Sustainable Social Housing
Family & Community Services NSW
[email protected] (2015)
(http://t.co/9K0aIXx1Vm)
“We are looking to the community to put forward innovative ideas to help us to achieve the following goals:
· a social housing system that provides opportunity and pathways for client independence
I understand that independence might be the goal of policy, and that many people only need support to become independent. However I live in social housing & there are many who are not able to be independent ... indeed none of us are actually independent of each other.
So I want to talk of the need for a pathway that would lead to greater independence,
and POSSIBLY rather than NECESSARILY to the independence that permanent paid employment is said to provide. This is a more practical goal. Importantly it does not impose failure on either the participant or on the state,
especially given the challenges of maintaining full employment in the face of technological job replacement & of globalisation which brings us into direct competition for jobs with low wage/no regulations workforces.
A more relaxed, less paternalistic approach could be more productive in terms of job outcomes for some tenants AND in terms of PRODUCTIVE social inclusion of many other tenants who do not get jobs. Such outcomes could also reduce costs of housing maintenance & tenant management, especially if there was opportunity for productive activity with neighbours.
Previous attempts at tenant participation have been disappointing BECAUSE they have not been recognised unless they are approved by Centrelink as LIKELY to lead to paid employment. This is stupid as it is well researched that voluntary work improves self esteem, builds skills and is often a pathway to work.
For detail on just how this should work & why it would not involve high drawdown costs, please see http://landrights4all.weebly.com/change-centrelinks-activity-test.html
· a social housing system that is fair
One of the unfairest features of the housing system is that people are systematically deprived of their right to establish a home for themselves unless they can PAY FOR something that should be seen as a birthright (like free access to air)
- that is free access to land.
Currently, the right to land (or money to pay for land access) depends on either getting a job or on complying with “mutual obligations”, which means being on an approved pathway to a paid job.
In the light of my earlier comment about the unsustainability, unfairness & the impacts of “failure” in that goal, how to meet obligations for land access and to society for the investment it makes in building housing & other supports for the unemployed should be reconsidered. We could make it fairer to all by not only recognising rights, but by detailing responsibilities. Doing so would give tenants a second option - either use social housing as a stepping stone to paid work & independence, OR have the permanence of your access to social housing dependent on meeting obligations to your local community (as described in the link above).
The effect of this would be that only those who were contributing through ongoing voluntary work would stay on. The whole dynamic in social housing and around its neighbours would change without depriving anyone who was genuine about pulling their weight.
I’d encourage you to have a look at how neighbourhoods could work at http://landrights4all.weebly.com/neighbourhoods-that-work.html
· a social housing system that is sustainable.
I know by sustainable many people mean economics, so I will address that first.
The current housing system is unsustainable because the housing market itself is unsustainable - that is not controversial. I would say, as I do above, that the job market is also unsustainable, but perhaps that will take more time to become as apparent. Nevertheless, many people are in housing stress because they cannot sustain work in this job market.
Social housing suffers additional economic stresses because tenants are often resentful about their lot (often due to the housing/job market) but also because they are being patronised by every level of government & society - even demonised & pathologised for their situation which is largely systemic, not personal. The resentment is expensive for society, but also for housing providers. The resentment is expressed in difficult behaviours, property damage & rent issues.
All these economic issues could be improved by ensuring unemployed people are socially included & not threatened with homelessness. A punitive patronising approach as we have now is guaranteed to drive people to express resentment, to be uncooperative and anti social.
So this is unsustainable in a social sense too.
The third & usually neglected sustainability measure is environmental. I won’t go into that in detail - so much depends on whether you believe in man made global warming, man made species & soil loss etc & whether you think we can oercome our environmental issues with technology alone - that is if you think no moderation of our resource depleting consumer lifestlyes is needed. I do think we need to “live more simply so that others may simply live”, but we are currently economically reliant on consumerism. I'd say the writing is on the wall and we need to open a new, more sustainable way to meet our needs - especially our basic needs like housing which currently requires employees to press on with economic growth regardless, just to keep a roof overhead.
There is no reason why, given access to public land, such tenants as now rely fully on social housing being built and maintained for them at great economic cost, could not over time develop new skills & pass on to future tenants improved ability to cooperate in building housing themselves.
The Neighbourhood That Works model would want to go that way with housing & garden skills so that tenants became MUCH more independent AND valued by neighbours in private housing - indeed NTW participation would be a sustainable social security system, whatever happens with future work.
It would be an environmentally sustainable offset for the market economy & would allow our population to grow sustainably.
The housing stock would remain in public ownership & its expansion would gently cool the private housing market.
