“Is Empowerment of Disadvantaged Populations Achievable through Housing Policies? A Study of the Impact of Social Housing on the Empowerment of the Poor in Israel” Guy Doron London School of Economics and Political Sciences Resubmitting with corrections Thesis submitted for the Degree of PhD January 2015 Contents Abstract 1 List of Tables 3 List of Figures 5 List of Illustrations 6 PART 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 8 1.1 Overview 8 1.2 Israel as a unique case 11 1.2.1 Dominance of central government 11 1.2.2 The political system 11 1.2.3 Dominance of security issues on the political agenda 12 1.2.4 Ethnicity 12 1.3 Summary of chapters 13 1.3.1 Chapter two 13 1.3.2 Chapter three 14 1.3.3 Chapter four 14 1.3.4 Chapter five 15 1.3.5 Chapter six 15 1.3.6 Chapter seven 16 1.3.7 Chapter eight 16 1.3.8 Chapter nine 17 Chapter 2 A Review of the Literature on Empowerment 18 2.1 Introduction 18 2.2 Perspectives on empowerment and housing policy 20 2.2.1 The disadvantaged 22 2 2.2.2 Poverty 23 2.2.3 Localisation 25 2.3 Measuring individual participation 29 2.3.1 Arnstein’s ladder of participation 30 2.3.2 The literature on participation 33 2.3.3 The literature on mobility 34 2.4 Collective empowerment and public policy 36 2.4.1 Collective empowerment 37 2.4.2 Collective empowerment in housing policy 40 2.4.3 Pressure groups 43 2.5 Providing tools in practice: training schemes 45 2.5.1 Knowledge gaps 46 2.5.2 Training in practice 47 2.6 Multi-conflict societies 51 2.7 Limitations 53 2.8 Summary and conclusions 56 Chapter 3 History: The Chronology of the Housing System in Israel 58 3.1 Introduction 58 3.2. Chronological evolution of housing policy in Israel 59 3.2.1 From the 1930s to 1948 (before the establishment of Israel as a state) 61 3.2.2 1948–1952 (establishment of the State and the early years) 63 3.2.3 1952–59: the transition from special transit camps to publicly-built neighbourhoods 65 3.2.4 The early 1960s: substantial building programmes and the initiation of Demolish & Rebuild 67 3.2.5 The late 1960s: the emergence of social inequalities 70 3.2.6 The 1970s: private market take-over 72 3.2.7 The 1980s: ‘Neighbourhood Renewal’ 73 3.2.8 The early 1990s: a massive immigration wave and the rebirth of government intervention 74 3.2.9 The late 1990s: Urban Renewal 76 3.2.10 From 1998 onwards: first sale of council units 77 3 3.3 The housing programmes 79 3.3.1 Demolish and Rebuild 79 3.3.2 Neighbourhood Renewal 81 3.3.3 The structure of public housing companies 86 3.3.4 Other forms of publicly-funded housing solutions outside poor neighbourhoods 91 3.4 Summary 94 PART 2 Chapter 4 Methods and Research Framework 97 4.1 Introduction 97 4.2 The case studies 97 4.2.1 Criteria for selection of case studies 98 4.2.2 Demolish and Rebuild (D&R) 99 4.2.3 The Neighbourhood Renewal Programme (NRP) 101 4.2.4 The Right to Buy (RTB) 103 4.3 Method of analysis 105 4.3.1 Methods of analysis of the case studies 105 4.3.2 Interviewee selection 107 4.3.3 Interview techniques 107 4.3.4 The participants 111 4.3.5 Ethical aspects 112 4.4 Conclusion 113 Chapter 5 The Demolish and Rebuild Programme 114 5.1 Introduction 115 5.2 Background 115 5.3 Case studies 1 115 5.3.1 Case study 1: The neighbourhood of Vadi Saliv in Haifa 115 5.3.2 Background 116 5.3.3 Resident participation 119 5.3.4 Public policy 120 5.4 Case studies 2 122 4 5.4.1 Case study 2: the Neighbourhood of Cardboard, Tel Aviv 122 5.4.2 Background 123 5.4.3 Resident participation 125 5.4.4 Public policy 126 5.5 Outcomes and assessments 127 5.5.1 Participation 130 5.5.2 Residents’ long-term involvement 135 5.5.3 Public policy towards residents’ involvement in D&R 137 5.5.4 Training and education schemes 143 5.5.5 Satisfaction with D&R: overview 147 5.5.6 Negative public policy: the impact of social unrest 153 5.6 Another form of D&R: a comparison 157 5.6.1 Participant perspectives 158 5.7 Conclusions 163 Chapter 6 The Neighbourhood Renewal Programme 164 6.1 Introduction 164 6.2 Early surveys of the NRP 166 6.2.1 Resident satisfaction 167 6.2.2 Assessing the quality of residents’ participation 170 6.2.3 How to improve residents’ participation on boards 172 6.3 New evidence from 2005 