How the social and affordable housing sectors got swallowed

Abstract

Thus chapter argues that the social and affordable housing sector which began as a charitable movement for housing the poor has become increasingly financialised and swallowed up by the finance-housebuilding complex, creating a barrier to a coherent political movement for social housing and reform. Using examples from estate regeneration in London, the chapter describes the increasingly close collaboration between housing associations councils, private developers and private finance to the detriment of social housing and community cohesion. It provides examples of housing associations caught up in damaging financial deals and shows how these deals shut out local scrutiny. It asks whether recent Government softening of their approach to social housing means that financialisation is over