Housing as a Social Policy Instrument

This chapter examines housing as a social policy instrument. It is extremely difficult to disentangle the economic and social aspects of housing policy entirely; good social housing policies heavily rely on sound and efficient economic systems. In addition, economic policies related to housing should have a strong component of housing affordability and accessibility for all income groups. Yet historically social and economic policies in many countries appear to have been developed independently of each other. In this book, housing is treated as a ‘social’ policy instrument, designed primarily to improve the housing conditions and welfare of the population, especially the urban poor, either by making housing units more affordable or by improving living standards through shelter improvements such as reducing overcrowding, enhancing housing durability, and bringing basic services to houses and neighbourhoods. Social housing policies enhance the quality of urban life, as they help in reducing and preventing slum formation. Shelter improvements are often associated with improvements in health and have a direct impact in the reduction of different forms of social and economic exclusion. In some countries, social policies have been used as a means of economic development, for example to develop or modernize a construction industry, to improve the productive capacity of the labour force or to provide incentives for economic growth of specific sectors. This is why in practice there is no longer a clear distinction between housing policies and social or economic objectives, since both contribute to bringing prosperity to cities and nations. This chapter examines housing as a social policy in various regions of the world, presenting the major drivers of social housing policy shifts, as well as the way these policies evolved over time in three main regions of the world. ¹