Housing associations past and present

I've been reading a fantastic book by Peter Malpass  called Housing Associations and Housing Policy: A Historical Perspective. A fantastic potted history of the social housing movement that draws out some comparisons between the first housing trusts and modern day housing associations.

[Image of Octavia Hill via BBC]

Early housing companies were either constituted as charitable trusts, like Peabody or the Guiness Trust, or raised finance through shareholders who asked for less than average returns on their investment, like Octavia Hill. These early trusts had a duel purpose, a social aim to improve the physical and moral health of the urban poor; and a financial one to show that good quality housing for the poorest could make financial sense.

Extensive bombing in many of England’s cities during the second world war, led to a housing crisis, and to the first large scale construction of council housing. As a result housing associations became marginalised and retreated to the role of almshouses, as providers of housing for older people and other vulnerable groups. Interestingly, because of their routes in middle and upper class philanthropy, housing associations did not appeal to the Labour Party.

It wasn’t until the 1974 Housing Act that the fortunes of housing associations were really turned around.  The establishment of the Housing Corporation and the allocation of grants to housing associations for the first time, led to growth in the sector. The arrival of Thatcher in the May 1979 election, led to significant cuts to public expenditure on housing, and the selling off of a large quantity of council stock through the Right to Buy initiative. Housing associations sold off stock too, but they also took over the management of previous council housing development through transfers from local authorities as part of the 1988 Housing Act. In the mid 1980’s many housing associations began to raise private finance. Since 1988 they have become dominant providers of new social housing, hand in hand with the deconstruction of local authority stock.

In his book Malpass rightly points out the differences between original housing trusts and modern housing associations including their size, structure and funding routes, but some parallels can be drawn too.  The fact that housing associations are increasingly reliant on private finance begs the question do they, like the early housing trusts, need to show that their financing models can generate returns while meeting social aims? Further, just as Malpass questions the moral and social priorities of Victorian philanthropic housing providers, who in an era of reduced council housing provision, sets the moral and social agenda today and where does accountability lie?