Welfare Reform on the Web (June 2010): Social housing - overseas

Combining forced residential relocation with supportive services: what can Dutch housing associations learn from the American HOPE VI programme?

A. Curley and R. Kleinhans

Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal, vol. 3, 2010, p. 370-384

For more than a decade urban redevelopment programmes in the US and a number of Western European countries have sought to address both physical problems and social issues. These programmes often involve forced relocation of low-income residents, due to the demolition of social housing, while simultaneously addressing social problems to help them become 'upwardly mobile' or attain 'economic self-sufficiency'. This paper introduces the Dutch and US strategies for providing social services alongside low-income housing redevelopment. It then identifies key lessons learned and management implications from the American HOPE VI programme that are relevant to the relatively new Dutch approach to service delivery within urban restructuring initiatives.

Housing reform in China: rational interests gone wrong or organizational design failure?

Dong Lisheng, T. Chjristensen and M. Painter

Journal of Asian Public Policy, vol. 3, 2010, p. 4-17

China's housing policy has gone through radical shifts during the reform era: first a focus on provision of social housing partly through state institutions like state-owned enterprises; second, a gradual opening up of a commercial housing market; and most recently an emphasis on the market aspects of housing with social housing under very much under pressure and of decreasing importance. This third phase has been marked by a lack of coherence, ambiguity and a number of adverse outcomes, especially in respect of affordability and access for the poor. This article analyses the tensions in housing policy using two frameworks: first a rational interests perspective, and second an organisational design perspective.