Sliding Scale of Support: Government Intervention in Housing

Abstract

Public and social housing providers in many countries around the world are trying to solve the problem of how to construct and maintain quality affordable housing at the lowest cost to both the government and tenants. As might be expected, each country has found its own solution to these issues, leading to a sliding scale in the degree of support that different governments give to their housing providers. This study examines developments in the UK, US, Sweden and New Zealand from the perspective of a credit rating agency.

Capturing environmental affordances: Low‐income families identify positive characteristics of a hotel housing solution

“…Housing troubles have been attributed to both structural (low wages, unemployment, increased rent, gentrification, affordability) and interpersonal (physical ailments, substance abuse, psychiatric disorders, depleted social networks, conflict with landlords) causes that have created economic hardships and subsequent housing instability for individuals and families (Bratt, 2003; Phinney, Danziger, Pollack, & Seefeldt, 2007; Stone, 2006; Wright, 2000) and solutions have varied. According to Sheridan, Manley, MacDonald, and Flynn (2002), there is a sliding scale of government support for affordable housing across nations. In New Zealand, there is an increasing role of government rather than private provision of social housing.…”

Public Housing Matters: Public Housing Policy in Sweden, the United States, and Israel

“…At the same time, taxes on real estate went up from SKR 25 billion to almost SKR 30 billion (Holmqvist and Magnusson Turner 2014). In the 1990s, government tax increases further burdened municipal companies, especially those in poorer districts experiencing problems because of immigration (Sheridan et al 2002).…”

“…First, until the 1990s, government subsidies could make building public housing profitable, but when these subsidies shrank, the number of public housing units decreased significantly, particularly in places of high demand. Second, privatization was embraced by some center right municipal governments, such as Stockholm's, which granted private ownership to tenants of public housing and stopped building more units (Magnusson and Turner 2008;Öst, Söderberg, and Wilhelmsson 2014;Sheridan et al 2002).…”