Eviction, Gatekeeping and Militant Care: Moral Economies of Housing in Austerity London

Abstract

This article uses the lens of moral economies to examine the everyday experience of eviction, precarious housing and grassroots activism in contemporary London. Situated within a context of ongoing austerity measures, it explores how divergent, conflicting and overlapping moral economies of housing emerge both within the state and at its margins, as local authorities struggle to reconcile contradictory obligations to both uphold property relations and offer a duty of care to tenants. The article shows how being precariously housed is experienced as a series of disorientating advice and support encounters in which the right to state assistance is contested by low-income tenants, state housing officers and community activists. It contends that these encounters are surface-level expressions of a deeper underlying struggle over the political and moral status of housing, in which the unresolved tension between housing as a home and housing as a commodity shapes contested visions of economic justice.

The Guardians of the Welfare State: Universal Credit, Welfare Control and the Moral Economy of Frontline Work in Austerity Britain

“…Similar to the housing officers studied by Wilde (2020) who justify 'gatekeeping' practices by referring to 'a desire to be fair in a context of scarce resources' (see also Alden, 2015), frontline workers spoke of how they made the most of a tough situation where resources were limited by helping those who 'want to be helped', and who can be 'empowered'. But what was presented as a necessary, morally justified form of crisis management also constituted what Higgins (1980) called a form of social control.…”

“…Here, I follow Palomera and Vetta in their political economy-driven reading of moral economy and its recent application to discussions of austerity and inequality (Alexander et al, 2018; Pusceddu, 2020; Wilde, 2020). Like the grain studied by Thompson, access to welfare services and advice is essential to the daily survival of today’s most marginalised populations.…”

“…Some frontline workers are directly employed by the local authority to help struggling individuals cope with the range of welfare reforms implemented as part of the government’s austerity package. Others work in the third sector to which the government has outsourced many of its traditional responsibilities: there are case workers hired by housing associations that administer the bulk of the remaining social housing stock (Wilde, 2020); those sitting in advice centres (Forbess and James, 2017b; Kirwan, 2016; McDermot, 2013) and businesses (Tuckett, 2020); and numerous individuals attached to churches (Davey, 2020), foodbanks (Garthwaite, 2016; Purdam et al, 2016) and community centres (Koch, 2018).…”

Snakes and ladders: legal coercion, housing precarity, and home‐making aspirations in southern England

“…It has shown that ‘interlinked shifts’ in capital accumulation and state policy together generate insecurity in housing tenure (Wilde in press). These shifts include: liberal policies that favour the interests of landlords and lenders, including by removing rent controls and barriers to eviction (Gutierrez‐Garza in press; Wilde in press); austerity; the securitization of mortgages (Sabaté ) and capital's increased reliance on financial extraction generally (Suarez ); models for economic growth reliant on property prices (Dorling ); subsidies for home‐ownership (Palomera ); de‐industrialization causing wage stagnation and volatility (Desmond ); and urban redevelopment and compulsory purchase orders (Ho ; Lewis ). I build on this research by arguing that liberalization is a process whereby the discretion to adjudicate on legally enforceable intrusions into the home is distributed among state and market agencies such as landlords, lenders, and bailiffs (also known as ‘enforcement agents’).…”

“…But the state's involvement in ordinary homes can go further than contributing to their precarity. Research on housing activism has shown counter‐hegemonic moral economies forming in response to possible dispossession (Gutierrez‐Garza in press; Sabaté ; ; Suarez ; Wilde in press). Comparable moral reasoning also arises online (Stout ).…”