SS-1065D Social Divisions and Change Week Seven

Last week...
Definitions of poverty Poverty and class, gender, ethnicity, disability

and childhood Case studies: Childhood poverty and disability and poverty Effects of poverty Policies to tackle poverty Attitudes to poverty

This week...
Housing and governing conduct:
Teenage pregnancy Anti-social behaviour

Homelessness

Ethnicity and housing:

Long-established BME communities

New migrants
Gypsy/Roma/Traveller

Essay tips
Difference within difference (e.g. if focussing on gender

look at intersections with other social divisions - what are the experiences of women and men from particular ethnic groups, or social class positions?) Format: Black ink, Arial or Times New Roman font, size 12, line spacing double Introduction (10% of word count) , main text (80% of word count), conclusion (10% of word count) Referencing: check bibliography and in text referencing Spell check and proof reading Learner Development Unit v useful resource!

Housing needs
Absolute and relative needs (remember last week

on poverty?) Universalism and particularism - Different social groups might have some different needs? Harrison (2005: 135) the severity of conditions relates not simply to the problems of a dwelling as seen by an outsider, but to how well and how willingly a specific household can cope with them.

Home
Home: a fusion of spatial, social, psychological and

temporal domains (Sirriyeh 2010) Shelter, safe haven, security (Kearns et al. 2000; Sibley 2001; Watson & Austerberry 1986) Intimacy and the local of important social relations (Bahlool 1996; Davidson 2008; Massey 1992) Privacy (Reinders & Van der Land 2008) Choice and control (Dupuis & Thorns 1996; Watson & Austerberry 1986). The centre of the world (Berger 1984) Scale and location?: house, rooms, public space, mind, time, practices (see Radley et al. 2005)

Home and social interaction

Rapport and Dawson (1998: 21) write that home is

that environment...in which one best knows oneself, where ones self-identity is best grounded. How and where individuals know themselves best is not arrived at in isolation, but is also produced in the context of their social interactions and how, and where, others know them best (Sirriyeh 2010, See also Brah 1996; Yuval-Davis et al. 2006).

What makes an ideal home?

Homelessness
Homelessness absence of the legal right of applicant

+ their dependents to occupy a dwelling. Also those who have legal right, but cant occupy due to domestic violence Rough sleepers -People sleeping in the open air (e.g. on the streets, in tents, doorways, parks, bus shelters or encampments). People sleeping in places not designed for living in(e.g. stairwells, barns, sheds, car parks, cars, derelict boats, stations. Hidden homelessness people who become homeless, but find temporary solutions (e.g. sofa surfing, squats)

Numbers (see Homeless Link website)

Sources of statistics on homelessness: Street counts of people sleeping rough Data from local authorities on number of people applying to them as homeless Local authority data on cases of prevention of homelessness Statistics from homelessness services on numbers of clients they see Rough sleepers Autumn 2010 1,76 8 people in England.

42% increase from 2009 (Homeless Line March 2011) Hidden homeless estimate in 2003 by The Policy Institute: 310,000 and 380,000 people 48,330 households were in temporary accommodation on 30 June 2011

Gender and homelessness

Ideas of home have often been conflated with the house (i.e. thought to be the same thing) (Blunt & Dowling 2006).
Domestic violence: 13 million separate incidents of physical violence/threats of violence against women from partners or former partners each year (Walby and Allen, 2004),

2 women per week murdered by partner or former partner (Womens Aid + Home Office)
Tomas and Dittmars (1995: 497) study: women had often become street homeless to escape abuse in the home. given the high levels of abuse and relocation reported in the literature, the homelessness of women may be

less a problem of housing, and more of a solution to it Gender and homelessness services Gender, ethnicity and service provision - Jewish Womens Aid, Asha Projects, Saheli,

Shelter survey reasons for being on the street

relationship breakdown: 41 per cent
being asked to leave the family home: 28 per cent drug and alcohol problems: 31 per cent and 28

per cent respectively leaving prison: 25 per cent mental health problems: 19 per cent other: for example, eviction, problems with benefits payments. (Shelter 2007:14)

Causes of homelessness
Personal causes Individual factors: drug and alcohol misuse, lack of qualifications, lack of social support, debts esp. mortgage or rent arrears, poor physical and mental health, relationship breakdown, getting involved in crime at early age Family background: family breakdown, sexual and physical abuse in childhood/youth, having parents with drug or alcohol problems, previous experience of family homelessness An institutional background: having been in care, the armed forces, or prison.

