US housing crisis is a stark warning for the UK after the Housing Act

The US has a housing crisis on a scale so far unimaginable here, but new rules to restrict access to social housing put the UK on the same path

Against the background of the UK Housing and Planning Act, the US experience of deregulated, market-driven, privatised housing policy provides a stark warning to this country.

US public housing, an approximate equivalent to UK council housing, has never been part of the mainstream. With its origins in the 1930s New Deal, it was only ever allowed to augment the private sector - never challenge it. Although there remain significant concentrations of public housing in US cities, the pejorative image of housing projects has provided political cover for under-investment and marginalisation, to the point where public housing is deemed the housing of last resort.

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