Bringing Home the Housing Crisis: Domicide and Precarity in Inner London

Bringing Home the Housing Crisis: Domicide and Precarity in Inner London

Bringing Home the Housing Crisis: Domicide and Precarity in Inner London Melanie Nowicki Royal Holloway, University of London PhD Geography, September 2017 1 Declaration of Authorship I, Melanie Nowicki, declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: Dated: 24/08/2017 2 Abstract This thesis explores the impact of United Kingdom Coalition/Conservative government housing policies on inner London’s low-income residents. It focuses specifically on the bedroom tax (a social housing reform introduced in 2013) and the criminalisation of squatting in a residential building (introduced in 2012) as case studies. These link to, and contribute towards, three main areas of scholarly and policy interest. First is the changing nature of welfare in the UK, and the relationship between social disadvantage and policy rhetoric in shaping public attitudes towards squatters and social tenants. Second, the thesis initiates better understanding of what impact the policies have made on the homelives of squatters and social tenants, and on housing segregation and affordability more broadly. Third, it highlights the multifaceted ways in which different squatters and social tenants protest and resist the two policies. Methodologically, the thesis is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with squatters, social tenants affected by the bedroom tax, and multiple stakeholders, including housing association employees, housing solicitors and local councillors. Critical discourse analysis was also employed in order to analyse rhetoric surrounding the two policies. This involved the analysis of political speeches and news articles. Conceptually, the thesis argues for the centrality of critical geographies of home in its analysis and does so through the concepts of domicide, home unmaking, and precarity in order to understand the home as a complex and fluid part of both the lifecourse and wider social politics. The thesis concludes by arguing that the two policies are ultimately class-based ideological moralisations of the home, rather than necessary pragmatic decisions based on a need for austerity. This is particularly prevalent in the context of a now- ubiquitous understanding of London’s housing market as ‘in crisis’. I argue that precarious housing circumstances are not unavoidable conditions of austerity, or that austerity itself is inevitable. Rather, precarity is ideologically enforced on particular groups of citizens on the basis that they are less deserving of home. 3 Table of contents List of figures…………………………………………………………………………………………….………..8 Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………………...….9 Chapter 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………...........10 Situating the research conceptually and politically………………………………...…15 ‘The bedroom tax’ vs ‘the removal of the spare room subsidy’: a side note regarding terminology………………………………………………….……...17 Housing in austere times: London’s housing ‘crisis’?...............................................18 Bringing home the housing crisis……………………………………………………..……...24 Thesis outline……………………………………………………………………………………...….25 Chapter 2. Understanding section 144 and the bedroom tax: an overview…………………………………………………………………………………………………………...29 A brief history of social tenancy in the UK……………………………………….…….....30 The bedroom tax………………………………………………………………………………….....35 The road to criminalisation: a brief history of squatting in the UK……………………………………………………………………………………………………….....41 A pragmatic success? Intended versus actual impact of section 144 and the bedroom tax……………………………………………………….………………………..…………47 Section 144…………………………………………………………………………………..…48 The bedroom tax………………………………………………………………………..……51 Chapter 3. Precarious homes………………………………………….…………………....................54 ‘Moving past the front stoop’: critical geographies of home……………………....55 Critical geographies of home and housing studies: interconnected, yet disconnected…………………………………………………………………………………..58 Squatting and home: a scholarly omission…………………………………………………………………………………………60 Domicide and home unmaking……….…………………………………….............................63 From homelessness to home-loss……………….………………………………….64 Domicide………………………………………………………………………………………...66 Home unmaking………………………………………………………………………….69 Governing through intimate spaces: home and the everyday……………………71 The everyday………………………………………………………………………………72 Moralising the home through tenure and class………………………………75 Precarious geographies………………………………………………………………………….80 4 Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………………..…..88 Chapter 4. Navigating the researcher/activist nexus: a personal account of the research process……………………………………………………………………………...…………… .. 