“School for Houses”: Conditional Housing Pathways for Young People in the UK

This chapter critiques the behavioral regulation of welfare conditionality strategies that increasingly dictate young people’s access to social housing. The chapter engages with contemporary literature on conditional housing policies to understand the ideological framework that underpins welfare conditionality more broadly, and how this applies to young people with housing need. The chapter also draws upon the narratives of young people who experience conditional housing pathways in the UK. These narratives illuminate how young people perceive the forms of behavioral conditions attached to their tenancy, as well as the psychosocial impact of housing conditionality on young social renters. The chapter contends that forms of conditionality that impinge upon young people – such as the requirement to keep their flat clean, attend mandatory workshops, and have a good relationship with neighbors – are unethical and intrusive. The excessive, and unequal, governing of the behaviors of young people who need housing, enacted through punitive practices that could result homelessness, ultimately restricts low-income young people’s housing security and has potential long-term impacts on their housing trajectories.