The Hindered Self-Help: Housing Policies, Politics And Poverty In Kolkata, India

The housing dimension in Kolkata has been changing in recent years. Since 1991, the city has initiated housing reform that has taken many forms and manifestations characterized by the reduction in social allocation, cutbacks in public funding and promotion of a real estate culture in close partnership between the state and private actors. There has been increasing concern about the housing condition of the poor in the deserted slums and bustee settlements amidst the evident ‘poor blindness’ in housing and investment policies. Against this background the paper discusses self-help housing in Kolkata. It seeks to answer a simple question – why the concept of self-help has not been recognised as a viable policy option for a city with widespread slums and bustee settlements by visiting the complex urban context of Kolkata set within the city's politics, poverty and policies. The paper concludes that there is a need to recognise the existing structural duality in the city and support self-help housing as a parallel housing approach.

An Assessment of Sheltered Housing Design in Belfast, Northern Ireland

This article presents a UK-based research that has studied the existing sheltered or assisted living housing population and its future housing options and preferences. This meets an identified need to know and understand users' needs and requirements in much more detail that outlines what is liked and disliked by older people about sheltered housing, so that those who plan and design such housing can be aware of their views. The study also sought to understand the architects' challenges in designing and adapting this type of housing. The sheltered housing managed by housing associations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, was assessed through a series of site visits, structured interviews, and a focus group with stakeholders. Findings revealed older users' keen interest in participating in their housing needs assessment, identified building design concerns and provided recommendations for potential design guidelines. The findings of this research have provided important policy and design guidance to NI housing providers, and also allowed various stakeholders to participate in the debate about the quality of housing provided for the older people. This is a significant research study that generated considerable interest from various housing providers. This is an international peer reviewed journal.

The privatisation of council housing: Stock transfer and the struggle for accountable housing

A central element in the privatization of council housing has been the development of stock transfer policy. A variety of perspectives on this process have been explored including the impact on accountability relations; however, the tenants’ experience is almost completely absent from this literature. The paper develops a case study that draws on the experience of the tenants involved in a stock transfer. In the process stock transfers, and related accountability relations, are shown to be contested with tenant-led campaigns challenging this neoliberal inspired policy. The case study illustrates the power and financial resource asymmetries in transfer campaigns with a range of anti-democratic tactics employed by those pursuing the transfer. On the basis of a critique of neoliberalism, the stock transfer process is seen as an attack on the previous democratic control of council housing, which is replaced with ‘governance by experts and elites’ and private sector inspired corporate governance forms of accountability. Thus the paper seeks to answer two questions; how democratic is the transfer process and what are the long-term implications for democratic accountability in the social housing sector.

Working across boundaries to improve health outcomes: a case study of a housing support and outreach service for homeless people living with HIV

This paper reports the findings of an evaluation of the ‘Housing Support, Outreach and Referral’ service developed to support people living with HIV who were homeless or at risk of homelessness. The service was set up as part of the Supporting People Health Pilot programme established to demonstrate the policy links between housing support services and health and social care services by encouraging the development of integrated services. The paper considers the role of housing support in improving people's health, and considers the challenges of working across housing, health and social care boundaries. The evaluation of the health pilot employed two main sources of data collection: quarterly project evaluation reports, which collected process data as well as reporting progress against aims and objectives, and semi-structured interviews with professionals from all key stakeholder groups and agencies, and with people who used services. Over the course of 15 months, 56 referrals were received of which 27 were accepted. Fifteen people received tenancy support of whom 12 were helped to access temporary accommodation. At the end of the 15 months, all of the tenancies had been maintained. In addition, 18 people registered with a general practitioner and 13 registered with an HIV clinic. Interviews with professionals emphasised the importance of the local joint working context, the involvement of the voluntary sector and the role of the support workers as factors that accounted for these outcomes. Those using services placed most emphasis on the flexibility of the support worker role. Importantly, interviews with professionals and those using services suggest that the role of support worker incorporates two dimensions – those of networker/navigator as well as advocate – and that both dimensions are important in determining the effectiveness of the service.

Urban housing and the role of 'underclass' processes: the case of Ireland

Rising levels of urban deprivation and a perception that poverty has become more concentrated in such areas and has taken on a qualitatively different character have provoked a variety of popular and academic responses. The potentially most fruitful set of hypotheses focuses on the unintended of weak labour force attachment and social isolation is perceived to lead to behaviour and orientations that contribute to a vicious circle of deprivation. In examining the value of this conceptual framework in the Irish case we proceed by measuring directly the social-psychological factors which ave hypothesized to mediate the 'underclass' process.

A significantly higher level of poverty is found in urban public-sector tenant households. This finding cannot be accounted for entirely by socio-demographic differences. It is the assessment of this net or residual effect that is crucial to an evaluation of vicious circle explanations. Controlling for the critical social-psychological factors we found that net effect was reduced by less than a quarter and concluded that the remaining effect is more plausibly attributed to the role of selection than to underclass processes. Analysis of the changing relationship between urban public-sector tenancy and poverty provides support for this interpretation.

For the main part the distinctiveness of social housing tenants is a consequence of the disadvantages they stiffer in relation to employment opportunities and living standards. Ultimately it is these problems that policy interventions, whatever the level at which they take place, must address.

An analysis of International NGOs design decision making for housing reconstruction in developing country contexts

The purpose of this paper is to explore the current design decision making process of selected foreign international non governmental organisations (INGO’s) operating in the field of housing and post disaster housing design and delivery in developing countries. The study forms part of a wider on-going study relation to a decision making in relation to affordable and sustainable housing in developing
countries. The paper highlights the main challenges and opportunities in relation to the design and delivery of low cost sustainable housing in developing countries as identified in current literature on the subject. Interviews and case studies with INGO’s highlight any specific challenges faced by foreign INGO’s operating in a developing country. The preliminary results of this research study provide a concise insight into the design decision making process of leading foreign INGO’s operating in developing countries and will be beneficial to policy makers, NGOs, government bodies and community organisations in practice as it offers unique evidence based insights into international bodies housing design decision making process.