Social Housing and Young People: Effect of Emerging Forms of Conditionality on Young People’s Relationships Within Local Communities

Access to social housing is becoming more selective with allocation criteria requiring applicants’ stronger financial capacity or, conversely, proving their state of extreme vulnerability. This seeming contradiction results from two contrasting trends in social housing governance and management: a push toward adopting quasi-market privately funded models, on the one hand, and ongoing residualization processes on the other hand. Such polarization of social housing supply increases pre-existing divisions between insiders and outsiders. Young people are increasingly seen as outsiders in housing markets, a condition that exacerbates the risk of social exclusion and undermines the transition to adulthood. However, in the wake of changing approaches to the provision and management of social and affordable housing, new tenures are being used to improve access for young people while promoting greater involvement in community-oriented actions. Such tenures rely on a specific understanding of conditionality whereby units are allocated at below-market rates to young people in return for their commitment to engage in solidarity activities and help tasks for vulnerable neighbors. This chapter discusses this idea of conditionality and its effects on young people’s relationships within local communities. It shows that such relationships are shaped by complex, dynamic, and strongly context-dependent assemblages of individual human capital (e.g., capabilities, pro-social motivations, and attitudes), available spatial resources and conditions, and the fundamental direction and discretion of housing managers and practitioners. This conceptualization of conditionality discloses aims of tenant responsibilization toward both individual dwelling and community, redefining young people’s identities as resourceful tenants.