Claire Lévy-Vroelant

Housing Vulnerable Groups: The Development of a New Public Action Sector

Abstract The emphasis placed on the issue of housing for vulnerable groups in both policy discourses and the analyses carried out by researchers might seem obvious given the worsening imbalance between supply and demand, and segregation concerns in Europe and the United States. Academic research has produced numerous analyses, and there has been an increasing number of policy papers and commissioned reports as a result of the growing level of housing insecurity and, more recently, the financial crisis and the relatively unsuccessful tendency of governments to stimulate and monitor the markets. The recent report ‘Housing policy and vulnerable groups’ (2008) commissioned by the Council of Europe is one emblematic example. This paper, focusing on Europe, attempts to understand what is revealed by the trivialisation of the concept of vulnerable group and how it reorganises the ‘social paradigm’. The designation of vulnerable groups in relation to social risk – with emphasis placed on the targeting of these groups – as well as the attention to the distribution of vulnerable groups in urban space through the concept of social mix, have brought new actors to, and revised principles in the field of public policy. Policies are re-configured by means of a new division of tasks between assistance and assurance. This paper begins by revisiting the concept of vulnerability and the ways in which it is used in the housing policy sector. We then propose a re-examination of the welfare state, and the imprecise frontiers between policies dedicated to rule housing, and policies aimed to ensure social protection. In summarising the social effects of policies targeting vulnerable groups, we identify the significance of a number of developments: the arrival of new civil society actors in the field of housing; the increasingly litigiousness (judiciarisation) of society and the placing of the ‘vulnerable’ in competition with one another; the extension of the realm of housing, through European financing and intra-national redistribution, into both social activities and urban reframing. The intention is to show what appears to be a renewed interest in a policy of assistance aimed at rectifying inequalities generated by liberal governance of the market. Doing so, as we will show, policies contribute to the fragmenting of the ‘object housing’ itself.

Foyers in the UK and France - Comparisons and Contrasts

ABSTRACT The Foyer movement in the UK developed in the early 1990s as a government sponsored response to inter-related youth problems of homelessness, unemployment and limited training and recreation facilities. In an attempt to ‘re-enfranchise’ large numbers of young people a strategy of providing accommodation, training and other facilities was pursued based upon an understanding of French successes. France has a much longer tradition of Foyers providing accommodation and support dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, although developments over the past 20 years perhaps represent the most interesting period from the UK perspective. During this time many French Foyers have increased their range of activities and introduced new practice and governance. This paper focuses on both the UK and French experiences of Foyers in order to highlight some comparisons and contrasts as a means of determining what might be learned in the UK from the more extensive French experience. The key question that this paper considers is whether or not the different governance, economic and social conditions in France mean that UK Foyers truly reflect French thinking and application of the concept. Does the French experience provide a blueprint, which has been followed in the UK – and if so, does this suggest that such policy solutions are applicable across political, economic and social boundaries? Alternatively has an apparently similar concept generated very different approaches to housing young people? In pursuing these questions, the paper relies not only upon existing literature relating to Foyers in the UK and France, but also upon a research programme carried out by the authors mainly for the Housing Corporation between 2001 and 2005.

The (enforceable) right to housing: a paradoxical French passion

In France, an enforceable ‘right to housing’ (Droit au logement opposable) was enacted in 2007. Since its rapid approval by Parliament, the law has been criticised for its apparent ineffectiveness to improve housing conditions. A superficial analysis might suggest that the law was merely the product of emergency. Nevertheless, a study of the decision-making process, and of the dynamics of the agenda-setting from at least 1990, shows that the enforceable right to housing was adopted as a result of a complex and long policy development path, with many players involved at different levels of the policy system. The rise of the right to housing, the origins of the law and the interplay of actors leading to its adoption are presented in the first section of this review. The second part focuses on the period preceding the adoption of the law and the ‘policy window’ that made it possible (2005–2007). The third part develops the three main challenges that the actors supporting the ‘right to housing’ have to face, and presents an analysis of the political meaning of the law. The final part reflects on the options open to the new socialist government (since 2012).

Contradictory Narratives on French Social Housing: Looking Back and Looking Forward

Social housing in France now occupies a central position in political discourse and in public opinion. Accommodating some 17% of households and being an economic driver, its political weight is understandable. But the frailty of the current consensus, based on new production as a solution for solving the “housing crisis,” can be approached by analyzing the ruptures which have occurred since the “glorious times”—in terms of both narratives and actions. Using the image of a “new deal” between markets, state, and society and the concept of “general interest” as a framework, the paper first discusses the way the post-liberal shift impacts and challenges housing policies and the place of social housing. The historically constructed narrative of the sector is then presented from its origins up to the shift of the 1970s. Finally, it is argued that the turmoil of the last four decades indicates a shift toward a new repartition between the main stakeholders and a different role for the State—that leaves unsolved not only the housing question, but also the social one.

