Elizabeth Sanderson

Putting the Squeeze on "Generation Rent": Housing Benefit Claimants in the Private Rented Sector - Transitions, Marginality and Stigmatisation

The term ‘Generation Rent’ has gained currency in recent years to reflect the fact that more 25 to 34 year olds in Britain now live in rented accommodation rather than owner-occupation. The term also conveys the extent to which age-related divisions in the housing market are becoming as significant as longer standing tenure divisions. However, this portmanteau term covers a wide array of different housing circumstances - from students, young professionals and transient households to the working and non-working poor. This paper focuses on the position of a specific category of this age cohort - those 25 to 34 year olds living in self-contained accommodation in the private rented sector who are in receipt of Housing Benefit. On the basis of survey evidence and qualitative interviews with landlords and housing advisers, the paper considers how the marginal economic and housing market position of this age group is being reinforced by the stigmatising attitudes of landlords which formerly applied to tenants in their late teens and early 20s and are now being extended further along the age band. The paper suggests that the use of a ‘housing pathways’ approach to signify the housing transitions of young adults needs to be revisited, to give greater weight to collective and creative responses to constraints in the housing market and to recognise the key role played by gatekeepers such as landlords in stigmatising groups according to assumed age-related attributes.

Third sector capacity building : the institutional embeddedness of supply

Previous articles in Voluntary Sector Review have documented the evolution of third sector capacity-building policy (Macmillan, 2011) and addressed the focus on ‘market-making’, characterised by a discursive shift since 2010 that favours demand-led over supply-led delivery models (Macmillan, 2013). This article builds on these articles by using data from the National Survey of Charities and Social Enterprises (NSCSE) to investigate the characteristics of third sector organisations on the supply side of the capacity-building ‘market’. We argue that the ambitions of the demand-led model need to be understood in the context of the embeddedness of these organisations. This is based on findings that suggests that, immediately prior to the identified discursive shift, a significant proportion of third sector capacity-building providers were embedded in the supply-led model through relationships with and funding from the public sector locally and nationally. This, we suggest, could thwart the ambitions of the demand-led model.

Does locality make a difference? The impact of housing allowance reforms on private landlords

Abstract Housing subsidies are used by developed welfare states to ensure their citizens can access decent and affordable housing. This paper assesses the relative importance of individual and area level factors on the degree to which private sector landlords were affected by changes to Local Housing Allowance (LHA) in the UK. The changes were part of the government’s package of measures to reform LHA and reduce the welfare benefit bill. Multi-level modelling techniques have been applied to a longitudinal survey of 788 private sector landlords who had LHA tenants in 19 Local Authorities across GB. The analysis shows that whilst landlords were affected by reforms, area effects were not as pronounced as anticipated. In general, landlords were equally affected regardless of where they operate. The findings suggest tenants in the most affected areas have absorbed increases in their rent shortfall signifying income was not the overriding determinant of demand.

Resilience and involvement: the role of the EU's Structural and Investment Funds in addressing youth unemployment

This chapter explores the role of the EUs Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) in addressing youth unemployment. The chapter looks beyond the now well established repertoire of ESIF interventions set out in the European Commissions call for action on youth unemployment. Two possible areas of intervention are considered: the involvement of young people in the design and delivery of programmes; and the development of young peoples personal resilience as a determinant of successful labour market outcomes. The chapter presents interim findings from a large scale evaluation of a €130 million programme which is delivered through civil society organisations called Talent Match. The chapter reports on interim findings and finds mixed success, Whilst some approaches break traditional delivery models; it is too soon to assess their overall effectiveness.One of the major challenges for EU Cohesion Policy is that, after 25 years of implementing the policy, the evidence for its effectiveness is so inconclusive. Academic research and evaluation studies have reached widely differing conclusions on the results of interventions through Structural and Cohesion Funds. At the same time, political and public debate on the performance of the policy has increased, most evident in the discussions on the reforms of Cohesion Policy for the 2007–13 and 2014–20 periods and the pressure on EU and national policy-makers to improve performance. This give rise to several questions: is it correct that substantial Cohesion Policy resources have been spent without adequate strategic justification? If so, why has this been the case? And will the new reforms make a difference? This paper seeks to answer these questions based on an evaluation of the main achievements of Cohesion Policy programmes and projects over the longer term. Drawing on research undertaken in 15 selected regions of the EU15, it is the first longitudinal and comparative analysis of the implementation of the Funds from 1989 to 2012, covering almost four full programme periods. Specifically, it involved analysis of the relevance, effectiveness and utility of each of the Cohesion Policy programmes implemented in each of the regions. In assessing the achievements of the programmes, the study adopted a ‘theory-based evaluation’ approach, going beyond the formally stated objectives of programmes to uncover the mechanisms or theories of change underlying the design of programmes, as well as identifying the ways in which objectives were actually operationalised in practice.The book brings together academics, members of European institutions and regional and national level policymakers in order to assess the performance and direction of EU Cohesion policy against the background of the most significant reforms to the policy in a generation. Responding to past criticisms of the policy, the policy changes introduced in 2013 have aligned European Structural and Investment Funds with the Europe 2020 strategy and introduced measures to improve strategic coherence, perforation and integrated development.