Responsible austerity
Article Type: Editorial From: Housing, Care and Support, Volume 16, Issue 1
The years immediately following the Second World War were characterised by a widespread consensus that the state, which had put so many people through such an exhaustive collective experience, should continue to look after its population in peace time. In Europe in particular, what became known as the“welfare state” model showed national governments trying, through a variety of different approaches, to protect the welfare of all, and especially of the more vulnerable.
It was not of course an exclusively european phenomenon; and many of the principles and practices of state welfare were adopted and developed throughout the world, even if it was typically in Western Europe that we saw the most consistent collective efforts to reconcile market forces with social welfare,culminating in what became known as the european model of social democracy.
The close of 2012 marked the 70th anniversary of a report that has influenced and guided the UK’s system of social support since then. The report, Social Insurance and Allied Services, more commonly called the Beveridge Report,named after one of the great public servants of the UK Government, William Beveridge (1879-1963), has been the touchstone of British social policy ever since it was published in 1942 – that is, right in the midst of the war effort.
The British national emotional attachment to Beveridge as the originator of the“Welfare State” has served as a rallying point to any one or any thing that served to dismantle any part of this key underpinning of British life and, indeed, British identity. Whilst there are many critiques of Beveridge since its publication and outworking, there is no doubt that some aspects of the touchstone still hold a deep-felt affection in the British psyche.
The 2012 Olympic opening ceremony was, by common consent, a rather eccentric look at Britain; but the inclusion of a scene with myriad hospital beds in the middle of the Olympic Stadium said to the world that this was part of the heritage and pride of Britain deemed worthy of global celebration.
Whilst the National Health Service is often seen – at least in the UK– as the “jewel in the crown” of the “Welfare State”,UK social welfare policy has served to complement medical health services and expand the reach of care and support well beyond hospital buildings. Threats of privatization and quasi-privatization of many aspects Beveridge’s pillars of the welfare state in the UK should not blind us from understanding that the very essence of social welfare is founded on principles of fairness, equity and responsibility.
The underpinning envisioned by the post 1945 British Government was based on reciprocity – paying in a weekly contribution and paying out financial support to people who were sick, unemployed, widowed or retired: in essence a national insurance system. This insurance system is now difficult to square with the social welfare system we have today in Britain. The “paying in” a“getting out” simplicity is lost in the drawn out lines of taxation and bureaucracy. But we have to remember that the plans that Beveridge put forward were predicated on full employment and a minimum, though equitable contribution to individual support.
This relationship is now deemed to be out of kilter with market forces, and unaffordable. Although the “hole” in the finances of the UK state(and others) is dominant in the debate on welfare reform, that is not the point being made here. Rather, we wish to remind that there is a real legacy, implicit or explicit, in the outworking of social policy through practitioners, academics and policy makers whereby the principles offered above are adhered to as mark of professional and, by inference, ethical standards; and as such they are not negotiable. It is now the practioners within housing, care and support sectors who will have to think more broadly to find solutions to mounting social and economic pressures.
Brian Greenberg, Sophia Korb, Kristen Cronon and Robert Anderson’s paper on specialist services for people who are homeless in their part of California reminds us that the development of homelessness policy and practice begins with the identification of complex housing issues. This paper illustrates the initial motivators of differing groups of interested organizations in breaking the cycles of deprivation for those with the most entrenched social and medical problems that cause difficulties for a number of agencies and communities. The particularly close integration of other services is a key feature of the San Mateo approach; but clearly this is not so of all schemes with similar criteria as used in “Housing First” schemes. We would like to hear from any other practitioners or researchers in this field and see how local solutions differ; and what difference this makes to their outcomes.
Although the starting place for the “Housing First” programme contrasts with some UK initiatives, the scenario will be familiar to UK homelessness practitioners and academics. Most strikingly the authors describe how “Housing First” is geared to people who have experienced homelessness on the streets for a minimum of five years, termed “shelter failures”, who are known by a number of agencies and are the most challenging to engage. The case study successes are an encouragement and a number of critiques are offered, including the advice that geography is important – the “principles” are transportable but the mechanisms to support homeless people have to take account of differences of place and, may we add, differences in social policy norms developed though historical contexts.
Localism is at the heart of the UK Government’s plans to bring housing providers centre stage as the key component in providing the roof under which care and support services commissioned by local Health and Social Care departments can flourish. Tony Stacey and Ian Hembrow’s article, “How local housing can unlock lasting health and care” highlights the background to Government reforms from April 2013 and gives some examples of how social housing providers are already (and have been for many years) at the cutting edge of service provision for individuals and communities.
