a-z of housing

Social housing is, by defi nition, an administered arrangement and market forces cannot be relied upon to hold landlords to account for the ways in which they build, allocate and manage their homes.The question is ‘Who or what should hold them to account?’Housing association and arm’s length management organisation(ALMO) policies and practices are steered and monitored by boards of management that may include nominated members of a local authority (LA) and tenants as well as independent appointees. Because they receive some support from public funds, local authorities, ALMOs and registered housing associations are also subjected to systems of external regulation .

Broadly speaking, a business plan is a proposal for achieving something. Because such documents are written with a variety of audiences in mind, housing organizations normally create a number of versions, each written in a different style and each incorporating different amounts of information and levels of analysis.

The word ‘capital’ stems from the Latin ‘capitalis’ ‘relating to the head’, and its use in English is traceable back to the early thirteenth century. From the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was applied to crimes that headed the list of offences (e.g. murder and treason). On the same basis it was applied to the head city of a country, the most important ships in the navy and to upper case letters that head a sentence. The financial sense (1620s) is from the Latin ‘capitale’ ‘stock/property’ (neutral of ‘capitalis’). In indicating the wealth of an individual or group, it originally referred to moveable property (as in ‘chattels’) such as slaves or cattle. By the late eighteenth century, and with the emergence of the Industrial Revolution, its meaning had shifted and had come to refer specifi - cally to the forms of non-moveable wealth that are employed in the processes of production.

The word ‘development’ originally meant unfolding or unwrapping and was applied to the process of unfurling a standard in battle.The poet and cultural historian Jack Lindsay (1962) argued that the modern concept of ‘development’ emerged in the eighteenth century with the appearance of biology as a science, when it began to be used to refer to the growth of living organisms. In contemporary society the term is constantly applied to describe forward advances and the process of growth in all sorts of areas. Its specific application to land and landed property was established during the nineteenth century when its more general meaning of ‘advancement through progressive stages’ (1836) began to be applied to building contracts and commentaries on urbanization.

Equity is a word, like community or welfare , that began by signifying a general social condition and then, over time, developed more specifi c senses while still retaining its original meaning. The first meaning of equity in English was a direct translation from the original Old French ‘equité’, a word whose Latin root means ‘even’, ‘just’ and ‘equal’. It could refer to the quality of being impartial, reasonable and fair, and contemporary social service providers are expected to operate in ways that demonstrate an ‘equitable’ incidence of the costs of provision and management (burdens) and an equitable distribution of the outputs (benefi ts).

The term ‘finance’ stems from the Latin ‘finis’ indicating the ending of a monetary debt, fi ne or tax liability; in English usage it was gradually extended to embrace money management in general(eighteenth century). Housing fi nance can be thought of as a system of money and credit that operates to enable all types of residential property to be produced, managed, acquired, maintained, repaired, renewed and exchanged. A key distinction is usually made between finance that is used for capital and revenue purposes and finance that is used to augment incomes (see capital and revenue , low income households and subsidies ).

Economists have developed the concept of ‘merit’ to help explain why the state may intervene to provide certain goods and services directly, or to redistribute disposable incomes so as to increase the consumption of certain goods and services provided by the market. It is argued that some things are so meritorious (central to a civilized life or to the general national interest) that, even if an unregulated free market system ‘could’ provide them, the state ‘should’ nevertheless involve itself to ensure that a suffi cient quantity of an appropriate quality at an affordable price is, in fact, provided.

During the twentieth century, owner-occupation developed from being a restricted way of holding residential property that catered largely for the housing needs of the upper echelons of society into the nation’s predominant tenure arrangement. This growth has been particularly prominent over the past 35 years. During the 1980s, following the Thatcher government’s introduction of the ‘right to buy’ (RTB) and other low cost home ownership (LCHO) initiatives, the proportion of households that owned their own homes rose from about a half to two-thirds. By 2002 the ownership proportion peaked at just under 70 per cent.

In housing and other areas of social service provision, the notion of ‘inclusion’ has come to have positive approbatory connotations and is often sought for as an element of public and social policy. Conversely, the notion of ‘exclusion’ has come to have pejorative connotations and is often presented as an unwanted outcome of some provisional arrangements. It is interesting to note that in its original application (late sixteenth century), inclusion was a neutral descriptive noun meaning ‘a shutting in’ (from the Latin ‘inclu–s’) and carried no judgemental undertones.

