Allocating Social Housing

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The concept of need is central to any discussion of housing, and particularly to how it is allocated and who gets it. Hence determinations of need have been used to allocate social housing, but also to decide on what new housing should be built and where it should be located. The importance of need as an argument is that it is directly opposite to the idea of market provision, which is based on the ability to pay. Need is where social criteria dominate rather than individual choice and commercial considerations. The clear implication is that, when need is involved, it is not proper for a landlord to make a profit or to put their private gain above or even alongside the interests of tenants. Need, it is suggested, overrides commercial considerations. …show more content…

without taking into account the individual household’s ability to pay for the housing assigned to it. (pp. 55-6) This type of definition is sometimes referred to as geographical need, in that it seeks to identify the housing requirements for a particular population, say, within a local authority or municipality. But, of course, this definition could also be used to apply to a region or even a national population. There are a number of important elements to this type of need. First, Robinson points to the fact that housing need requires the establishment of a particular standard of housing provision. This may be defined in statute in terms of fitness and habitability or it might be stated in policy terms. Second, this definition of housing need excludes the ability to pay as a criterion. Housing need should be determined by objective conditions, such as household composition and the standard of the housing stock, and not according to income. The idea behind this is that all households should be able to gain access to housing of a certain standard and this applies regardless of …show more content…

This is a valid exercise, in that it may show the scale of a problem and allow a local housing organisation to make an informed bid for government funding. However, it does not cover the issue of need completely. We can see this when we consider the manner in which social housing is allocated. In order to do so, a population has to be disaggregated to allow for the allocation to be made. The landlord needs to be able to differentiate between rival applicants to determine who should be allocated a vacant dwelling. This, of course, could be done on the basis of ‘first come, first served’ or according to who agrees to pay the highest amount of rent. But if one is seeking to allocate to the most deserving or most vulnerable, the landlord has to be capable of differentiating between the needs of different households. Likewise, in means tested benefits systems there has to be some way of targeting the benefits for those who need them

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