onwards 175 6.3.1 The case studies 176 6.3.2 Interviews 179 6.3.3 Resident participation 180 6.3.4 Continuity and long-term participation 184 6.3.5 Public policy towards residents’ involvement in the NRP 186 6.3.6 Training and education schemes 189 6.3.7 Overall satisfaction 194 6.3.8 Housing projects with positive public policy 197 6.4 Conclusion 204 Chapter 7 The ‘Right to Buy’ 207 7.1 Introduction 207 5 7.2 Overview 209 7.2.1 Background 210 7.2.2 Origins 211 7.2.3 The legislation process in parliament and the government’s response 212 7.2.4 The election campaign of 1999 215 7.2.5 Limitations, problems and boundaries 217 7.3 The case studies 219 7.3.1 The national and local housing companies 220 7.3.2 The case-study neighbourhoods: a brief introduction 223 7.4 Research and data analysis 226 7.4.1 Residents’ participation 226 7.4.2 Long-term involvement 230 7.4.3 Public policy towards resident involvement in the RTB 232 7.4.4 Training and education schemes 233 7.4.5 Satisfaction 237 7.4.6 Protest and social unrest 241 7.5 Public policy towards exceptional ‘Right to Buy’ cases 244 7.5.1 The government of Israel, the Jewish Agency and Amigur 244 7.5.2 Housing rights in rural communities 248 7.6 Conclusion 253 PART 3 Chapter 8 Analysis of Outcomes of Different Empowerment Programmes 255 8.1 Introduction 255 8.2 Empowerment as measured in Israeli social housing programmes 256 8.3 Theoretical framework of empowerment in the context of Israeli housing 257 8.4 Key results 262 8.4.1 Resident participation 263 8.4.2 Public policy 265 8.4.3 Can community cohesion make a difference? 273 8.5 Conclusion 274 6 Chapter 9 Conclusion 276 9.1 Introduction 276 9.2 Hypotheses 278 9.3 The research questions and findings 278 9.4 The sense of power 282 9.5 The negative consequences and loss of a sense of power 284 9.6 Israel: lessons learnt 286 9.7 The way forward 288 Glossary and Definitions 290 Appendices 300 Appendix 1 300 1.1 Public vs. private building in Israel 1955–2003 300 1.2 Public vs. private building between 1963 and 2003 301 1.3 The dominance of public building in the 1990s 302 1.4 Public and private build in Israel 1970–2010 302 1.5 Share of public/private building: map 303 Appendix 2 304 2.1 Comparison between density rates in the Neighbourhood Renewal and national rates 304 2.2 Number of people living in small units (1–2 beds) before the NRP operated 304 2.3 Number of people in small units after the NRP was operated 305 2.4 Willingness to participate in community activities (data in %) 305 2.5 The most important issues residents of NRP hoped to achieve through the programme 307 Appendix 3: Exhibits A–M: Card sorting exercise 308 1. The social housing programmes 308 2. Level of participation 311 3. Type of housing communities 314 Appendix 4: Table of interviewees for this research 318 Appendix 5 328 7 5.1 A comparative analysis of Neighbourhood Renewal Programme case studies analysed in this research 328 5.2 A comparison of Right to Buy case studies analysed in this research 329 Appendix 6: Charts and graphs on the Right to Buy 331 6.1 Number of units and employees in the housing companies 331 6.2 Comparison of the share of public housing out of general housing in the EU 331 6.3 Public support to different groups 332 6.4 The reduction of units managed by Amidar, 1960–2011 332 6.5 The decrease in public housing (number of units) per 1000 people since the Right to Buy began (between 1997 and 2007 333 6.6 The number of residents on waiting lists and the number of vacant housing solutions 333 6.7 Numbers and location of empty units managed by Amidar 334 6.8 ‘Right to Buy’ income and expenditure 334 6.9 Quantity of vacant houses held by Amidar and Amigur 335 6.10 A comparison of the number of public housing unts per 1000 residents in EU 335 Appendix 7 – Illustrations 336 References 384 Abstract This research project investigates whether the empowerment of Israel’s population — and in particular those who suffer multiple disadvantages — is achievable through housing policies and whether successive Israeli administrations have helped or hindered this process. The research focuses on communities in publicly-subsidised areas during social housing programmes.