ABSTRACT
This chapter considers unsuitable housing or the means test in which the factors are well defined. When the wider question of housing need is considered, there are again only a few choices. The chapter also considers the available definitions: priority need, the Can’t Move definition, the Housing, national cross-sectional measure and the Fordham Research definition. This definition will be discussed from both the theoretical and practical points of view. The chapter discusses the Fordham Research and Can’t Move definitions in the context of a ‘typical’ district containing some 40,000 households. The council's Housing Register, Transfer List and homeless figures amount to its visible total estimate of housing need: they have been the only evidence of need available in council areas until a needs survey is undertaken. The combination of the effects may provide logic for the static appearance of many Housing Registers, despite the rapid turnover.
