So homeownership will cure all our social ills? That’s pure myth

Rarely has such a basic proposition been imbued with such a high level of economic, cultural and political expectation. So let us unpack the issue a little and separate the sizzle from the steak, for if the expectations are high, so are the risks inherent in getting future policy wrong.

Let me begin by accepting entirely the argument that most of us seek to own our homes. Of course we do. A decade of soaring house prices has confirmed the more episodic experience of earlier years: that being on the property ladder is the quickest and most secure way to acquire and to pass on assets – quicker than saving a share of our earnings; more secure than the stock market. Altogether less fathomable is the assertion that homeowners have more “pride” in their neighbourhoods.

Mixed-tenure communities, by extension, it is argued, work better than social housing, precisely because of this injection of pride and newly discovered social responsibility.

To which I argue: “Up to a point.”

It may be true that we have a vested interest in caring more for our own property than that of others, but are homeowners intrinsically more possessed of “pride”, “social responsibility” and “neighbourliness” than tenants? Of course not. In fact, many of the same social commentators who sing the praises of homeownership will also lament the passing of what they saw as generations of the “respectable poor” – council tenants whose front-door steps were polished with near-religious devotion, and whose children may have been shabby but were always clean. And even the most cursory glance into the heart of a modern estate will reveal dozens of examples of care, pride and fierce dedication to the community, while a street of private homes may show exactly the opposite.

Glance into an estate and you’ll find dozens of examples of dedication to the community, but a street of private homes may reveal just the opposite

Yet we can probably all agree that something has gone wrong and needs to be put right. No one would argue that huge council estates work, but exactly what has gone wrong and is homeownership the solution? And can these issues be summarised in less than a PhD thesis?

Well, my summary is as follows. What went wrong is a combination of the increased fragmentation of society (a whole chapter in itself); dwindling stocks of social housing so that only the most vulnerable could squeeze through the eligibility criteria; and the widening inequality between rich and poor, which began in the early 1980s and still continues. Add the pressures of higher population mobility and, in some areas, diversity – a healthy development, but one requiring greater support by way of service delivery and management – and it’s easy to see how concentrations of social housing become concentrations of social problems. But to view social housing as the problem itself, rather than the means by which wider problems manifest themselves is a mistake.

After all, half of all the households living in poverty in the UK are homeowners as a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found in January 2003. Some council lessees, for example, recently contacted me about a works bill running to tens of thousands of pounds which they – many of them pensioners or on other fairly low incomes – can’t pay. Some have had to move and rent out their properties – often back to the council to house homeless people.

The closest things to a housing-based solution are more social housing (especially street-type properties); more affordable homes to buy and a revisiting of the concept of the equity stake. Tenants should be able to benefit from the rise in property values but not at the expense of the very poorest – as will happen if we extend the right to buy to housing association tenants. Nor should we expose households on the lowest incomes to levels of risk they are the least able to bear. Housing policies must support strategies to tackle poverty and promote social mobility, not be a part-substitute for them.