In search of local justice

an article from the New Law Journal

Keith Wilding explains the difference Law Centres make to individual lives

• The law can be used as a tool for change.
• Working alongside the socially excluded as individuals, in groups, and in communities can help resolve seemingly intractable problems.
• Seeking to influence local and national policy through the legal process is an integral part of seeking social justice.

It’s not just for lawyers and it’s not simply a legal advice centre. A Law Centre, as a member of the Law Centres Network, adopts the underlying assumption that Law Centres operate in an unequal society and seek to make a contribution to the fight for social justice. In so doing, it uses the law as a tool for change and uses the strengths of the community it serves. It works alongside people who are socially excluded and it works with other organisations striving for similar goals.

An important part of its work is harnessing the strengths of the community.

The government’s austerity programme has resulted in the reduction of public services. The programme of welfare reform has put pressure on housing, on health and care services, and has contributed to the growth of structural poverty including for those in work. Together with an increasingly harsh climate for migrants, the demand for Law Centre services has increased.

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The war on rough sleeping: On the criminalization of homelessness in Hungary

an article by Vera Kovács published in Eurozine 

Abstract

The criminalization of homelessness was written into the Hungarian constitution in 2018, which caused international uproar and condemnation by the UN. But punitive measures are not a speciality of the Orbán government. Many European countries have taken similar steps. But only Hungary has made a specific social situation – ‘habitually staying in a public space’ – a criminal offence punishable by jail. Though recent elections have shown some room for change, expectations remain low.

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Not so welcome here? Modelling the impact of ethnic in-movers on the length of stay of home-owners in micro-neighbourhoods

an article by Sue Easton (University of Leicester, UK) and Gwilym Pryce (University of Sheffield, UK) published in Urban Studies Volume 56 Issue 14 (November 2019)

Abstract

This paper considers the length of stay of home-owners with white British names in the 40% most-deprived census areas of Glasgow, Scotland. We estimate the impact of ethnically ‘other’ name-group inflows through property purchases at the micro-neighbourhood level.

We use a novel longitudinal data set, constructed from the population of home-buyers recorded in all property transaction records from 2003 to 2014, from which we impute ethnicity using name-matching software.

We estimate how the survival time (length of ownership) of home-owners with white British names is affected by in-migration of house-buyers from different ethnic name-groups into the micro-neighbourhood, defined as a 50 m radius around each home.

Results suggest a complex set of associations between ethnically ‘other’ purchasers/in-movers (based on name groups) and duration of home-ownership for white-British named owners. The most consistent finding is for in-moving purchasers with Pakistani (primarily Muslim) names, which tend to have a relatively large accelerant effect on the moving propensity of home-owners who have white British names. This was true in areas of both high and low non-white ethnic population share.

We also find evidence of nonlinearity in this relationship: the accelerant effect diminishes with each additional in-move from purchasers with Pakistani names. The name group with the largest overall accelerant effect was for in-movers with non-white Other names, which were also primarily Muslim in origin, though this effect was less consistent across models.

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Divorcing couples: beware the capital gains tax trap

an article by Kate Francis for the OUT-LAW blog from Pinsent Masons

A change to the capital gains tax (CGT) rules from April 2020 means divorcing or separating couples in the UK will have a shorter period of time in which to sell their interest in the family home without being hit by tax penalties.
From 6 April 2020, the spouse who moves out of the family home will only have a nine-month window in which to sell their interest before CGT applies to the proceeds of the sale, instead of the 18 months that currently applies. CGT will be charged at 28% on the departing party's share in the matrimonial home, assuming the departing party is a higher rate taxpayer.

CGT private residence relief means that anyone selling their main home does not need to pay CGT on the proceeds. The change, which was announced in the 2018 Budget, is to the final period exemption, which covers the final months of ownership of a residential property, regardless of whether the taxpayer is still living there. The final period exemption will be cut from 18 months to nine months in all circumstances, other than the extended 36 month final period exemption available to those with disabilities or those who have moved to a care home.

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We cannot build our way out of inequality

a column by Andrés Rodríguez-Pose and Michael Storper for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

A dominant view in urban economics suggests that the solution to the housing crisis of major cities is to relax zoning and other planning regulations.

This column challenges this position, arguing that there is no clear and uncontroversial evidence that housing regulation is a principal source of differences in home availability or prices across cities and that these issues are more linked to rising inequalities in the geography of employment, wages and skills.

Blanket changes in zoning are unlikely to increase affordability for lower-income households in prosperous regions, but would increase gentrification without appreciably decreasing income inequality.