Leasehold is an agreement whereby a ‘buyer’ (sometimes called a ‘tenant’, ‘leaseholder’ or ‘lessee’) acquires the right to use the landed property for a specifi c period in return for a land rent to the ‘fee simple’ owner (the ‘lessor’ or ‘freeholder’). At the end of the period or ‘term’ of the lease (that can be up to 999 years), all the property rights revert to the party that holds title in ‘fee simple’. Under a lease agreement, the lessor’s interest in the property will be longer than the term of the lease. An arrangement providing an equal term would comprise a conveyance or assignment rather than a lease.

Economists have developed the concept of ‘merit’ to help explain why the state may intervene to provide certain goods and services directly, or to redistribute disposable incomes so as to increase the consumption of certain goods and services provided by the market. It is argued that some things are so meritorious (central to a civilized life or to the general national interest) that, even if an unregulated free market system ‘could’ provide them, the state ‘should’ nevertheless involve itself to ensure that a suffi cient quantity of an appropriate quality at an affordable price is, in fact, provided.

The concept of social need is inherent in the idea of social service. Indeed, the history of the social services is, in large part, the story of how society came to recognize the existence of social needs andthen organize itself to meet them. After 1919, the Liberal Party’s election campaign to build ‘homes fit for heroes’ opened up the debate about whether market forces alone could be relied upon to meet the housing objectives of post-war society.

The early history of social housing provision was characterized by a combination of Christian benevolence and paternalism. Charitable alms houses were established in the pre-industrial world, some as early as the twelfth century. Nineteenth-century industrial philanthropists such as George Peabody, Titus Salt and George and Richard Cadbury were pioneers of ethical capitalism. Their memorials still exist in the form of the model housing and charitable trusts they established to improve the quality of life of the ‘artisan class’ of their day.

Henryk Skolimowski (1981) has made the point that ‘quality’ is a diffi cult term to defi ne, particularly in professional and business cultures that place an emphasis on measurement and quantifi cation. However, both its meaning and identifi cation have to be addressed by professional practitioners because the enhancement of ‘quality’ is seen to be at the heart of a value for money regime. Because of the potential for ambiguity, it is necessary to clarify what is meant by the term when it is being used in a particular management context. In particular, when an organization declares ‘the pursuit of quality’ as an objective, it should be clear what this implies for those with a responsibility for delivering such a policy.

A regulation can be thought of as an expectation, requirement or rule that is used to control, direct or manage an activity or organization. Regulatory rules can be ‘obligatory’ (required) or ‘voluntary’(recommended as best practice). Obligatory regulation is externally imposed whilst voluntary regulation stems from the organization’s internal business culture .

Social enterprises are organizations where the money made is invested in social and community projects rather than distributed to shareholders. Although the term is relatively new, social enterprises themselves are not new with many of our prominent institutions having been established on charitable grounds and managed on a not-for-profi t basis. Most activities in this sector seek to tackle specifi c social problems, improve people’s life chances or protect the environment. They create shared wealth and give people a stake in the economy. Social enterprise is a growing sector: there are more than 68,000 social enterprises in the United Kingdom, contributing more than 4 billion to the UK economy and employing almost one million people.

A tenancy agreement is a contract between an occupier and a landlord. It sets out the legal terms and conditions of the occupancy arrangements. It can be written down or oral. A tenancy can be of fixed-term (running for a set period of time) or periodic (running on a week-by-week or month-by-month basis).In the social housing sector, it is now usual for new tenants to be given a probationary or ‘starter’ tenancy prior to establishing a longer-term agreement. A probationary tenancy typically runs for 12 months. At the end of this period the landlord has the option to establish a fi rm tenancy agreement, extend the probationary period or evict the occupier.

The word ‘value’ comes from the Latin ‘valere’ – to be strong – to be relied upon – to have worth. Philosophically speaking, it is possible to say that something has ‘intrinsic value’ if it has qualities that go beyond usefulness. If something is intrinsically valuable then it is worthy in its own right without having any reference to how it might be used or marketed. In the world of human affairs, however, the notion of value tends to be tied to usefulness. So the ‘value’ of something is usually thought to be that attribute that makes it, in some sense, worthy of use. If something has no use it tends to be regarded as worthless and if it is worthless, it tends to be regarded as having no social or economic value.

Welfare is a composite word combining ‘well’ (in its contemporary meaning) with ‘fare’ (from the Old English ‘faran’), meaning a state of being. The elements can, of course, be reversed to form the departure phrase ‘farewell’. In housing practice the term ‘welfare’ is used to refl ect social concern for the well-being of individuals and groups. It is often applied to specifi c vulnerable categories such as the elderly, the unemployed or those on low incomes. This application of the term fi rst appeared in the early twentieth century and, with the development of the modern welfare and social security arrangements, its use has now become ubiquitous in both popular and academic writing.