cut clarification on social housing systems as being considered as affordable housing provided for people who cannot afford housing above the market rate. Social housing systems are structures provided for individuals who have disabilities or specific medical needs, elderly persons, single parents, individuals living in unsanitary or overcrowded housing, large or young family with dependent children, migrants, refugees or asylum seekers, legally classified as homeless (or threatened with homelessness). The study used secondary data throughout the research. Authors’ works on social housing systems have been presented in a logical and sequential fashion to make the understanding of social housing very easy.

Contemporary Methods of Construction for Social Deficit in Housing in India

In India the housing shortage is much severe with an estimated shortage of around 18 million houses, with 99% of this is in the economically weaker sections of society. Social housing is the housing system provided for people with low income by government agencies or non-profit organizations. This research paper is about the study of the methods of construction that is adopted in social housing system which will help in improving the social deficit in the housing sector. The study is done with the help of live case studies on housing projects in and around Hyderabad which comes under the flagship programme JNNURM for economically weaker section. The study concluded that the contemporary methods of construction is considered to be advantageous as the government does not provide enough funds for the housing projects and also the contractors are not willing to take any risk and pay for any other modern method of construction.

Understanding the experience of social housing pathways

This report is part of an Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) Inquiry examining how social housing pathways could be reimagined to provide more effective assistance for low-income households in Australia. This research sets out to understand the ways in which individuals and households experience pathways into, within and out of the Australian social housing system.

Does social mix reduce stigma in public housing? A comparative analysis of two housing estates in Melbourne

In Australia and many other countries of the Global North, public housing estates are being dismantled and redeveloped to create mixed-income communities. Proponents of redevelopment argue that the introduction of private housing will reduce public housing residents' experiences of stigma. In this paper, we interrogate these assumptions by identifying the degree of stigma directed at the social housing system, the characteristics of those most likely to stigmatise, the impact of proximity to public housing estates on stigmatisation and the words used to describe social housing. Our empirical strategy relies on a multi-dimensional social housing stigma scale, cross-sectional ordinary-least-square regression analysis and a qualitative analysis of respondents' association with the term public housing. We find that a higher level of stigma is correlated with private residents, older respondents, lower incomes and those that have lived in their current neighbourhoods for longer. Drawing on social contact theory, we investigate contact with public housing residents as a predictor of stigmatisation. We find that intra-group contact, positive interactions between social and private residents and proximity to Kensington Estate, a mixed-tenure development, contribute to lower stigmatisation.

The construction of social housing pathways across Australia

Housing pathways describe the changing experience of housing by tenants and their households over time and space. The impact of the transformation of social housing in recent years on these pathways is not well understood, and we investigate it in this report. Accessing and securing social housing is dependent on a range of eligibility criteria, with housing allocated on a priority needs basis. In some jurisdictions, having a low income alone does not guarantee eligibility for social housing. Living in social housing means that one’s housing can be subject to periodic eligibility reviews, which can also be triggered by (mis)use of premises or by changing household circumstances. For example, an increase in household income, the expansion of a household or when a household member needs to leave due to family violence. The way these issues are monitored and assessed across jurisdictions directly shapes the housing pathways of social housing tenants. Moves within social housing can be tenant-initiated or landlord-initiated. Tenant-initiated transfers are most likely to result from changing household circumstances, and landlord-initiated transfers from portfolio or tenancy management. Both tenant and landlord-initiated transfers are constrained by the wider policy context, specifically, a shortage of suitable alternative housing stock to transfer households to. Moves out of social housing may also be tenant or landlord-initiated. Previous research has demonstrated that regardless of who initiated the move, tenants often return to the social housing system. Returns to social housing are compounded by the increasing proportion of tenants with complex needs who are likely to require support to live in private housing. The lack of affordable and appropriate housing alternatives to social housing also increases pressure on the sector, including from tenants returning to the sector who have previously left. Many of the operational policies that shape housing pathways have been introduced in the context of sustained high demand and a lack of supply. They are therefore arguably designed to manage wait lists by rationing supply. While we are yet to explore the tenant experience of social housing pathways, reimagining social housing pathways likely requires a greater policy focus on ensuring positive outcomes for households. © Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute Limited 2019.

Residential Mobility of Locals and Migrants in Northwest Urban China

With the increase in urbanization, intraurban residential mobility, which underlies urban growth and spatial restructuring, is gradually becoming an integral part of migration in China. However, little is known about the differences in residential mobility between locals and migrants, especially in urban areas in Northwest China. In this study, we aimed to fill this void by investigating the residential mobility patterns among Urumqi’s locals and migrants based on data from a survey and face-to-face interviews that were conducted in 2018. The results first show that the migrants with low homeownership rates relocated more frequently, but had less intentions to move within Urumqi, compared with the locals. A larger proportion of migrants than locals was forced to migrate. Evidence also suggests that the migration directions of locals and migrants differ: both locals and migrants tended to relocate from the southern areas, like Tianshan and Saybark Districts, to northern areas, like Xinshi and Midong Districts, which show the northward migration process of the urban population center in Urumqi. In contrast to the locals, whose net migration direction was from marginal areas to the central area, the net migration direction of migrants was from the central area to the marginal areas, contributing to the formation of migrant communities in the suburbs and spatial segregation between locals and migrants. Lastly, the locals’ intentions to move were widely influenced by age, ethnic group, type of employment, family population, housing area, and residential satisfaction; the migrants’ mobility intentions were mainly influenced by housing type and residential satisfaction. To attract more migrants to the urban areas in Northwest China, a more relaxed migrants’ household registration policy should be implemented, and the inequalities of the social security system and housing system between migrants and locals should be reduced to bridge the gap between migrants and locals.

Inclusionary housing policies in Gothenburg, Sweden, and Stuttgart, Germany

Affordable housing shortage and concerns about social and income segregation have become a focal point of housing policy debate in many Western countries, and inclusionary housing policies (IH) have become widespread. IH is a term that summarizes municipal ambitions to spur the inclusion of affordable housing in otherwise market-rate projects through development restrictions. This article investigates IH policy objectives and outcomes of policies applied by the German city of Stuttgart and a Swedish pilot project in the city of Gothenburg.
 Although IH policies in the two countries generally have very similar objectives and incentive structures, underlying slow-moving institutions decide fundamental traits of the fast-moving institution of IH. In the Swedish case, allocation methods of low-rent apartments under the unitary housing system might prevent targeted polices such as IH from functioning as intended. In the German case, IH is integrated into the existing social and affordable housing system. Therefore its social objectives are not contested, although the limitation of private property rights and the incentive structures of developers are bound to be discussed.
 Irrespective of the housing system, the extent of public land ownership might also be a decisive factor in whether to implement IH policies or not. In Stuttgart, where public land ownership is limited, IH policies might be an effective way to produce affordable housing, as alternatives, including finding inexpensive land for public production, are limited. As Gothenburg municipality owns most of the land available for housing development, has a planning monopoly and public housing companies with good financial standing, it might find other, quicker and possibly less costly, ways to develop affordable housing than applying IH, especially if it is implemented mainly through public investors.