Search

AbstractShared housing in the private rental sector (PRS), where people rent with non-family, is becoming more significant across many countries. However, from a housing justice lens, it is unclear whether housing policies and regulations based on normative understandings of households are equipped to effectively support shared housing renters. Through a case study of Australia, which operates on a ‘consumer protection’ model of rental regulation, we ask how current Australian rental regulations enable or restrict housing justice for people in shared housing in the PRS. We conduct a critical discourse analysis of consumer-oriented tenancy information published by Australian state governments and identify explicit or implicit risks in the text that may be experienced by shared housing renters. Results indicate that risks in relation to finance, eviction, and disputes are variously not acknowledged within the text or responded to with warning, guidance, or stated inability to help. We argue that the unfair distribution of risk in shared households, coupled with the severity of the consequences, constitutes a form of housing injustice. We suggest how the consumer protection framework of rental regulation could be amended to advance housing justice and assist shared housing renters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Shared housing in the private rental sector (PRS) is becoming a globally significant household arrangement. However, research indicates that shared housing is associated with problems including financial and housing insecurity. Given the growth of shared housing in the PRS, it is necessary for policy solutions to appropriately address the needs of shared housing renters. This paper aims to investigate the relationship between housing policy and non-commercial shared housing in the PRS – that is, autonomous households in self-contained dwellings – and how this has been conceptualised and examined in academic scholarship thus far. To achieve these aims, we conduct a scoping review on non-commercial shared housing in the PRS. Research illustrates that the reality of shared housing is not accommodated well in existing housing policy systems. We analyse reasons that housing policy may not adapt easily to non-commercial shared housing, and outline the need for further research on policy implications and recommendations about shared housing in the PRS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed complex connections between housing and health vulnerabilities. By investigating the share housing market in Sydney, Australia during the COVID-19 period, this paper examines these connections, highlighting health risks associated with shared facilities, overcrowding, and rental insecurity. Using data from Flatmates.com.au, Australia's dominant share housing platform, the paper analyses advertisements offering or seeking share housing in April and August 2020. The analysis highlights health risks, vulnerabilities and risk management strategies employed by those looking for share accommodation or new household members during the pandemic period as well as wider implications for housing and health policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The forms of urban housing supply in a country are formed depending on factors such as the rate of urbanization of the country, changes in land values, institutions providing housing finance, characteristics of entrepreneurs producing housing, legal regulations, and technological developments. In case these factors change over time, new housing supply forms emerge or the share of existing housing supply forms in housing production changes. Housing provision through housing cooperatives also emerged in Turkey in the 1930s. Cooperatives continued to apply to the credit support of Social Security Institutions in the 1960s-1970s. Housing cooperatives increased their activities in the second half of the 1980s with the support of Mass Housing Laws and Mass Housing Fund in Turkey. This activity increased their share in the licensed housing supply to 30%. However, their share in the licensed housing supply started to decline after the second half of the 1990s due to the changing fund structure and changing laws and priorities over time. In the 2000s, their effectiveness weakened considerably. The decline accelerated after 2010 and decreased to 1% in 2020. This article examines the process of changing the share of housing cooperatives in housing supply in Turkey and makes recommendations after the current situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent events have brought attention to the millions of Americans who struggle to find and pay for housing. Housing has historically been of interest to sociologists, but it has long been subsumed within research on crime, residential mobility, and neighborhoods. In the past decade, there has been a surge of scholarship in an emerging sociology of housing that focuses on housing insecurity, forced moves, landlords, shared housing arrangements, and the stratification effects of housing policy. While other fields typically define housing insecurity as affordability, this new literature shows how housing insecurity is not only rooted in financial constraints but also situated within social relationships that create or dissolve housing arrangements, and is exacerbated or remediated by supply-side institutions and policy. This work makes clear that housing insecurity is not a one-time discrete event but a dynamic process, and that sociologists can contribute not only to measuring housing insecurity but also to understanding the social forces that shape it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research on the spatial variation in populist right voting focuses on the role of "places