Improvement to health and wellbeing are at the budgetary core of these initiatives but importantly it is the contribution that sensitive tailoring of services and the cooperation between agencies that delivers value and customer satisfaction. The article mentions the group of 87 housing providers who have joined “Place Shapers”, a national membership body housing associations who between them own or manage 675,000 homes across England. Initiatives such as these are an important landscape within which social housing providers and others can operate, share stories and improve practice.
Service re-design, and especially the interface between different agencies at local level, lies at the heart of both the Greenberg et al. and the Stacey and Hembrow papers. Meanwhile, Marcela Pizzi, John Chalmers, Daniel Bunout, Paulina Osorio, Viviana Fernández, Macarena Cusato, Valentina Avendaño and Karen Rivera remind us that we can build in disadvantage to individuals and cost to the public purse by poor housing design. Pizzi et al.,evaluate the risks and impacts on older people derived from their use of housing and gives an example from Chile’s state housing programme of how good intentions can, unthinkingly, undermine the independence of older people. The paper again points to the necessity of tailoring services (in this case design of housing for older people) to specific needs, including gender, which is often ignored in a “one size fits all” production of housing.
In countries where state funded housing is found there is an opportunity to promote best practice to encourage all sectors to respond more creatively to actual needs. In the Pizzi et al., study, daily living tasks are observed and assessed in order to evaluate the level of difficulty in using space and objects within spaces. Architecture is seen as not just the actual building space and immediate environment but encompassing the small spaces within the home – the areas that often can be assumed to be useful and useable and can too often play a minor role in architects’ thinking. Again,research has a place here; and dissemination of such findings is an essential function of this journal.
You may notice that my colleague and joint Editor, Robin Johnson, is writing in his specialist professional capacity as researcher and social policy adviser in this edition of Housing Care and Support. Johnson’s article, “Persuasive interactions” contains a historical critique of research in the field of mental health and wellbeing. (Of course wellbeing has now become a policy term but Johnson can track the development of this interest in more holistic approached to research to early days.) In Johnson’s own words, “The primary propose of this purposive review was to identify those research studies of the interaction of mental health and housing that provide the most robust evidence, to inform the development (or impact) of public policy”. The literature review contained in this paper is a list worth keeping. Importantly,this extensive body of research contains a message to all those engaged in efforts under new linkages inherent in commissioning and partnerships.
There is a limit to the level of reliance that individuals and communities can withstand in prolonged periods of retraction of services and diminution of income. But all communities have their own histories of resilience and resistance, so it may be those communities that have experienced the hardest roads that provide the experience and expertise for those less used to difficult times. But we must be careful not to be too ready to assume answers from yesterday will always apply today, and Johnson points to contentions and debates that have peppered the research commentary. He warns us to be rigorous in designing and commissioning research that reflects the complexity of people’s lives and their responses to a range of physical and social environments.
Housing – whether state-run or voluntary sector, privately rented or owner-occupied, is, we suggest, at the core of wellbeing; it touches on every aspect of our lives. The field is wide; and as Johnson argues, must cover the design and management of ordinary, mainstream or “general needs”housing, specialist accommodation of all kinds, “housing-related support”,neighbourhood and community facilities and, at the extremes, homelessness or insecure housing. In addition to the delivery by housing agencies of specific services and sensitive management we might add that the existing regulatory frameworks for social housing continue to play an important role in safeguarding residents’ rights. With an increasing use of the comparatively unregulated private rental sector for people who are most vulnerable it is essential that improvements to wellbeing, painstakingly made, are not undermined by the spectre of insecure tenancies and poor housing conditions. As Johnson reminds us,“For someone depressed and anxious, a move may have a direct impact on their primary condition.”
Few communities are protected from the “austerity agenda”. But for the most vulnerable the tipping point has, arguably, arrived and for communities in the UK and elsewhere there is a need to support them now with the very best professional practice built on expertise and community centred ethos. However,the UK is fortunate in having the deep-seated infrastructure in public and voluntary sectors that are a source of collective learning.
We welcome articles from colleagues worldwide to offer their insight into equipping practitioners and offering new paradigms of “welfare” and the role played by housing from their experience of supporting people and communities and the role housing can play. There is much to learn.
Beveridges’s aspiration and his identification of “Five Giants”of “Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness” resonate as strongly now as they did in the far more deficit-ridden condition of post-war Europe. We hope that the papers in this edition of Housing Support and Care will give readers the inspiration to take forward the professional standards that we are privileged to inherit, wherever we are or whatever we are called on to do.
Lynn Vickery
