Social Housing – a Key Component of Social Policies in Transformation: the Quebec Experience
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Social Housing – A Key Component of Social Policies in Transformation: The Quebec Experience by Yves Vaillancourt and Marie-Noëlle Ducharme with the collaboration of Robert Cohen, Claude Roy and Christian Jetté LAREPPS (Laboratoire de recherche sur les pratiques et les politiques sociales), École de travail social, Université du Québec à Montréal This paper was made possible by the support of the research group on “The Social Economy, Health and Welfare,” funded by the Quebec Council for Social Research (CQRS/Conseil québecois de la recherche sociale) and by Human Resources Development Canada. September 2001 Abstract My views on social housing are based principally on the knowledge and insights that This paper is a revised version of a pres- we have developed at LAREPPS (Laboratoire entation by Yves Vaillancourt to the Symposium de recherche sur les pratiques et les politiques on Affordable Housing Policy, organized by the sociales) on the potential role of actors from the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association in third sector in transforming social policy, par- Ottawa on March 24, 2000. The paper reports ticularly in the area of human services a number of innovative practices in the social [Vaillancourt and Favreau 2000]. I should add housing field in Quebec over the last ten years, that many of the ideas set out here evolved from using these as examples of new approaches in a fascinating team research project that we at social housing policy and practices, notably those LAREPPS conducted between 1996 and 1998. affecting vulnerable populations. The context It was designed to evaluate the impact on the of these new approaches is the reconfiguration quality of life of the clientèle of programs that of social policy occurring in Quebec and in deliver social housing with community support; Canada. The new practices highlight the the programs were developed in the Montreal importance of Quebec’s social movements and region by the Fédération des OSBL en habitation third-sector actors in the development of effec- de Montréal (FOHM, Montreal Federation of tive solutions. The policies and practices dis- Nonprofit Housing Organizations) [Drolet 1993; cussed help situate social housing as an essen- Jetté et al. 1998; Thériault et al. 1998, 2000a]. tial element of a cohesive and integrated social policy. We can state briefly our argument as fol- lows: Social housing policy is an essential and This paper has five main sections: an indispensable component of any coherent and outline of some theoretical positions on social integrated social policy. However, in the present- policies in transformation; the division of social day context of globalization of the economy and housing policy in Quebec into developmental crisis in employment and the welfare state, phases, comparing these to periods of inter- social policy – particularly social housing policy, vention by the federal state; a review of social which is in our view the most relevant – must be housing policies and programs now in effect in set apart from the policies of both neoliberal- Quebec; an examination of new approaches and ism, which favour leaving everything to market practices in the province; and a discussion of the forces, and of traditional social democracy, major challenges now facing the field of social which favour a centralist state maintaining housing. control over everything. Our theoretical frame- work, for social housing as well as for other issues, relies heavily on scenarios of progressive Introduction transformation. While the state and public administration would retain major responsi- I am not a specialist in social housing; I bilities for financing and regulation of services, am, rather, a specialist in social policy for whom this can be done in a different way by sharing social housing is an essential element of any some responsibilities in service provision with integrated social policy approach.1 I am also what some of us in Quebec and Europe call the a researcher who has had the good fortune of ‘third sector,’ or the social economy 2 – advo- working, for a number of years, with other cacy groups, community groups, nonprofit researchers and partners in the field of restruc- organizations and co-operatives, among others turing in social policy and practice. [Vaillancourt et al. 2000]. Caledon Institute of Social Policy 1 We will attempt in this paper to identify Social policy consists of interventions by some directions that would help redefine the the state which contribute to the welfare policies and practices of social housing for the and the citizenship rights of individuals, benefit of our most vulnerable citizens, at the of local communities, even of regions, in same time as social policies are being reshaped a way that cannot be reduced to Esping- in Quebec and the rest of Canada. We will Anderson’s definitions of “commodifica- describe solutions developed through innovative tion” and the “shift to family” [1990: social housing practices in Quebec over the past Chapter. 