left behind", this paper examines the spatial distribution of populist right voting in one of the fastest growing capital cities of Europe, Vienna. Combining detailed electoral data of the 2017 national elections at the statistical ward level and the location of municipal housing units, the paper examines why the populist right "Austrian Freedom Party" (FPOE) performs better in the former bulwarks of socialism, in the municipal housing areas of "Red Vienna". The paper links the socio-demographic development of Vienna and its municipal housing policy with election results and explores three possible reasons for elevated FPOE shares in municipal housing areas: rising housing costs pushed an increasing number of socially and economically vulnerable into the municipal housing sector and so increased the FPOE voter pool in those areas; European Union accession and changes in regulation allowed foreign citizens to apply to and obtain municipal housing flats triggering a backlash from Austrian municipal housing residents; and municipal housing is located in disadvantaged neighbourhoods further enhancing the FPOE voter pool. The paper demonstrates that higher FPOE vote shares in areas with high municipal housing shares are due primarily to higher shares of formally less educated residents, neighbourhood context and they are marginally elevated in those municipal housing areas experiencing a larger influx of foreign residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia faces a chronic shortage of affordable rental housing, as do many other nations in the Global North. Unable to access the formal rental sector, lower-income earners are increasingly resorting to share housing and other informal arrangements, sometimes occupying makeshift accommodation or illegal dwellings. This article examines informality in Sydney's housing market, an important case because of the explicit policy efforts geared towards supporting diverse and higher density housing supply. It draws on analysis of the regulatory planning framework and primary data derived from interviews and focus groups with housing advocates, support workers and building compliance officers from across the metropolitan region. It seeks to understand the drivers of supply and demand within the informal housing market and constructs a typology of informal tenures and dwelling provision. The article contributes new empirical data on the outcomes of planning policies designed to enable flexible housing responses which legitimise some informal practices, and the wider dimensions of informal housing provision within formal urban systems of the Global North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Created to help its founders pay their rent during a housing crisis, Airbnb promotes its services as a supplemental income strategy to 'make ends meet' by renting their homes to strangers. This article compares Airbnb 'home sharing' to its historical precursor of taking lodgers and boarders in early industrial North American cities, an important form of supplemental income for women and one of the few remaining alternatives to wage income. Historicizing Airbnb shows that this source of supplemental income cannot be separated from gendered and racist ideologies that value certain practices while stigmatizing others. Such ideologies shaped labour markets as well as the housing policies that responded to the crisis of social reproduction in the industrial era, with repercussions still felt in the context of platform urbanism. Thinking the city through this work highlights the interrelation between household economies, housing strategies and the division of labour in the period, with implications for how we analyze short-term rental platforms like Airbnb. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this introduction to the first of two special issues on 'Informal housing practices' we set out the foundations for a research agenda on 'informality' within housing scholarship, and propose initial implications for policy and practice. In doing so we draw from the rich conceptual work by urban geographers and political economists who situate informality within wider processes of neoliberalism, globalisation and deregulation, as well as the small but emerging body of research by housing scholars who see informal housing as both a symptom of, and potential solution to, unmet housing need. Our jumping off point for the special issues was an interest in the dimensions of informal housing manifesting in expensive cities and regions of the global north, where the veneer of 'formal' urban development and housing markets render informal housing practices largely invisible. Grounded within this context, papers in this issue illuminate different dimensions of informal housing practice; from the physical transformation of dwellings through to the ways in which individuals navigate shared domestic space; or how policy makers seek to expand low cost rental markets by legitimising secondary dwellings and micro-apartments. Drawing on the wider literature on informality and the role of the state in producing/resolving unmet housing need; we argue that informal housing practices warrant further research and policy attention, particularly with respect to cities and regions of the global north. