Social Housing and Social Exclusion 2000-2011

Rebecca Tunstall

Published 1 July 2011

By some definitions, social housing, social housing tenants are necessarily socially excluded. In other terms, in 2000, social housing tenants were at greater risk of being socially excluded than owner occupiers and private renters on measures of income, employment, education, health, and housing and neighbourhood quality. However, by 2011, basic housing quality in social housing had overtaken that in home ownership, and slight reductions in social exclusion of social tenants in terms of income, employment, and neighbourhood quality at least disproved arguments of inevitable tenurial polarisation. There is evidence that housing and regeneration policies contributed to these changes, but the economy was also important, and population turnover is likely to have played a role. Finally, the gains of 2000-2011 may not be sustained.