1; 1999: Chaps. 1, 2 and Epi- decade. logue]. The paper is divided into five main sec- Here, very briefly, are some elements of tions. The first sets out the theoretical compo- our definition: nents useful for analyzing social policies in trans- formation, which will serve as the conceptual • Some form of state and government inter- framework for the entire text. Section II presents vention is involved in all social policies, the history of Quebec’s social housing policies, but the state and the government are not preceded by an historical overview of the fed- the only bodies that can implement them. eral government role in social housing through- out Canada. In Section III, we describe current • Social policy in the broadest sense of the social housing policies and programs in Quebec. term must contribute to people’s welfare Section IV looks more closely at selected social and citizenship rights, if we are to assume housing practices that we consider innovative. that a policy’s stated purpose is the same In Section V, we examine challenges that we as its real function, which is not always consider crucial for the development of social the case. housing. • Social policy must serve to redistribute income and reinforce active citizenship. I. Social Housing as Social Policy: Our Theo- Citizenship rights include a gamut of retical Framework social rights as defined by Thomas Marshall [1950/1996; 1975]. Citizen- Our definition of social policy ship rights also imply inclusion, self- determination and the empowerment of When I started my career 30 years ago, people who are all too often seen as mere the task of defining social policy did not seem a consumers of social policy [Roeher Insti- particularly daunting one; now I realize just how tute 1993]. big a challenge it is! I had to face this challenge again during the winter of 2000, in discussing • Social policy is an antidote to commodi- with my master’s students a rich but difficult text fication; it is designed to regularize, cor- by Esping-Andersen [1990 and 1999]. In the past rect and contain the deleterious effects of decade, this Danish sociologist has become a the market. Esping-Andersen, following central authority in the field of social policy in Claus Offe [1984], defines social policy as Europe, even though several authors refer to him state intervention designed to “decommod- only to point out the limitations of his contribu- ify” (as the English and French translations tion. We have used Esping-Andersen’s work as of Offe [1984] and Esping-Andersen a basis for developing the following definition: [1990] sometimes put it). Put simply, Caledon Institute of Social Policy 2 social policy tempers the effects of the mar- public authorities at the municipal level. The ket economy. state can intervene in at least three distinct ways: through regulation, through financing and • Social policy consists of interventions through delivery or provision of activities and intended to promote the welfare and citi- services. Differentiating these three spheres will zenship rights not only of individuals but help us define what we mean when we refer to also of local communities and regions. One the state’s withdrawal. Since the state may well example is the revitalization of distressed continue to dominate one sphere while pulling local communities in urban or rural areas. out of another, it is important to be clear about the type of withdrawal that is referred to. Within • Social policy allows us to counter not only our research at LAREPPS on the transformation ‘commodification,’ but also ‘familializa- in human services in the broad sense, we are tion,’ which can be defined as the tendency particularly interested in the changing role of the turn responsibility for managing social state and of public organizations in the delivery problems back onto the family (i.e., mainly of services. women) [Vaillancourt and Jetté 1997: 57; Esping-Andersen 1999: 277-294]. State organizations should not be confused with The strength of our definition lies in its public organizations contention that social policy is concerned with both welfare and citizenship rights, matters of Analyses of social policy often use the money and dignity, having and being, redis- notions of ‘state’ and ‘public’ interchangeably, tribution, and participation or empowerment. with a consequent lack of distinction between Social policy begins when the state intervenes state and public organizations. In our analysis, to deliver a quality of life to individuals and we believe that state organizations should not be local communities of which the laws of the mar- confused with public ones, even though public ketplace would otherwise deprive them. It ceases organizations and practices are often imprinted when public decision-makers or state adminis- with statism. We agree with some Latin-Ameri- trators, be they at the central, regional or local can specialists in the field of public administra- level, rely solely on the laws of the marketplace tion [Bresser Peireira and Cunill Grau 1998; La to solve social problems or revert responsibili- Serna 2000] that, at the level of analysis and strat- ties back to women within the family sphere.