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Immigration and house prices under various labour market structures in England and Wales

an article by Jiazhe Zhu, Gwilym Pryce and Sarah Brown (University of Sheffield, UK) published in Urban Studies Volume 50 Issue 9 (July 2019)

Abstract

This article estimates the impact of immigration on local house prices under various local labour market structures in England and Wales. Typically, for the nation as a whole, newly arriving immigrants add to the overall housing demand; this would in general push up house prices when facing an upward-sloping supply curve. However, sorting and native-outmigration response to immigration may change the dynamics and impact at the ‘local’ level, depressing house prices through income change.

We use data on England and Wales to investigate the local house price effect of immigration when taking into account the local labour market structure of the areas, particularly with respect to employment density and average socioeconomic profile (skill) of workers.

We found that in high density of employment areas but with a majority of the occupations in low skill sets, there is a negative house price effect led by immigrant inflows, and this might be due to a type of tenure ‘downgrade’ in the area as immigrants increase the rate of free renting. Free renters are less likely to participate in the housing market themselves and an increase in the rate of this form of tenure could also reduce their mobility further, hence lead to lower levels of housing stock turnover and transaction-related renovation; as a result, both housing quality and house prices fall.

The evidence is in addition to the native flight argument typically found in the literature to explain house price depreciation led by immigration.

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‘‘They’re Going to Smoke Anyway’: A Qualitative Study of Community Mental Health Staff and Consumer Perspectives on the Role of Social and Living Environments in Tobacco Use and Cessation

an article by Laura Twyman (Tabacco Control Unit, Cancer Council NSW, Woolloomooloo, NSW, Australia; University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia), Carla Cowles (Human Capital Alliance, Potts Point, NSW, Australia), Scott C. Walsberger (Tabacco Control Unit, Cancer Council NSW, Woolloomooloo, NSW, Australia), Amanda L. Baker and Billie Bonevski (University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia) and the Tackling Tobacco Mental Health Advisory Group published by Frontiers in Psychiatry: Smoking and Schizophrenia research

Background
Addressing the high prevalence of tobacco use experienced by people with severe mental illness (SMI) requires consideration of the influence of wider cultural, socioeconomic and environmental factors. This qualitative study aimed to examine the impact of social and living environments on tobacco use and cessation by people with SMI accessing community managed mental health services. The perspectives of both staff and consumers with SMI were explored.

Methods
Semi-structured focus groups were undertaken with a purposive sample of community mental health staff and consumers from three sites in three major cities in NSW, Australia. Two sites provided outreach support, and one site provided residential support. Data were collected (2017–2018) until saturation was reached. Focus groups were audio-recorded and transcribed, and thematic analysis was conducted.

Results
Thirty-one staff and 17 consumers participated separately in six focus groups. Themes identified by staff included a degree of fatalism, conceptualising tobacco use as choice rather than addiction and tensions between cessation support and broader models of care. Staff viewed smoke-free home and mental health service policies as effective at promoting quitting but contradictory to recovery-oriented models of care. Consumers identified smoking as an integral part of life and social networks, as a way of maintaining control and lack of social support to quit as key themes. While many consumers reported smoking inside the home, others described enforcing smoke-free rules.

Conclusion
Social and living environments played an integral role in tobacco use and cessation for both staff and consumers. The role of community managed mental health organisations in addressing tobacco use within social and living environments was not strongly supported by staff and sometimes seen as antithetical to recovery-oriented models of care. Potential ways to address this include education and training for prospective and current community mental health organisation staff highlighting the synergy between the recovery-oriented model and provision of preventive health support.

Full text (HTML) with access to (PDF 11pp) for download

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Fighting for the future of Council Housing

a post by Dave Prentis for the UNISON blog



Council housing means so much to our union and to me personally. Good quality, affordable council housing is the best way to ensure that everyone has a place to call home. At a time when housing has become so expensive that many public service workers can’t afford to live anywhere near where they work, council housing is more important than ever.

More than all that though – council housing means so much to me, because like so many UNISON members, I was brought up in a council house in inner-city Leeds. I know that council housing is vital to our country’s future, because like millions of people it’s part of my own life story and I know what a huge difference it can make to any family.

That’s why I’m delighted that this week we’re celebrating 100 years of council housing.