Fragilité de la famille urbaine au XIXe siècle : itinéraires versaillais de 1830 à 1880

Levy-Vroelant Claire. — Fragilidad de la familia urbana en el siglo XIX. Itineraries de las familias de la ciudad de Versailles, 1830-1880. Las caracteristicas de los ciclos de vida de los individuos y de las familias en la ciudad y la movilidad residencial y social de los logares no son bien conocidos para el siglo XIX. La ciudad de Versailles ofrece para tal efecto un terraro de investigacion excepcional y a que se dispone de un censo nominativo anual muy bien conservado, principalmente para el periodo 1824-1882. El metodo seguido en este articulo consiste en reconstituir la historia familiar y el reconido residencial de aura muestra de alrededor 700 personas y comparar las dinamicas obtenidas de ese murdo con las medidas estadisticas mas claricas, tendiente a discernir la relacion entre la familia y la ciudad. La fuerte movilidad de los individuos y de los hogares, la importancia numerica de las personas que viven solas, la distancia con la familia de origen y la indizencia del parentezco local, testimovian de la fragilidad de la familia urbana en una epoca en que la revolucion industrial altera los hechos sociales.

“Everyone Should Be Housed”: The French Generalist Model of Social Housing at Stake

Today, in France as in most European nations (Houard 2011; Scanlon and Whitehead 2013), housing represents a highly strategic point where the ideas of justice, redistribution, and democracy are at stake. On the one hand, social housing systems are impacted by European regulations. Social housing is a SGEI in Community law, and the future of social housing may be shaped by the decisions of the European Court of Justice, as the recent Dutch case shows (Ghekiere 2011). On the other hand, the debates are colored by national situations. In one way or another, housing has fully entered the national public arenas as a political object, with the socioeconomic transformations leading to the revision of the representations and shape of the whole social question. Currently, the French-subsidized rental housing system is clearly at the core of debates and decisions involving a large range of actors. Caught “between inertia and change” (Driant 2011), the whole sector is in a process of revision under a range of pressures (Levy-Vroelant and Tutin 2010a, b).

A Review of “Housing and Inequality”

Furthermore, the authors analyse factors contributing to the sustainability of homeownership, post-purchase maintenance repairs, and home improvement expenditures. They also analyse housing and non-housing assets as well as post-purchase debt burdens of homebuyers of colour. They conclude that ‘most conventionally articulated, worst-case fears about low-income, minority homebuyers have largely been absent’ (p. 337). In sum, Fair and Affordable Housing in the US: Trends, Outcomes, Future Directions presents an interesting mix of chapters that are theoretical and reflective (10 out of 13) and empirical (three out of 13). Several chapters of this book could serve as reading material for a graduate class in housing in connection with Schwartz’ Housing Policy in the United States (2010). In addition, several chapters could be taken as reading material in a graduate class in urban or housing law. The chapters by McClure and Taylor are exceptionally thought-provoking and could serve as teaching discussion pieces. While fair housing will most likely remain on the research and policy agenda, it will be interesting to see what will happen to affordable housing once the nation moves beyond the current foreclosure crisis and credit-constrained times.

A Review of “The Future of Social Housing”

Edited by specialists in housing issues, Suzanne Fitzpatrick and Mark Stephens, and supported by Shelter, the housing and homeless charity, The Future of Social Housing is an interesting collective book regrouping analysis from researchers at six universities in the UK, and is full of information and discussion of challenging issues. UK housing policies are mainly known abroad from the severe privatisation that started during the Thatcher years. As we better understand after reading, the UK, like almost all European countries, after decades of under-investment in the social housing sector, suffers a chronic shortage of social rented homes. In this context, the government recently made a commitment to build three millions additional new homes by 2020, including a significant proportion of social housing – interesting to know for a French reader since the French government has also promised to promote the construction of 500,000 new social units in the next decade. Important enough, this revival of interest in the social part of the housing market, and the government’s involvement, is accompanied by a large renewed reflection on the role, purpose, mission and means of social housing. Once identified, the lack of supply must be analysed in depth, in order to enable a critical review of the policies, especially through the Housing Reform Green Paper – in the context generated by John Hills’s independent review of the future roles of social housing in England (2007). In the conclusive part, the editors come back to the context in which the publication has been conceived. A key part of the UK ‘housing poverty story’ has been social housing (the sector accommodates 17 per cent of all households, but 39 per cent of those living in poverty) and the book was intended, at least partly, ‘as a corrective to the overwhelmingly negative portrait of the social rented sector in recent years’. ‘Build on the sector’s strengths, not add to its weakness’, could be one of the more relevant messages, addressed by the authors, to policy makers. Despite the whole of the publication being oriented towards the discussion of global indicators – and less towards the understanding of the actors’ logic in the field, it gives several remarkably interesting points – valuable not only for the UK for further analysis of the future of social housing. In the first part, Bradshaw, Chzhen and