Causes (2)
Structural causes (Social and economic outside control of individual) unemployment poverty lack of affordable housing housing policies structure and administration of housing benefit wider policy developments like the closure of longstay psychiatric hospitals.

Catalysts (triggers)
Catalysts for becoming homeless (not necessarily underlying causes which may be multiple and built up over time)
Top 2 in 2004 (Lund 2006: 133):
parents, friends or relatives unwilling or unable

to continue to accommodate them 37% relationship breakdown (20%) including domestic violence in 2/3 of relationship breakdown cases

What policies could help to reduce homelessness in the UK?

History of housing policy

1597 Vagrancy Act rogues, vagabondes and sturdy

beggars punished for leaving parish to look for work 1601 Act for the Relief of the Poor parishes must make poor work to receive assistance 1824 Vagrancy Act defines vagrancy as failure to maintain oneself idle and disorderly, rouges and vagabondes or incorrigible rogues! 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act workhouses, men separated from their wives and children. Some people chose to be sleep rough or a Common Lodging House rather than be in the workhouse.

Post world war 2

1948 National Assistance Act single homelessness/family

homelessness. Social work not housing authority Cathy Come Home (1966) BBC - Learning Zone Class Clips Docu-drama 'Cathy Come Home',1966 - Media Studies Video 1970s responsibility for homeless from social services to housing authorities 1977 Housing Act basis for current homeless legislation homeless definition + LA duties, but clauses including priority need and unintentionally homeless 1977 Act doesnt include rough sleepers. 1980s London cardboard cities 1986 Housing and Planning Act quality of housing 1996 Housing Act 2 yr temporary housing limit 2002 Homelessness Act abolish temp. limit, new priority needs

Housing and governing conduct

Nikolas Rose (2001) Grammars of living (accepted

ideas about they way people should live and behave) shaped by dominant discourses of morality (government, media) Rules of conduct are established based on these dominant norms and values New or new version of older existing discourse?
Ravetz (2001) housing support shaping conduct of poor

to middle-class norms of acceptability Damer (2000) Public health depts. (19th Century), public housing management surveillance, control, moralising

Coercive welfare (Phoenix 2008)

Phoenix argues that interplay between welfare

support and criminal justice sanctions is the state using coercive welfare (Phoenix 2008: 282) Housing is a central site of the governance of marginalised households (Flint 2009: 248) HOW?
Surveillance

Conditionality
Interventions and coercion Sanctions

Governing anti-social behaviour

Anti-social behaviour wide

range of behaviour from litter to serious harassment (Social Exclusion Unit 200: 14) ASBOs Anti-Social Behaviour Orders Family Intervention Projects Housing benefit sanctions pilot Eviction Good book available in university library: Flint, J. (ed.) (2006) Housing, Urban Governance and Anti-Social Behaviour, Bristol: Policy Press

Governing homelessness
Public spaces criminalising begging, ASBOs, homeless

out of place Housing gift rather than social right (Harrison 1995) contract and conditionality Disciplining strategies
tough love responsibilise clients (Whiteford 2010) (e.g.

charging for food)

Therapeutic strategies E.g. responses to mental health, flexibility See Dobson (2010) case study on drop in centre staff

