the executive director of the Improvement and Development Agency has hit out at Whitehall's "massive presumption" that the vast majority of the population wants to get a foot on the property ladder.
Lucy de Groot, who was director of public services at the Treasury before moving to the local government best-practice body, said the policy was creating "welfare housing ghettos".

She added: "We have a very skewed tenure picture in this country with a massive presumption around owner-occupation and a sense that social housing is seen more and more as welfare housing.

"This is happening just at the time when analysis shows the worst thing you can possibly do is have communities that are essentially welfare housing ghettos. There are other ways to have decent secure housing than having to buy."

Getting people on low incomes into homeownership is seen as a big vote-winner by the government. In a speech on 12 November, Blairite former health secretary Alan Milburn said the government should enable "more people to own their own homes". And the government-appointed low-cost homeownership task force, which reported last week (HT 21 November, page 7), was set up after a MORI poll showed nine out of 10 people aspired to homeownership.

Source

Housing Today