Deconstructing Generation Rent: Young People’s Housing Options and Future Welfare Friday 13th February, 09:00 - 16:00 ICOSS Building, University of Sheffield Organisers: Drs Tom Moore & Kim McKee ABSTRACTS & DELEGATE LIST The Housing Pathways of Young People in the UK: the 2020 vision realised? Peter Mackie, Cardiff University Clapham et al (2012, 2014) examined the housing pathways of young people in the UK in the years 1999 to 2008. The research identified the nature of young people’s housing pathways and considered the likely changes up to 2020, concluding that we should expect a growing number of young people living in the private rented sector (PRS), including families and young people on relatively low incomes. Clapham et al (2012, 2014) called for fundamental changes to the regulation of the PRS in order to more effectively meet the changing needs of young tenants. Fundamental policy reform has not been forthcoming. In this presentation I will revisit the key predictions of the 2020 report and, drawing on 2011 census data and empirical findings of a household survey of PRS tenants conducted in 2014, consider whether the concerns over 2020 are already becoming a reality. Young People Coping with Austerity in a Hot Housing Market: The Case of ‘Live-in-Guardians’ - Desiree Fields (Geography, University of Sheffield), Sarah Marie Hall (Geography, University of Manchester), and Mark Jayne (Geography, University of Manchester) This paper explores the case of ‘live-in-guardian’ schemes, where property owners offer temporary, affordable housing, heavily marketed towards young, middle-class professionals, in desirable city locations. Contemporary changes in the housing market, exacerbated under austerity, have led to a situation where many young people are unable to access affordable housing in urban areas, often at the same time as limited employment opportunities and significant changes to social welfare provision. The notion of mutual gains underpins the live-in-guardian scheme: property owners benefit from having a ‘secure’ and occupied property, financial control and assurance without the restrictions and responsibilities of long-term tenants; guardians are given the opportunity to access housing stock typically beyond their financial reach, free from the constraints of a long-term rental contract; and the broader community benefits from reduced vacancies and associated vandalism and crimes. We provide an original academic critique of these issues based on qualitative research undertaken in London with guardians, property owners and local stakeholders (including private companies running guardian schemes, housing charities and local authorities). Our findings xaminee the impact of guardianship living on the spatialities of home-making, proximate living and intimate relationships, and how young people living as property guardians are required to accept and accommodate alternative standards of safety, comfort and privacy in their everyday living. We conclude by reflecting on how this paper to broader debates around the lived experiences of austerity, affordable urban housing, and expectations of the life-course, and to thinking about urban informality in the Global North. Economic Precariousness and Young Adults’ Housing Transitions in the UK Ann Berrington, Centre for Population Change, University of Southampton Recent media attention has focused on the trend for increased co-residence of adult children with their parent(s). It is generally assumed that this trend relates directly to the increased economic uncertainty of young adults, combined with the challenges of affordability in the housing market (Berrington & Stone, 2014). Evidence from cross-sectional data suggests that at older ages, it is men in the most economically precarious positions, who are least likely to have made the transition out of the parental home (Berrington et al., 2014). The current paper is motivated by the need to identify the consequences of economic uncertainty for young adults’ abilities to make successful housing transitions. Longitudinal data from the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) are used to identify how dimensions of precariousness are related to the likelihood of young adults (aged 18-34) leaving the parental home, becoming a home owner or being in private or social rented accommodation in the UK. Our findings suggest early transitions to residential independence are not necessarily associated with parental economic resources or an individual’s economic position, but that among those still living with their parents in their mid- to late- twenties, the chances of leaving are much lower among the unemployed and those in insecure work. This is especially so for men. Among young adults living away from the parental home, private renting is the dominant form of tenure apart from lone parents and relatively disadvantaged young men and women living alone, who are more likely to be in social rented accommodation. The paper concludes by considering policy implications of these findings. Housing Rights and Housing Duties : the twisted legacies of investments in the UK’s private rental market Dr Martin Field, Collaborative Centre for the Built Environment, University of Northampton This paper proposes an examination of the values that are apparent in the recent growth of the UK’s private sector rental housing market. It looks at assumptions of ‘rights’ and ‘duties’ that successive generations have supposed will govern access to future housing resources, and challenges the manner in which current economic narratives camouflage the deliberate orchestration of housing-based wealth creation towards distinct sets of stakeholders, at a growing cost to households whose circumstances are outside of those privileged sets. Particular consideration is given to how a traditional discourse on ‘rights’ and ‘duty’, and its regard for a corresponding responsibility from one set of stakeholders towards others, has been undermined by the political and neo-liberal priorities now given to housing ‘investment’, rather than to securing appropriate long-term accommodation for all the UK’s population. A current ‘investment’ initiative discussed by the New Economics Foundation will be used as a case study for this shift in the shaping of future housing opportunities, and will illustrate the extent to which contemporary UK funding and residential provisions represent the antithesis of ‘sustainable development’, given that they are harnessing social, economic and built environment forces into a demonstrable weakening of what is needed to sustain wider UK society. Putting the Squeeze on Generation Rent: the consequences of extending the Shared Accommodation Rate for HB claimants in the private rented sector - Ian Cole, Ryan Powell and Elizabeth Sanderson, CRESR, Sheffield Hallam University This paper will examine the consequences of the decision to increase the age threshold for Shared Accommodation Rate for Housing Benefit in the private rented sector to ‘single people’ from 25 years old to the age of 35. It will draw on the findings of detailed qualitative and quantitative research undertaken with landlords, claimants and housing advisers in19 areas in Great Britain as part of the national evaluation of the changes to Local Housing Allowances introduced by the Coalition Government in 2011 and 2012. The paper will discuss these changes at different levels. First it will examine the government’s rationale for the policy in the light of the crisis of housing access and affordability across all tenures and the assumptions being made about the domestic arrangements and housing market behaviour of younger people. Age is increasingly being used as a criterion to ration access to benefits and to decent housing, and this is sometimes compounded by the stigmatising attitudes of landlords. The more punitive approach to some of the groups receiving Housing Benefit is shown to be reflected in changes to lettings priorities, as landlords seek to avoid “riskier” options. The paper illustrates how these responses are also shaped by local housing market factors, notably the level of demand in the PRS. The consequence of these changes has been to increase the marginalisation of lower income younger tenants, especially in pressurised rental markets. The paper will then explore some of the personal experiences for some of the claimants subject to sharp decreases in their Housing Benefit entitlement, and the disruption and stress that resulted. In conclusion the paper will reflect on the contradictory impulses between the government’s espousal of the benefits of stable family life for young people, on one hand, and the disruptive effects of various benefits changes, on the other. These tensions may intensify, if plans to remove Housing Benefit from all those under the age of 25 (which were shelved in 2013) come to fruition after the May 2015 election. ‘Generation Rent’ Strikes in the London Housing Crisis: The Focus E15 Campaign as a Nomadic War Machine - Paul Watt, Birkbeck, University of London This paper examines the spatio-political contours of the contemporary London housing crisis in relation to ‘Generation Rent’ via the geophilosophical framework of A Thousand Plateaus (1987) by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. It focuses on the Focus E15 (FE15) Campaign based on a group of young mothers who had been residents of the E15 Foyer for homeless youth in the east London borough of Newham, but are now living in private rental housing. The FE15 Campaign provides an