Teenage parents
England and Wales 2009 - 38, 259 conceptions (15-17 yr old

girls), approx half had an abortion. Teenage pregnancy viewed as a problem and always and only ever calamitous (Arai 2009). It is seen as outside the realm of normal and acceptable childhood experience. Most research on young mothers but recently some on young fathers (See Timescapes longitudinal research) http://www.timescapes.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/Policy%20Conf erence%202011/paper%202.pdf Young people in care
1999 New Labour Social Exclusion Unit report link between

teenage pregnancy and social exclusion

Welfare dependency
Concerns over welfare dependency. Distinguished

from other natural and positive dependencies (e.g. relying on parents) (Guillari + Shaw 2005) Status of (unpaid) care work New Labour and SEU goals:
Halve teenage pregnancy rates by 2010 Reduce teenage parents risk of long-term social

exclusion

Independence/Interdependence
Independent living critiqued phrase as not a realistic

reflection youth transitions to adulthood (Frost & Stein 1995). The term interdependence is suggested as more useful as it reflects a notion of shared care and responsibility between young people, their families, friends, care workers and the broader community (Mendes and Moslehuddin 2004:33). What level of independence within interdependent relationships? Choice, control and options

Policies and practice

Semi-independent living (supported housing units) Parent and baby foster care Informal family care and support Rate of teenage pregnancies in 2009 fell by 5.9% compared to 2008 (Billingsley 2011) Teenage Pregnancy National Support Team (TPNST) established in 2007. Teenage Pregnancy Co-ordinators in each UK health region introduced by New Labour cut back by Coalition (76 of 150 councils losing TPC)

Discussion
Based on your reading (the articles on

teenage parents or/and homelessness) To what extent do you think housing policies support or control people? If you were in government what kinds of housing policies to support either a) people who are homeless b) teenage parents?

Theorising ethnicity and exclusion in housing

Essentialism and mono-causal

explanations versus heterogeneity and multiple explanations Exclusion (Ratcliffe 2002) Cultural Material Spatial

Migration and housing

Superdiversity (Vertovec 2006) Availability of affordable good quality housing and

location of housing Limited use of social housing by new migrants approx 6% (Perry 2008) Immigration law, hierarchies of welfare provision (Bloch & Schuster 2005; Dwyer 2005) Access to advice, wider services, language barriers Impact on private sector (Up rent, landlords taking advantage poor conditions) (Perry 2008) Temporary, frequent moves Racism, resentment

Long-established BME communities and housing

Remember differences between and within BME communities (see

Week 4 Ethnicity) Generations and housing aspirations more complex and diverse Disadvantage, discrimination the proportion of minority ethnic people living in deprived neighbourhoods across England is about twice as high as those living elsewhere. (Barnard et al. 2011) Overcrowding: household structure, youthful population, available housing Housing tenure and different patterns within different ethnic communities BME housing associations Location choices in social housing Choice-based lettings schemes

(See Malcolm Harrison, Debbie Phillips, Peter Ratcliffe, John Perry, Peter Sommerville etc)

Long-established white + BME communities

Feelings of abandonment
Long social housing waiting lists and limited supply

of affordable housing Resentment and lack of information about housing policies Relations between long-established white, black and minority ethnic communities and various new migrants communities

Gypsy /Roma/Traveller people

Both new migrants and long-established communities in the UK,

differing legal status Gypsy/Roma/Traveller (GRT): In Britain, there are UK Irish Travellers, Scots Travellers (Nachins), Welsh Gypsies (Kale) and English Gypsies (Romanichals), Travelling Showpeople (Fairground Travellers), Boat Dwellers (Bargees) and Circus Travellers. (200-250, 000) (Law et al. 2008). Also Roma (different clans within this category and includes established communities and new migrants) Gypsy/Roma and Travellers of Irish Heritage are identified as racial groups and covered by the Race Relations Acts Roma are largest ethnic minority in Europe (approx 10-12 million)

GRT and Housing

Discrimination and disadvantage across

Europe Home, housing and sedentarism Nomadic, sem-nomadic, static accommodation Urban planning and land control laws (Morris and Clements 1999). Shortage of pitches provided by local councils in UK EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies (See European Roma Rights Centre, European Network Against Racism)

The wealthy and Gated communities

Gated communities self-segregated, prestige residential areas enclosed within high walls and electrified fences and protected by electronic surveillance, with remotecontrolled gates that are often supervised, through which only residents have automatic access (Janes & Mooney 2009: 25) Fortress UK? more common in US, South Africa, South America etc, but growth in UK Elites can insulate against perceived risk and unwanted encounters (Atkinson & Flint 2004: 875) and maintain social distance from other social groups

Discussion
Have a look at the article on gated

communities in the UK What do you think those in favour of gated communities might argue are their benefits? What do you think their critics might argue in response?