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shared housing emerges as an important housing choice for low-to-middle income tenants experiencing difficulties accessing housing in competitive and unaffordable formal rental markets. Shared room housing – where two or more non-related tenants share sleeping spaces, such as bedrooms or partitioned living rooms – is a growing subcategory of shared housing in cities of the Global North. Shared room tenancies are arranged under multi-layered sub-letting rental arrangements that often lack written tenancy agreements and formal protection. Despite evidence that more people are living in shared room housing, there is limited research that explores the experiences of those living in these informal arrangements and the relationship with policy/regulatory frameworks that seek to govern shared housing practices. This paper addresses this gap by investigating tenants' motivations for living, and the challenges they face, in informal shared room housing in Sydney. The study finds that shared room housing offers flexibility and rental affordability for tenants marginalised from the formal rental market; however, it also raises a series of issues, such as tenure insecurity, exploitation, health and safety risks, and lack of access to formal dispute resolution services. The paper identifies regulatory and enforcement challenges in informal shared room housing and calls for policy reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with some of the most significant changes in the domain of housing during the socialist and post-socialist period. The transition from the 1990s towards the democratic system and market-oriented economy further empowered the privatization of ownership, and especially home ownership. The changes are especially visible in the quality of housing and housing policy, and in socio-economic and socio-demographic circumstances, which are related to them causally. The provision of housing was transferred from the state to the citizens, with home ownership becoming a privilege. In the process of repurchase and return of nationalized flats from socialism, there was the process of housing privatization and Croatia became one of the post-socialist countries with a greater share of home ownership. Such a situation resulted in numerous consequences, visible in all aspects of life, especially demographic and economic. They also influenced the housing standard. In the context of strong processes of privatization and financialization of housing and the reduced role of state, there are many new aspects hinder housing rights and problems from being resolved. They are followed by economic problems due to pushing of the market and increasing the private civil engineering sector, along with the escalation of the global financial crisis that affected the Croatian market, too. Moreover, country's unfavourable demographic trends are visible in the reduction of the average family size, and the increase in the number of families without children, which leads to different housing demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Share housing is changing. Once considered a form of short-term housing and a lifestyle choice for young adults fresh out of the family home, share housing is increasingly playing a broader role into advanced adulthood. Recent work has claimed the emergence of Generation Rent; however, the reconfiguration of housing experiences is illustrated not only by renting but also by an increase in house sharing and the emergence of 'Generation Share' within the renting cohort. We know surprisingly little about share housing and its increasingly important role in housing. This paper draws upon exploratory research conducted on share housing in Sydney, Australia, and argues that share housing as traditionally understood is changing. Share housing has a widening demographic and it is driven primarily by economic factors. Despite this, the social affordances offered by share housing are highly valued. Share housing therefore offers us a unique lens into changing housing pathways and values and provokes us to think of ways to produce more socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on and developing Kingdon's multiple streams analysis, this article examines the development of one aspect of the UK's low cost home ownership programme: shared ownership. We demonstrate how key human and non-human policy entrepreneurs were able to set the agenda from 1973-1983 in favour of shared ownership; they neutralized the alternatives, while retaining some of their instruments; and solved a number of early problems by bringing key players into the programme. Our data-sets include a range of archival material and elite interviews. The policy entrepreneurs included John Stanley (who was the housing minister in the First Thatcher government), the National Federation of Housing Associations, and the Building Societies Association. Our development of the multiple streams analysis is to argue that documents, including the lease, act as policy entrepreneurs in their own right. The lease was central to the development of shared ownership and its transformation into a model lease enrolled other organizations, most critically the building societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The housing systems found in the welfare model of Mediterranean countries are particularly unfriendly towards young people. This article analyses the housing experiences of young graduates in a Mediterranean welfare context. We focus on the growing phenomenon of house sharing as a housing solution for these young people, a solution which has been explored in other housing model contexts but not in the Mediterranean. We find young people sharing largely due to economic constraints and yet experiences of sharing vary considerably, with some unhappily confined to living with unknown peers, whilst others live collectively with those they know and benefit greatly from the experience. We recommend that policy makers must learn from young people's experiences of shared living and improve the conditions they face in the private rental sector. