Neoliberal abandonment in disability housing provision: a look at England and Chile

Abstract

Public or ‘social’ housing provision in many nations in the Global North is increasingly being driven by neoliberal strategies that include austerity cuts and market-led privatization. This context raises an important question of how likely the state’s reliance on the private sector can ensure that housing remains available and accessible to more disadvantaged low-income groups. To help answer this question, we draw on a comparative study of social housing provision for disabled people in England and Chile; two pioneers of neoliberal reform in this sector. Using interviews with key stakeholders, our findings reveal that the neoliberal reform strategies being employed have tended to dilute the statutory duties of providing accessible housing and to undermine disabled people’s choices in finding appropriate homes. Such lessons are timely and important in order to remain cognisant of the spaces of neoliberal abandonment that are leaving many people unable to gain access to appropriate housing.

Keywords:

• Accessibility
• welfare state
• disability
• qualitative research

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the study participants for sharing their experiences with us, and to Professor Graham Moon, Dr Eleanor Wilkinson and the three reviewers for their helpful comments.

Notes

1. While we recognize ‘people with disabilities’ as the more general term used in international legal instruments, we use the term favoured by British Disability Studies’ scholars ‘disabled people’ to denote that people with impairment are disabled by society.

2. ‘Starter homes’ will cost up to £450,000 in Greater London (and be affordable only to households earning at least £77,000 a year) or £250,000 for outside Greater London.

3. D.S. 49 was modified by D.S. 105 in late 2015 after fieldwork was conducted. However, the latter does not affect the provision of accessible housing as access requirements and complementary subsidies to build accessible features in the dwellings remain intact (80 UF for people with reduced mobility and 20 UF for people with other types of impairment).

4. Work-fare models, that became popular in New York City and then beyond, originated in Mexico with their Oportunidades programme.