That's interesting. How much longer a history? In the UK it didn't really start until the 1930's as far as I can find out. Can you point to anything I can read about this VP?
France has a history of "public housing" in the cities going back to post-Napoleonic times, but especially after the establishment of the 2nd Republic, when the "Society for Worker's Cities" was formed, and in Germany co-operative or union-based social housing was the main source of non-landlord based living quarters. A good read for info on this is "The Movement for Housing Reform in Germany and France, 1840-1914" by Nick Bullock and James Read.
As for the UK, John Benson's "The Working Class in Britain: 1850-1939" has a chapter and a bit dedicated to the housing issue, which points up some of the early (mid to late Victorian) high-density social housing schemes in Birmingham, Manchester and London, among other areas.
What seems to have happened in this country in recent years is that with the sell off of council houses, lower earners have been pushed into private rented accommodation and become dependent on housing benefit. That of itself has caused an upward pressure on rent costs. The housing shortage has been increased by the lack of new council house building and has contributed to the increased cost of houses. Effectively Housing Benefit has gone to the landlords whether they be buy-to-let owners or not. I think this has been an unintended consequence of a policy which was primarily politically motivated.
If the money now spent on Housing Benefit could have been spent on building social housing for rent at affordable costs the inflated costs of housing would not be so great. The money would not have gone out to the private sector but would have gone to the maintenance and repair of a valuable public sector housing stock.
It would be very difficult now to reverse this, but it needs to be done. Housing Benefit is paid for by our taxes which should not be paying for private profit. If we can get government and local authorities working together, building homes at reasonable rent. Also let us also stop calling it 'social housing'. It should not be thought of as being for the 'socially excluded' which is NewLabour's euphemism for the poor and including the lesser educated. Public sector housing should be available to a broader sector of people as salaries and remuneration packages of all kinds are being cut back hard across all kinds of employment. There should be no stigma in living in rented accommodation provided by the public sector. No-one is ashamed to go to their NHS doctor.
I'll get on my old soapbox here, and set this entirely at the door of Thatcher's first administration, and the collusion of her, Ridley, Jenkin and Joseph in altering the "Right to Buy" legislation so that money from sales could not be re-invested into "new-build" social housing. This was barefacedly an ideological move to a) buy the votes of aspiring "upper working class" council house tenants, and b) neutralise one of the foundation stones of a state that gave a damn about the welfare of its population; social housing.
People have been sold a pup, convinced by the erosion of the social housing estate into a residuum of what there was 30 years ago (we're talking about a drop from 5 million dwellings for rent in the public sector in '78 to just over 2 million in 2006) that "social housing" means "rotting tenements on estates clogged with burnt-out car shells and pitbull terrier shit", and the chickens are really coming home to roost now, as even comparatively well-paid members of the professional classes can now not afford to buy property. If they (or their parents) had made more of a fuss about preserving social housing 15-20 years ago, they might not be in this situation of unaffordability at present.
Many's the time I'm wryly grateful I became disabled, and therefore qualified for social housing back in the early '90s.
