Is there life after social housing? Many countries over the last few decades have assumed that social housing has passed its sell-by date. That’s after a supposed cornucopia of alternatives have surfaced. They’ve been largely courtesy of neo-liberal thinking that extolls small governments and leaves the ‘free’ market to deliver most if not all housing.
Except it hasn’t quite happened that way. Solutions such as housing vouchers, which rely on private rental housing, have been failing to stem a growing affordable housing crisis.
Revisionist thinking has been examining social housing programs with long histories of success. In this category, Vienna and Singapore have attracted much attention.
But there are others. The system in the Netherlands might in the future offer real potential for providing a country with a long-lasting, stable, truly affordable housing economy. It protects social housing from financialization and uncontrolled housing cost increases that these days offer a constant growing threat of homelessness.
Hanneke van Deursen has completed research about social housing in the Netherlands, with an eye to understanding what lies behind its success. Two reports are planned: the first one, which has been published, discusses the history of Dutch social housing. You can read it at the Joint Center For Housing Studies of Harvard University: The People’s Housing: Woningcorporaties and the Dutch Social Housing System – Part 1: The History
Part 1 begins with an abstract, where van Deursen gives a summary of Part 1 and sketches what lies ahead in Part 2. We’re also posting the landing page for van Duersen’s research project, which is more likely to have a link to Part 2 when it is released: The People’s Housing: Woningcorporaties And The Dutch Social Housing System
