Housing has played a significant role in increasing inequality. It has been financialised and losing its human and social dimensions. A critical review of housing policy directions is needed to explore a new housing approach. This article revisits the underpinning perspectives of housing policy discussions through the lens of the capability approach. The capability approach is a normative evaluative approach to understanding poverty, well-being, and justice. It argues that policy should primarily focus on expanding individuals' capabilities instead of resources and utilities. From its perspective, understanding the sources and nature of capability deprivation and inequity is central to removing existing injustice in our society, and to re-establishing ethics at the centre of policy discussions. What implications for housing studies can we draw from the capability approach? The article presents a conceptual application of the capability approach to housing policy discussions, and concludes that a capability-oriented housing policy framework has an added value.
This study empirically examines the difference of the capability approach to evaluating well-being and equality in housing, with data from the Netherlands. Conventionally, well-being/inequality in housing have been evaluated by measures of economic/material means for housing or satisfaction. In theory, these evaluation approaches overlook some important normative concerns, and applying the capability approach -evaluating the capabilities to reside in ways a person values -can compensate for such weakness. However, its practical difference appears as yet contested. This study reviews the sources of such contesting views, and clarifies them by comparing the capability-oriented and conventional measures of housing deprivation in terms of their identification of deprived groups that welfare policies are supposed to address. The results showed that the overlap between the deprived groups was rather limited, revealing blind spots in the current welfare policies for housing and the informational benefits of capabilityoriented evaluation. This study adds implications for measurement methods.
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