90 Part one: where, how and why? Outlining the research process………………..92 London as a research site……………………………………………………………..92 Recruitment methods, recruitment struggles……………………………………….….95 Shaping research through snowballing…………………………………………97 Semi-structured interviews: ‘conversation with a purpose’…………………....103 The multi-stakeholder approach…………………………………………………106 Constructing the squatter and the social tenant: critical discourse analysis as method……………………………………………………………………………..………………….106 Political ethnography………………………………………………………..…… ................. 109 Part two: positionality and ethics……………………………………………………..……111 Moving on from an ‘insider/outsider’ binary .................................................... 111 Activism and research: how to be both? ................................................. 113 The emotionality of the research process: conducting research with vulnerable people…………………………………………………………………………………115 The emotionality of the researcher…………………………………………… .. 119 The ethics of researching illegal activity………………………………………………………… ... 120 An ethical ethics procedure? ..................................................................... 122 Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………………………………..124 Chapter 5. Constructing deviants, enabling domicide: the role of rhetoric in public understandings of squatters and social tenants………………………………..127 Lineages of home in neoliberal political rhetoric………………………………………………128 Home unmaking in the Cameron era……………………………………………………………… .. 137 2012: the year of stigma…………………………………………………………………………………..141 The bedroom tax and austerity rhetoric…………………………………………………141 A self-fulfilling prophecy? Rhetorically criminalising squatters……………… .. 144 Chapter 6. Compounding domicide, compounding precarity: the impact of section 144………………………………………………………………………………………………………...………154 Forced eviction………………………………………………………………………………...….156 Domicide and securitisation………………………………………………...…….165 5 The impact of section 144 on mental wellbeing and vulnerable social groups……………………………………………………………………………………………...…..168 Normalising precarity, appropriating squatting……………………………………..174 Reappropriating precarious living………………………………………………175 Consolidating the socially parasitical squatter trope………………………………183 Chapter 7. ‘Just because I don’t own it, doesn’t mean it’s not mine: the bedroom tax and the right to home…………………………………………………………………….…………193 The threat of forced eviction…………………………………………………………………193 Impacts of the bedroom tax on those already vulnerable………………………..204 The bedroom tax as an instigator of positive wellbeing?.......................208 The appropriation of state support through homeownership…………………211 Socio-symbolic domicide……………………………………………….……………………...213 Chapter 8. Home in precarious times: evolving activisms in the face of housing crisis……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….221 Public protest……………………………………………………………………………………….222 Using law and policy as tools of resistance……………………………………………..229 Legally challenging the bedroom tax…………………………………………...230 Resisting the bedroom tax through law and social media………………232 Stakeholder resistance through policy implementation: the bedroom tax, Discretionary Housing Payments and legal loopholes…………..…238 Legally challenging section 144…………………………………………………..243 Resisting section 144 through transience and invisibility……………………….247 Transience………………………………………………………………………………...248 Invisibility: hiding in plain sight………………………………………….……….250 ‘I see myself as more of an occupier’: reappropriation as resistance….…….253 Forced eviction as a method of resistance: the case of Focus E15.…..256 The danger of disguising squatting……….…………………………………….260 Conclusions…………………………………….……………………………………………………263 Chapter 9. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………265 Contributions of the thesis to geographical scholarship………………..……….268 Domicide and home unmaking…………………………………………………..268 Intimate governance…………………………………………………………………270 Precarity………………………………………………………………………………….272 6 Looking ahead: the future of section 144 and the bedroom tax……………….274 Housing Londoners: reconnecting housing and home in policy……………….275 Final thoughts………………………………………………………………………………………277 References……………………………………………………………………………………………………...280 Appendix………………………………………………………………………………………………………..308 7 List of Figures Figure 1. Margaret Thatcher at home, 1978. Source: Birmingham Mail. Accessed online: http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local- news/home-iron-lady---margaret-2572517 Figure 2. Tony Blair giving his inaugural speech outside the Aylesbury Estate, Southwark, 1997. Photograph by Stefan Rosseau/PA. Source: https://www.southwarknews.co.uk/news/work- starts-before-aylesbury-estate-demolition/ Figure 3: David Cameron at home in his kitchen, 2007, Photograph by Simon Roberts. Source: http://www.katherinebrickell.com/2012/06/13/on-not-leaving-your-

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