London's housing crisis

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‘He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.’   Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

News

The proposal by Newham Council in London to relocate up to 500 families half way up the country caused a furore this week.  The government’s new cap on housing benefits means local councils will struggle to find affordable housing for homeless families in the private rented sector, forcing many of them to look further afield.

Relocation is nothing new; previous examples include the Garden Cities in the early part of the 20^th century, slum clearances of the 1930s, and post war relocations to New Towns.   Critics of the present government’s policy say the benefit cap will lead to a form of ‘social cleansing’ as poorer families are moved out of parts of London. 

The conclusion drawn by most commentators is that since demand for housing continually exceeds supply, the only lasting solution is to build more homes.  That is indeed necessary and important, but there is another underlying cause of the problem which is invariably taken as a given feature of our society – the decline in household size. 

In 1971 there were 2.9 people per household on average, now it is 2.4 in Britain – a fall of 17%.  The most significant factor in this change is the rise in one person households, from 7 million in 2001 to 7.7 million in 2011 – an increase of 70,000 per year.  This trend is driven primarily by divorce and separation. 

A long term strategy for tackling the housing crisis relationally is to invest in couple relationship education. Efforts aimed at helping couples stay together will have a knock on effect on the demand for housing; similarly, any support by government for elderly people to live under the same roof as one of their children or grandchildren, as in Hong Kong and Singapore, has both relational and economic benefits. Relational issues are a major factor causing the housing crisis; we should also recognise that they have a major role in its solution.

Read on

The Relationships Foundation published a compelling report on the value to families and wider society of investing in relationship education for couples; download the Building Strong Foundations report here.

Walk the talk

We are told the Englishman’s home is his castle; how are you thinking about your housing, especially in the long term?  Might it be worth considering how your house could become – or remain – a multi-generational family home?

The Last Word

From the Bible, John 19:26-27 ‘When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.’

Rousseau and the road to the Elysee Palace

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“It is too early to say.”  Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, responding to a question on the impact of the French Revolution in a conversation with President Richard Nixon. (SPOILER: unfortunately Zhou thought Nixon was referring to the 1968 revolution, not the storming of the Bastille in 1789!)

News
Nicolas Sarkozy and his rival Francois Hollande, representing the main conservative and socialist parties, are neck and neck in the French presidential election this weekend.  Two extreme parties on left and right are also doing well in the polls, with around 15% each.  However, most commentators expect Hollande to take over at the Elysee Palace, becoming the 7th President of the 5th Republic since the French Revolution. 

The quest for a viable system of government in France since 1789 has been influenced significantly by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the philosopher born 300 years ago in June.  He argued that a nation could only be governed justly by a social contract, with each citizen subordinating his freedom and self-interest to the ‘general will’ of the people as a whole – if not voluntarily, then by force.  This was the way to overcome the social and economic inequalities in French society, thought Rousseau.

Similar issues are still dividing the electorate in France in 2012.  The concern of the left is inequality, which strains the relationship between rich and poor.  With unemployment reaching 10% and austerity measures cutting welfare, the poor are paying a far greater price than the wealthy, even though the financial and political elites are seen as the primary culprits for the debt crisis and recession. 

Meanwhile for the far right, it’s the relationship between ‘indigenous’ French and immigrant (especially Muslim) communities that is thought to be unsustainable, with the pressure of 180,000 immigrants a year on jobs, housing and schools.   The lack of common values and cultural goals militates against building a cohesive society. 

It is one thing to have the political skills to win an election, but it’s another to identify and implement an agenda to overcome mistrust and build strong and fair relationships between diverse groups in society.  This would involve a quite different form of social contract, emphasising interdependence and responsibility instead of individualism and rights.  Such a relational direction in politics might take France closer to a true and lasting liberté, égalité and fraternité!

Read on…
In Paris immigrant communities and impoverished estates bring France’s economic and social divisions sharply into focus.  Read ‘Cities’, the chapter in the R Option by Michael Schluter and David Lee, discussing how to build relationships in urban communities, here.

Walk the talk
Politics tends to polarise groups of people and assign collective blame for various ills on one group or another; is there something you might do to build a relationship with someone in your workplace or neighbourhood from a completely ‘different’ social, economic or political group to you?

The last word
Galatians chapter 3 verse 28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

A visual interlude

image in the public domain, downloaded from commons.wikimedia.org

 

Gerard van Honthorst was a Dutch painter in the style of Caravaggio, who popularised the technique of “chiaroscuro” that draws on the contrast between light and darkness.  Van Honthorst used this to great effect in this painting from 1620, entitled, “The Childhood of Christ”.  It depicts Jesus as a boy, apprenticed to the vocation of his human father, a carpenter.  But the brightness of the candle he is holding points towards the vocation conferred on him by his Father in heaven – to be the light of the world.

The painting inspired this Easter meditation….

Jesus worked with wood all his life.  Apprenticed to his father Joseph, he learned about the properties of different trees, and the ways to prepare and season timber.  He discovered especially how to work with the grain of the wood, in order to add to the strength and beauty of what he was fashioning.  He was a master carpenter.

From creating with wood, Jesus spent three years working on the hearts and minds of his disciples.  Then on his darkest day, the first Good Friday, it was wood which ‘mastered’ him.  With hammer and nails Roman soldiers hung the carpenter-Saviour on a rough wooden cross.   

From this great reversal came the undoing of sin and the dethroning of darkness and the reconciliation of all creatures to their creator-God.

And now by the grace which flows from Easter, may our lives be fashioned again according to the grain of the universe – adding strength and beauty to our relationships and our work, to our churches and our communities.