News from Building and Social Housing Foundation (BSHF)

Welfare Reform
BSHF has been paying particular attention to the government’s proposed welfare reforms:

• The findings of last year’s consultation at St George’s House, Windsor Castle were published as ‘Support with Housing Costs: Developing a simplified and sustainable system’. Further details are available from http://www.bshf.org/published-information/publication.cfm?lang=00&thePubID=AB588DD9-15C5-F4C0-993D5892C8E1DCC1
• Jim Vine appeared before the Work and Pensions select committee to discuss proposals for the Universal Credit.
• A short paper was published on the impact of claimant numbers on welfare expenditure. It suggests that relatively small changes in the underlying assumptions on unemployment and economic inactivity lead to large changes in both the number of claimants and overall Housing Benefit expenditure. Further details are available from http://www.bshf.org/published-information/?lang=00

Self-help housing
BSHF has been working with HACT, Self-Help-Housing.org and the Third Sector Research Centre on self-help housing. A report will be published in the spring on this community driven approach to tackling empty properties.

New Understanding Welfare textbooks from The Policy Press

The Policy Press has recently published two new textbooks in the highly regarded Understanding Welfare series:
Understanding community by Peter Somerville
Understanding the environment and social policy edited by Tony Fitzpatrick

Both textbooks are intended for people teaching courses in these areas and are available on inspection for those leading courses of at least 12 students*. Information on each book is detailed below and if you would like to order an inspection copy please follow this link:
http://www.policypress.co.uk/inspection_copy.asp Alternatively they can be ordered at 20% discount on the website http://www.policypress.co.uk/

Understanding community is a highly topical text offering a clear understanding of policy and theory in relation to community. By examining areas of government policy, such as economic development, education, health, housing, and community safety, this book explores the difficulties that communities face and discusses new concepts such as community cohesion, social capital and community capacity building. Somerville challenges our understanding of community, both social and conceptual, and assesses the strengths and limitations of this understanding. This book is recommended for students studying social policy, social work and sociology, and as a resource for policymakers in community development, urban regeneration and allied fields.

Understanding the environment and social policy explores the key social, political, economic and moral challenges that environmental problems pose for social policy in a global context. Combining theory and practice with an interdisciplinary approach, the book reviews the current strategies and policies and provides a critique of proposed future developments in the field. Bringing together leading experts, it guides the reader through the subject in an accessible way using chapter summaries, further reading, recommended webpages, a glossary and questions for discussion.
Providing a comprehensive overview, the book is aimed at students, teachers, activists, practitioners and policymakers.

*Inspection copies are available to lecturers who wish to consider adopting them for a course of 12 or more students. If the title is recommended for purchase on a course, it may be kept. If not, it should be paid for or returned to the distributor in resaleable condition within 28 days. A maximum of three titles can be requested at any one time.

'Transforming Private Landlords' by Tony Crook & Peter A Kemp was published
in November by Wiley Blackwell: ISBN 978-1-4051-8415-1

Recent years have seen a sea change in attitudes to investment in private rental housing. Although private letting was one of the most important investment outlets in the nineteenth century, for much of the twentieth century private landlordism was in decline. Indeed, the privately rented sector witnessed net disinvestment by landlords for seven decades prior to the late 1980s.
Since then, however, there has been a significant revival of investment in private rental housing and growth in its market share. Meanwhile the image of private landlordism has greatly improved and the highly polarised attitudes of the past have been replaced by political consensus on the important role that landlords can play in housing provision.

An extensive array of government initiatives was introduced in order to attract new investment back into the private lettings market. This included rent deregulation, the Business Expansion Scheme, Housing Investment Trusts, and Real Estate Investment Trusts. Many of these initiatives were particularly aimed at enticing property companies and financial institutions into the residential lettings market. Yet the revival of letting has come from private individuals investing in so called ‘buy to let’ housing rather than from the corporate sector.