Gentrification
Gentrification - 'the rehabilitation of working-class and

derelict housing and the consequent transformation of an area into a middle-class neighbourhood (Smith and Williams 1981: 6) Labours Urban Renaissance Programme 2000 onwards bringing middle classes back to the city, social mixing, sustainable communities (Hodgekinson 2010, Davidson 2008, Cowan 2006) E.g. city centres + some inner city areas in Manchester, Leeds, London docklands, Liverpool etc Regeneration, cosmopolitan cities and/or displacement, exclusion, rising prices, privatisation of public spaces? Who is the right sort of cosmopolitan resident? Case study in Manchester (Young et al. 2006)

Summary
What is good housing? What is the difference

between house and home? Homelessness in the UK Support and control in housing policies governing conduct Ethnicity, migration and housing Spatial segregation and wealth - Gated communities and gentrification

Next week
Community, Social Conflict and Urban

Disorders Read Ch. 13 Community in Geoff Payne Social Divisions book and/or Trevor Phillips speech After 7/7 Sleepwalking to Segregation

References
Atkinson, R. & Flint, J. (2004) Fortress UK?: Gated communities, the spatial revolt of elites and time-space trajectories of segregation, Housing Studies 19(6): 875-892. Barnard, H. et al. (2011) Poverty and Ethnicity: a review of evidence, York: JRF Billingsley, M. (2011) Cuts threaten to undermine progress in reducing teenage pregnancies, charities claim, British Medical Journal, 342:d1264 Cowans J (2006) Cities and regions of sustainable communitiesnew strategies. Town and Country Planning, Tomorrow Series Paper 4. London: Town and Country Planning Association Davidson M (2008) Spoiled mixture: Where does state-led positive gentrification end? Urban Studies 45(12):23852405 Dupuis, A. and D. Thorns 1996. Meanings of Home for Older Home Owners. Housing Studies. 11(4), pp. 485501. Flint, J. (2009) Governing Marginalised Populations: The role of coercion, support and agency, European Journal of Homelessness, 3: 247-260 Harrison, M. 2005. Revisiting Housing Need. In: M. Harrison, D. Phillips, K. Chahal, L. Hunt, J. Perry. Housing, 'race' and community cohesion. CIH with Housing Studies Association, pp.133-154. Hodgekinson, S. (2010) Housing Regeneration and the Private Finance Initiative: Unstitching the Neo-liberal Urban Straightjacket, Antipode 43(2): 358-383.

References

Phoenix, J. (2008) ASBOs and Working Women: A new revolving door?, in P. Squires (ed.) ASBO Nation: The criminalisation of nuisance, Bristol: Policy Press, pp.289-303 RADLEY, A., D. HODGETTS, and A. CULLEN. 2005. Visualizing homelessness: a study in photography and estrangement. Journal of Community and Applied Psychology.15(4), pp. 273 295. RAPPORT, N. and A. DAWSON. 1998. Home and Movement: A Polemic. In: N. Rapport and A. Dawson, eds. Migrants of Identity: Perceptions of Home in a World of Movement. Oxford: Berg, pp. 39-60. Shelter (2007) Reaching Out - a consultation with street homeless people 10 years after the launch of the Rough Sleepers Unit: London. Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) (1999) Teenage Pregnancy. London: The Stationery Office. Sommerville, P. & Steele, A. (Eds.) (2002) Race, Housing and Social Exclusion, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd. Smith, N. and Williams, P. (eds) (1986) Gentrification of the City, London: Unwin and Hyman. TOMAS, D. and H. DITTMAR. 1995. The experience of homeless women: an exploration of housing histories and the meaning of home. Housing Studies. 10(4), pp. 468-493. Walby, Sylvia and Allen, Jonathan (2004) Domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking: Findings from the British Crime Survey (London: Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate) Watson, S. and H. Austerberry. 1986. Housing and Homelessness: A feminist perspective. London: Routledge. Young, C. et al. (2006) The Cosmopolitan City and Urban Reimaging in Manchester, UK, Urban Studies 43(10) 1687-1714