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This paper considers the current importance of choice as a concept in English housing policy. A key aim in extending choice is to empower the users of public services. The paper concentrates on the policy of choice-based lettings. We show how this is linked both to a wider policy debate in England regarding choice and to initiatives in other European countries, in this case the Netherlands. We then discuss the policy of choice-based lettings as it has been and is being implemented in English social housing. The paper goes on to discuss choice as a concept, with particular relation to rational choice. The view we develop is that choice has to be related to the capability to act and this is done through the concept of effective choice, which connects choice with access to resources. The final part of the paper offers an evaluation of choice-based lettings and its purported ability to empower users of social housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will set out the concept of a 'gap' between the social rented and market rented housing sector. This will be examined with respect to one aspect of competition between the two sectors in England, France, the Netherlands and Germany: substitutability. The analysis will involve an examination of the extent to which tenants can choose between the two sectors. The price-quality bundles of housing services as expressed by the characteristics of the accommodation, the property rights of the tenants, the allocation system and the housing allowances in the different countries will be compared. Competition measured in this way seems to be rather larger than smaller in the Netherlands and Germany and rather small in England. France's intermediate sector partly closes the gap between both rental tenures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social rental housing has once again captured a strong position on the Dutch political agenda. This has happened especially since the European Commission sent a letter to the Dutch government indicating that the Dutch social rental sector was not considered EU-proof from the viewpoint of the European Union's competition policy. The letter coincided with criticisms from Dutch politicians that housing associations had not been performing well enough for some time, given their abundant resources. However, in an international context, the Dutch social rental sector is often regarded as a good system for providing affordable housing to those who need it, without the sector being marginalized and stigmatized. Jim Kemeny has classified this market as one in which the social rental sector in due course competes with the private rental sector on equal or almost equal terms as a unitary rental market. The starting point of this paper is whether the achievement of a unitary rental sector is threatened by the EU's competition policy. It will also discuss two other possible threats to the future of the Dutch unitary rental market: the threat to take surplus capital away from housing associations and have government decide on what to invest; and the attractiveness of home-ownership to households. We conclude that the character of the Dutch unitary rental sector is indeed under threat, although mostly by stealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Dutch social housing sector, after almost 20 years of allocating dwellings with choice-based letting (CBL), there is a growing need to adapt the allocation systems currently in use. The policy debate on improvements in housing allocation centres around three main themes. First, many policymakers are torn between the egalitarian idea of freedom of choice for all customers in the social housing market and the desire of housing associations to provide preferential treatment to certain categories of customers, such as low income groups, large households, elderly people, local residents, occupational groups, or residents from redeveloping neighbourhoods. Second, housing associations would rather do away with long waiting lists and find the right balance between doing justice to those customers needing urgent housing and those seeking a dwelling in the longer term to better suit their needs, thus improving the efficiency of housing allocation. Third, both housing associations and local governments are discussing ways of using the allocation system to change disadvantaged neighbourhoods into sustainable communities. All through The Netherlands housing associations are carrying out experiments to find solutions to these three dilemmas. This review details the current debates and experiments, and places them into the wider context of the role and function of housing associations in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]