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Poor People, Council Housing and the Right to Buy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Simon James ,
Bill Jordan  and
Helen Kay
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Abstract

Data from the authors' qualitative study of decision-making in low income households casts new light on council house sales in a least-favoured housing estate. Under pressure from rising rents and rumours of privatisation, poor tenants are deciding to buy their houses as a way of securing their future in the area and controlling their personal environment, rather than as an escape from a residual ‘ghetto’ of welfare housing. This raises a number of issues in relation to current theories about housing tenure, especially those which distinguish sharply between the material and ideological bases of owner occupation and local authority tenancy. The authors argue that their respondents' reasons for wanting to buy do not constitute a rejection of collectivism as much as an attempt to preserve the endangered advantages of their situation on the estate.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 1991 , pp. 27 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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