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Household energy constitutes an important share of affordable housing. Unaffordable housing and inadequate household energy represent a new dimension of poverty. Connections between energy, housing affordability and well-being are still under-researched. Building on housing affordability framework, this study explores the magnitude in changes in affordability of acquisition and use of an apartment between January 2018 and January 2022. Over the last four years, the real estate market in Europe has changed significantly. This paper deals with primary data for the Czech Republic, where acquisition prices of residential real estate increased depending on the region in the range of 50 to 120%. Since January 2022, there has been a sharp rise in energy prices and a tightening of conditions for the acquisition of mortgage loans. All these factors affect the standard of living in the Czech Republic. The article quantifies the magnitude of this change by calculating shares of total housing costs to total average net household income for the period January 2018 and January 2022. It is found that the affordability of owner-occupied housing in the Czech Republic has deteriorated and part of the middle class will be forced to move to the rental housing sector, multifamily housing and sharing. Finally, we argue that energy poverty needs to be considered in addressing the government housing policies. The aim of the article is to analyze the changes that have taken place in the real estate market over the last four years in relation to the growth of total housing costs and energy costs associated with housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 is re-shaping cities and regions, as residents respond to large disruptions to employment and social interaction and threats to public health. While the impacts of COVID-19 are extensive, certain groups are more vulnerable than others. Our research examines the impact of COVID-19 on members of share houses in the state of Victoria, Australia. This cohort is more likely to be young, casually employed, living in informal arrangements and at risk of homelessness than the broader population. We propose a conceptual framework for investigating the factors driving vulnerability to shocks and the resources most likely to support individuals to respond to or recover from these shocks. We surveyed 1052 share house occupants in June 2020. We found dramatic results, with 74% losing their job or having their hours reduced, 47% experiencing a reduction in their financial situation and 50% reporting that their mental health had deteriorated. These outcomes were worse for young people, casual employees or immigrants. Our research highlights the positive influence of social support for low-income individuals. We find that government social welfare payments are the most impactful form of insurance, calling for a greater appreciation of the role of social welfare in supporting resilience following a disaster. • Share households have experienced multiple shocks to employment, finances and mental health in response to COVID-19 • Young people, those employed casually and immigrants are substantially more likely to be negatively impacted by COVID-19 • Most residents of share houses have low incomes, limited savings, and limited capacity to support themselves through periods without income • Government payments are the most important factor supporting residents of share households in Victoria • The interaction of vulnerability, insurances and shocks provides a framework for understanding COVID-19 impacts and policy [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With “doubling up” and shared housing increasing in the United States, it is time to revisit and reconsider the research literature on the physical, psychological, social, and economic health consequences of these living conditions; and to consider how specific social and physical environmental factors of shared housing may foster or deter healthy living situations for various household arrangements. In this light, this article examines the existing research in order to identify critical constructs and factors, and to craft research questions that can best guide future investigations of homesharing in a direction that points towards viable and healthy housing solutions, particularly for those in transitional life stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shared housing, which provides an individual, private room for each tenant and common spaces for all housemates, is an emerging housing option for young adults in many countries. This study explored housing perceptions and preferences and assessed young adults' willingness to pay for shared housing based on Maslow's hierarchy of human needs and Means-End Chain theory. Stated preferences regarding shared housing often refer to its unique attributes, such as security, affordable rent, better quality of living spaces, as well as social relationships with housemates. Based on a survey of 1000 young, single households in Seoul, the study found that respondents expressed greater willingness to pay for shared housing to gain economic, social, and security benefits; however, the trade-off between affordable rent and privacy was an important consideration. Understanding the needs of young, single adults in the context of shared housing is essential to solving the housing challenges currently facing this demographic group. • Shared housing is an emerging housing option for young adults in many countries. • Young single adults expected to gain economic, social and security benefits from shared housing. • A trade-off between affordable rent and privacy was a consideration in shared housing preferences. • Planning and design efforts should be combined to address privacy issues and social conflicts in shared housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]