ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author shows how housing policy can be understood, and how the problematic of a universalistic approach needs to be framed carefully to ensure that the politics of housing do not detract from the individual existentiality of dwelling. Housing policy demonstrates both depoliticisation and the sentimentalisation of political discourse that hides an ideological absence. The green paper proposed that social housing rents were to be restructured to ensure that social rents in a given area are comparable. Social housing issues, such as rent restructuring, allocations and stock transfer are left for internal debate within the social housing sphere itself or by interested academics, where the emphasis is on their technical efficacy. Zizek offers us a way of looking at contemporary housing policy. Third Way politics can be seen merely as a continuation of liberal politics and this is clearly seen in housing policy, where the dominant theme is one of continuity with policies developed under Thatcher.