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Housing, growth and infrastructure: Supporting the delivery of new homes in the Sheffield City Region, UK

an article by Garreth Bruff and Felix Kumi-Ampofo (Sheffield City Region, UK) published in Local Economy: The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit Volume 34 Issue 2 (March 2019)

Abstract

Set against a background of failing housing markets and years of austerity, with spending cuts to many of the public services traditionally involved in housing, the UK Government’s ambition to deliver 300,000 new homes a year was always going to be a challenge.

At the same time however, a programme of devolution to city regional bodies across England has provided the opportunity to test new approaches to support housing growth, with the potential for innovation and more tailored interventions designed around the needs of a specific place.

This paper uses experience in the Sheffield City Region to illustrate the challenges and opportunities for housing growth in one part of the country as well as the interventions being developed to address these. The paper sets out some of the geographic and economic factors shaping the housing sector in the city region, and the role that housing growth has come to play in the wider economic ambitions for the area.

It then describes some of the plans and programmes being developed to encourage the development of new homes and the success of a pilot Housing Fund could have in overcoming problems where national programmes have failed.

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Chronic urban trauma: The slow violence of housing dispossession

an article by Rachel Pain (Newcastle University, UK) published Urban Studies Volume 56 Issue 2 (February 2019)

Abstract

This paper sets the idea of slow violence into dialogue with trauma, to understand the practice and legitimisation of the repeated damage done to certain places through state violence.

Slow violence (Nixon R (2011) Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) describes the ‘attritional lethality’ of many contemporary effects of globalisation. While originating in environmental humanities, it has clear relevance for urban studies.

After assessing accounts of the post-traumatic city, the paper draws insights from feminist psychiatry and postcolonial analysis to develop the concept of chronic urban trauma, as a psychological effect of violence involving an ongoing relational dynamic. Reporting from a three-year participatory action research project on the managed decline and disposal of social housing in a former coalmining village in north-east England, the paper discusses the temporal and place-based effects of slow violence.

It argues that chronic urban trauma becomes hard-wired in place, enabling retraumatisation while also remaining open to efforts to heal and rebuild.

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The one million missing homes?

a post by Lindsay Judge for the Resolution Foundation blog

The relationship between housing supply and demand is always going to be of interest to those (like us) who care about living standards and housing costs. The ONS household figures published last month have prompted us to think more about this topic, especially given the new data suggests fewer households will form over the next 25 years than previously expected. The downward revision is significant: while the 2014-based figures anticipated an average 210,000 additional households a year would set up in England over the next quarter century, the latest batch of numbers now suggests an annual total of 159,000. So is the (population) pressure off when it comes to the need to build new homes?

The household data allows us to explore this important question, but perhaps not in the way that is immediately obvious. These figures are sometimes used to argue that we already have abundant housing stock: as Figure 1 shows, although the ratio of dwellings to households has fallen in recent years, it is higher than it was in the early 1990s. In fact, for every 1,000 households living in England in 2016 there were 1,045 homes to go round – surely a sign of housing plenty?

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Just looking at numbers is not going to provide any answers. Are the homes empty because they in areas where there are no jobs? Are they way off a bus route to anywhere? Lots of etceteras.

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Pockets of risk in European housing markets

a column by Jane Kelly, Julia Le Blanc and Reamonn Lydon for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Loan-to-value limits and other borrower-based macroprudential measures are now used in two-thirds of advanced economies.

This column uses survey data to document changes in credit standards in a cross-section of countries in the run-up to, and aftermath of, the financial crisis.

There is clear evidence of laxer credit standards in countries that experienced a real estate boom-bust, and a significant tightening after the bust. The results imply that compared to earlier years, younger and lower-income borrowers have to save for longer before buying.

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Manufacturing decline reduces house price volatility

a column by Isaiah Hull, Conny Olovsson, Karl Walentin and Andreas Westermark for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Large movements in house prices can have broad and substantial effects on the macroeconomy.

This column uses property-level data to identify the key drivers of house price volatility and decompose this into national, regional, local, and idiosyncratic components. There is substantial cross-sectional variation in house price risk, with higher firm concentration, employment volatility, and manufacturing share of output and employment associated with greater risk.

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Can smart tech create smart homes for older people?

an article by Tristan Parker for E-Access Bulletin

The phrase ‘smart homes’ may bring to mind images from science fiction, and thoughts of robots vacuuming and cooking for their human masters, but the reality is far simpler and within reach – and it could save the NHS and social care services millions of pounds per year.

Smart home technology is, in fact, already being used (the Amazon Echo, for example) and will only keep on growing in popularity. But its use and the types of technologies need to be assessed and accelerated in order to address a crucial and often-overlooked issue: care for the elderly.

