Principles for Social Housing Reform

A report looking into the fundamental problems with the current social housing system

Author: Stephen Greenhalgh and John Moss - Apr 21, 2009

The problems associated with social housing have become entrenched within the current housing system. Council estates have become the very things that they were designed to replace – social ghettos – trapping their residents in a vicious circle of dependency. Current policymakers divide into either 'incrementalists' or 'reformers'. The incrementalist advocates helping people in social housing to move to more desirable neighbourhoods. The reformer goes much further, looking to fundamentally reform the social housing system – giving tenants a stake in the place where they live and freedom to RSLs and Councils to manage, all within an overarching responsibility to tackle concentrations of welfare dependency and to create mixed income/mixed tenure communities.

In this report for Localis, Stephen Greenhalgh and John Moss lay down some key principles upon which reform should be based in order to address the root causes of the failures of social housing, identified by Hills and others. The report makes a number of far-reaching recommendations for the reforms required to lay the foundations for the creation of a virtuous circle of independence, arguing that only fundamental reform of social housing will allow Councils and Registered Social Landlords to make substantial progress towards fixing Britain's broken neighbourhoods.

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