Housing and Citizenship in the UK: Towards a Conditional Right?

Abstract

According to T.H. Marshall's model, citizenship in Britain includes three categories of rights that were achieved in stages between the 18th and the 20th centuries. In Marshall's opinion, the latest category, namely social rights, was institutionalized by the Welfare State after 1945. First, we shall see how uneasily one of these rights, namely access to social housing in the absence of a decent home, fits his definition of citizenship. Then we shall examine the discursive shift that has taken place since the 1970s and that has led to a redefinition of the rights and duties of British citizens in the field of housing. As a result, citizenship in Britain is no longer synonymous with the possibility to enjoy a social dwelling but rather with the duty to be self-sufficient and a homeowner. Besides, in a housing crisis context, access to social housing increasingly depends on meeting a number of conditions aiming at controlling the behaviour of English tenants and ensuring they are professionally and socially well-integrated. In sum, housing has been part of a sustained governmental effort to redraw the contours of citizenship since the 1970s.

Keywords

• housing
• Citizenship
• rights
• public services
• social control.