A report from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, ‘Healthy Homes: Accommodating an Ageing Population’ (PDF 27pp), explores how home technology can benefit older people and allow them to stay healthy and independent, remaining in their homes for longer and therefore taking pressure off care services.

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Parents, local house prices, and leaving home in Britain

an article by Sait Bayrakdar (University of Cambridge, UK) and Rory Coulter (UCL, London, UK) published in Population, Space and Place Volume 24 Issue 2 (March 2018)

Abstract

Leaving the parental home is a significant step in young adults' housing careers and pathways to independence. Although a large literature examines how life course trajectories influence leaving home, much less is known about how the “linked lives” of parents and the local cost of housing shape young people's departures from the family residence.

By enriching the U.K. Household Longitudinal Study with house price data, this study investigates how parental attributes and the geography of local housing costs influence home leaving in contemporary Britain. The results show that higher local house prices are associated with delayed departure from the parental home, although the relative magnitude of this effect is modest.

By contrast, the effects of parental factors are more nuanced. Parental characteristics have little impact on the odds of leaving home to form partnerships, whereas the likelihood of departing to live alone or in shared accommodation is reduced by parental homeownership or living with both biological parents.

Taken together, these findings suggest that young adults' residential pathways are shaped by the complex patterns of choice and constraint that are generated by disparities in family circumstances and local opportunity structures.

Full text (PDF 13pp)

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Housing policy: Learning from the past and looking to the future

a column by David Miles for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

The housing market faces major challenges in both the short and long run in terms of affordability, price variability, ownership structures, financing, and their impacts upon wider macroeconomic stability. This column summarises a conference on lessons for the future of housing, jointly organised by the Brevan Howard Centre for Financial Analysis at Imperial College Business School and CEPR.

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Ombudsman finds fault in seven out of ten homelessness complaints

via the Local Government Lawyer blog [thanks to Inner Temple Library] 15 December 2017

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman found fault in 70% of complaints about homelessness it investigated in detail in 2016/17.

In a report, Still no place like home, the LGO said it had received around 450 complaints during the year about services by English authorities. One in three of those complaints came from outside of London.

The Local Government Association called on the Government to include measures in the Local Government Finance Settlement to tackle the problems identified.The Ombudsman's report also said:

Homelessness was increasingly affecting families from areas and professions who previously might never have expected to face problems finding somewhere to live, but who had been forced to call on their local council’s help by the increasing unaffordability of private tenancies.

It was "worrying" that problems remained four years after the LGO's report on councils’ inappropriate use of bed and breakfast accommodation to house families and children. There were still “too many cases where councils are acting unlawfully by placing homeless households in bed and breakfast accommodation for lengthy periods of time”.

Families who have been stuck for significantly longer than the six-week legal limit– some for more than two years – were increasingly having to stay in conditions where damp or infestation was a problem, often affecting their physical and mental health.

The LGO’s report gives local authorities best practice guidance. It also offers councillors and scrutiny chairs a number of questions they can ask of their own authorities to ensure they challenge the number of families left in unsuitable accommodation for too long.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: “Our cases show many pre-conceived ideas about the people affected by homelessness simply no longer ring true. The increasing cost of private rents has meant we have seen a shift towards more people in professions such as nursing, and their families, becoming affected.

“Many of these families are being placed in poor quality accommodation, for periods significantly longer than the six-week legal limit. And we’re seeing signs the problems are growing more acute, particularly with an increase in the length of time families are having to stay in temporary accommodation.

“More worrying still, we are finding that many families are not being told of their review rights when placed in unsuitable accommodation, so they have no information on how to challenge the decision and improve their circumstances.”

Cllr Martin Tett, the Local Government Association’s Housing spokesman, said: “This research demonstrates that housing is becoming more and more unaffordable, and that urgent measures are needed to tackle our national shortage of affordable homes. Councils are facing immense pressures when it comes to temporary accommodation, having to house the equivalent of an extra secondary school’s worth of homeless children every month, and the cost of providing temporary accommodation has trebled in the last three years.

“Local authorities do all they can to place people in the best accommodation available, but the reality is that with limited housing options, councils often find themselves having to extend stays in temporary accommodation, as the only alternative is that families and individuals find themselves out on the streets. With limited housing stock and a £5.8bn overall funding shortfall by 2020, councils are doing all they can to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place, but they urgently need more funding and resources from government.

“At the root of all of this is our desperate need to supply more affordable homes in the long term, and to help people most at risk of homelessness immediately. That means the Government lifting the housing borrowing cap across the country, and allowing all councils to borrow to build, and adapting welfare reforms to make sure that housing remains affordable for low-income families, because the need is urgent, and new homes won’t appear overnight.