[email protected] (2015)
(http://t.co/9K0aIXx1Vm)
“We are looking to the community to put forward innovative ideas to help us to achieve the following goals:
· a social housing system that provides opportunity and pathways for client independence
I understand that independence might be the goal of policy, and that many people only need support to become independent. However I live in social housing & there are many who are not able to be independent ... indeed none of us are actually independent of each other.
So I want to talk of the need for a pathway that would lead to greater independence,
and POSSIBLY rather than NECESSARILY to the independence that permanent paid employment is said to provide. This is a more practical goal. Importantly it does not impose failure on either the participant or on the state,
especially given the challenges of maintaining full employment in the face of technological job replacement & of globalisation which brings us into direct competition for jobs with low wage/no regulations workforces.
A more relaxed, less paternalistic approach could be more productive in terms of job outcomes for some tenants AND in terms of PRODUCTIVE social inclusion of many other tenants who do not get jobs. Such outcomes could also reduce costs of housing maintenance & tenant management, especially if there was opportunity for productive activity with neighbours.
Previous attempts at tenant participation have been disappointing BECAUSE they have not been recognised unless they are approved by Centrelink as LIKELY to lead to paid employment. This is stupid as it is well researched that voluntary work improves self esteem, builds skills and is often a pathway to work.
For detail on just how this should work & why it would not involve high drawdown costs, please see http://landrights4all.weebly.com/change-centrelinks-activity-test.html
· a social housing system that is fair
One of the unfairest features of the housing system is that people are systematically deprived of their right to establish a home for themselves unless they can PAY FOR something that should be seen as a birthright (like free access to air)
- that is free access to land.
Currently, the right to land (or money to pay for land access) depends on either getting a job or on complying with “mutual obligations”, which means being on an approved pathway to a paid job.
In the light of my earlier comment about the unsustainability, unfairness & the impacts of “failure” in that goal, how to meet obligations for land access and to society for the investment it makes in building housing & other supports for the unemployed should be reconsidered. We could make it fairer to all by not only recognising rights, but by detailing responsibilities. Doing so would give tenants a second option - either use social housing as a stepping stone to paid work & independence, OR have the permanence of your access to social housing dependent on meeting obligations to your local community (as described in the link above).
The effect of this would be that only those who were contributing through ongoing voluntary work would stay on. The whole dynamic in social housing and around its neighbours would change without depriving anyone who was genuine about pulling their weight.
I’d encourage you to have a look at how neighbourhoods could work at http://landrights4all.weebly.com/neighbourhoods-that-work.html
· a social housing system that is sustainable.
I know by sustainable many people mean economics, so I will address that first.
The current housing system is unsustainable because the housing market itself is unsustainable - that is not controversial. I would say, as I do above, that the job market is also unsustainable, but perhaps that will take more time to become as apparent. Nevertheless, many people are in housing stress because they cannot sustain work in this job market.
Social housing suffers additional economic stresses because tenants are often resentful about their lot (often due to the housing/job market) but also because they are being patronised by every level of government & society - even demonised & pathologised for their situation which is largely systemic, not personal. The resentment is expensive for society, but also for housing providers. The resentment is expressed in difficult behaviours, property damage & rent issues.
All these economic issues could be improved by ensuring unemployed people are socially included & not threatened with homelessness. A punitive patronising approach as we have now is guaranteed to drive people to express resentment, to be uncooperative and anti social.
So this is unsustainable in a social sense too.
The third & usually neglected sustainability measure is environmental. I won’t go into that in detail - so much depends on whether you believe in man made global warming, man made species & soil loss etc & whether you think we can oercome our environmental issues with technology alone - that is if you think no moderation of our resource depleting consumer lifestlyes is needed. I do think we need to “live more simply so that others may simply live”, but we are currently economically reliant on consumerism. I'd say the writing is on the wall and we need to open a new, more sustainable way to meet our needs - especially our basic needs like housing which currently requires employees to press on with economic growth regardless, just to keep a roof overhead.
There is no reason why, given access to public land, such tenants as now rely fully on social housing being built and maintained for them at great economic cost, could not over time develop new skills & pass on to future tenants improved ability to cooperate in building housing themselves.
The Neighbourhood That Works model would want to go that way with housing & garden skills so that tenants became MUCH more independent AND valued by neighbours in private housing - indeed NTW participation would be a sustainable social security system, whatever happens with future work.
It would be an environmentally sustainable offset for the market economy & would allow our population to grow sustainably.
The housing stock would remain in public ownership & its expansion would gently cool the private housing market.