Transforming private landlords: housing, markets and public policy explores the origins, nature and extent of this revival in the fortunes of private landlordism. It present an in depth analysis of private landlords, the rationales for, and ways in which governments have sought to revitalise investment in residential lettings and their success in doing so. It assesses the extent to which landlordism has been transformed in recent years and the lessons for policy that can be learned from this experience.

The book addresses a major gap in the literature about an important actor in housing provision and the built environment. It draws on findings from the authors' research and interviews conducted with thousand of landlords in Britain.

Tony Crook is Professor Emeritus of Town & Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield and Peter Kemp is Barnett Professor of Social Policy at the University of Oxford

New report on local housing market volatility

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently published the report Local Housing Market Volatility, which was written by Ed Ferrari and Alasdair Rae (Sheffield University). The report, which was written as as submission to the JRF's Housing Markets Taskforce, finds that the last housing market boom - which ended with the credit crunch - was one of the longest in recent history and exacerbated regional and local inequalities in the housing market. The gaps between different parts of the country grew wider in housing market terms. The report suggests that policymakers need to renew their attention to the demand side of the housing market - and regional differentials in the economy in particular. It also suggests that these regional differentials and patterns of population mobility within the country serve to reinforce structural patterns of inequality in the housing market.

The full report and a four page summary 'Findings' can be downloaded from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's website at: http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/local-housing-market-volatility

Heriot-Watt University launches new research institute

Heriot Watt University's School of the Built Environment is delighted to announce the establishment of a new research institute, to be launched on the occasion of Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick's inaugural lecture on 4th May 2011. This new 'Institute for Housing, Urban and Real Estate Research' (IHURER) will be directed by Professor Glen Bramley, and will bring together a number of existing research groups within the School of the Built Environment (SBE), including:
· Centre for Research into Socially Inclusive Services
· Housing and Urban Society
· Property Economics and Investment

The new Institute will also encompass Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick and Dr Sarah Johnsen's work on homelessness, social exclusion and related issues, following their move to Heriot-Watt from the University of York in July 2010. Details of the Institute’s launch event and Professor Fitzpatrick's inaugural lecture will be circulated shortly.

Response by HSA Executive Committee to the assessment of housing statistics produced by DCLG

The HSA Executive Committee have responded to the consultation on the assessment of housing statistics produced by DCLG. To see the response letter please use the following link: http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/chp/hsa/UKSAhousingstatsconsultationJan2011.pdf

2011 HSA/HSCT (Housing Studies Charitable Trust) Bursary Award Winners Announced

The Housing Studies Association and the Housing Studies Charitable Trust are delighted to announce the recipients of their joint 2011 bursary awards. The bursaries were established to ensure that members of the housing studies community facing financial barriers were still able to attend and present their work at the Housing Studies Association annual conference and to subsequently submit their paper to the Housing Studies journal.

The four recipients of the 2011 bursaries are Patricia Campbell (University of Glasgow), Patricia Jones, Carol McKenzie and Martin Whiteford.

The Housing Studies Association would like to express its gratitude for the generous support provided by the Housing Studies Charitable Trust and its appreciation to all of the individuals who submitted bursary applications.

For further information please contact John Flint j.f.flint@shu.ac.uk

HSA Conference 2011

Last minute reminder to book for the 2011 conference. Early booking deadline is 25 February. Discounted rates apply before this date.

The Early Career Scholars stream of the 2011 Housing Studies Association conference has again been widely supported by members of the academic and professional communities. Abstracts have been received from PhD students, early career scholars, and researchers from policy research bodies, ensuring the stream will have a diverse and interesting set of presentations from its speakers.

The timetable for the Early Careers Scholars stream will be released in March. The organisers would like to thank the Housing Studies Association and Housing Studies Charitable Trust for their generous support. Four financial bursaries were made available to scholars otherwise unable to attend the event; these were awarded in February 2011 and we would like to congratulate the successful candidates.