“These are both measures that could be taken in the upcoming Local Government Finance Settlement, and we would urge the Government to do so.”

And if anyone can easily find a copy of this 2017 report I would be grateful if you would comment on this post and let us all know where to find it.
I thought I was at least a reasonably competent information searcher but all I can find is the 2013 report (even when the link says 2017).

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Time for some housing honesty

a post by Matthew Whittaker for the Resolution Foundation blog

The return to work after Christmas is never easy. Unless you’re an estate agent: they love January. Following the pre-Christmas lull, families rush back into wanting to buy and sell their houses (helped in part by the traditional post-festivity spike in family breakdown). But for an increasing number of us, house hunting is becoming little more than an exercise in window shopping (or ‘property porn’ if you’d rather).

The share of the population owning a home has been falling since 2003, with particularly profound consequences for younger families. As the chart below shows, today’s 30 year olds (that is, the oldest members of the millennial generation born between 1981 and 2000) are only half as likely to own their house as their parents were at the same age.

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Understanding everyday life and mental health recovery through CHIME

an article by Myra Piat (Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, Canada and McGill University, Montreal, Canada) Kimberly Seida,(McGill University, Montreal, Canada) Judith Sabetti (Montreal, Canada) published in Mental Health and Social Inclusion Volume 21 Issue 5 (2017)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand how daily life reflects the recovery journeys of individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) living independently in the community.

Design/methodology/approach
The go-along technique, which blends participant observation and interviewing, was used to gather data from 19 individuals with SMI living in supported housing. Data were analyzed through the CHIME framework of personal recovery, which includes social connectedness, hope and optimism, identity, meaning in life, and empowerment.

Findings
Applying the CHIME framework to qualitative data reveals the multiple ways in which everyday experiences, within and beyond formal mental healthcare environments, shapes personal recovery processes.

Research limitations/implications
Combining novel methods and conceptual frameworks to lived experiences sharpens extant knowledge of the active and non-linear aspects to personal recovery. The role of the researcher must be critically considered when using go-along methods.

Practical implications
Practitioners working with this population should account for the role of socially supportive and financially accessible spaces and activities that support the daily work of recovery beyond the context of formal care and services.

Originality/value
This study utilizes an innovative method to illustrate the crucial role of daily and seemingly banal experiences in fostering or hindering personal recovery processes. It is also the one of the first studies to comprehensively apply the CHIME framework to qualitative data in order to understand the recovery journeys of individuals with SMI living in supported housing.

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An uncaring indifference to wrong and right

a post by J. for the Nearly Legal: Housing Law News and Comment blog

Behind every homelessness statistic sits a story – or, more accurately – 88410* stories. Stories of people fleeing violence or abusive relationships. Stories of people struggling with ill-health and addictions. Stories of care leavers being left to struggle thorough. And, increasingly, stories of people who just can’t afford the rent.** Some – the “lucky” or “deserving” few, find their way into temporary accommodation (t/a).*** Some sleep rough.**** Some turn to prostitution as a way of getting a roof for the night. It is a desperate situation.

Readers of this blog know this. We see it every day on our way to work or as part or our work. We fight with landlords to stop them evicting people (whether by acting for tenants or where local authorities try to persuade landlords to hold off on proceedings so as to keep someone in their home). We work to improve housing conditions. We come into housing because we believe that there is nothing more important than having somewhere to live. And it makes us angry – furious, even – that our society allows these problems to continue.

And it’s against that background that the recent National Audit Office report on Homelessness should be read. It’s only 52 pages but is a damning analysis of the DCLG and government as a whole. The overwhelming impression is that the government just doesn’t care about the homeless or about the effects of its policies. It just doesn’t care if people are pushed into poverty. The poor and homeless (as well as landlords receiving UC/HB payments) are just there to be the subject of experimentation. I shouldn’t feel this strongly about a NAO report, but, frankly, it makes me wonder how the DCLG staff can face themselves in the morning.

Let me explain.

*the number of households that applied for homelessness assistance in England in 2016-17; so the number of people affected will comfortably be double that.

** The number of people homeless upon the ending of an AST has risen three fold since 2011

*** 77,240 households are in t/a in England as at March 2017, which is significantly more than an average Parliamentary constituency

**** 4134. An increase of 134% since 2010.

Hold on to your temper as you continue to read J.’s post.

Grateful thanks to the Current Awareness blog for this piece

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