Introduction
This is an informal report to talk about the concepts of housing, what is housing? (Dictionary, 2016) refers to housing as houses and flats considered collectively and it is the providing of accommodation. The concept which is chosen for this report is needs. Therefore, this report will show a critical gratitude of the key concept which is need and this concept will be linked to justify housing provision and the justification of why the state intervenes in housing, this report wants to look at the way needs establishes the welfare role of housing. This report will potentially try and give good examples to why needs might have to be justified till today and criticisms of state intervention to see if need is still potent or if it’s not valuable anymore. Therefore, this report will be producing theoretical evidence to back up my arguments and the report will have a detailed section on what needs are, and how the state intervenes.
Main body
The idea of need is essential to any debate of housing, and predominantly to how it is assigned and who gets it (King, 2003). (Robinson, 1979:55) argues need is “The quantity of housing that is required to provide accommodation of an agreed minimum standard and for a population given its size and household composition, without taking into account the individual household’s ability to pay for the housing assigned to it”. This infers that this can be denoted as an environmental need, which therefore seeks to recognise the housing necessities for specific people, maybe in a native authority or city, we can presume that this might be used to apply to an area or perhaps a national populace. (King, 2016:31) looks at (Robinson, 1979) examples of need he argues that “need as that housing need involves the creation of a specific standard of provision for housing”, meaning that this could be looked at in decree in terms of suitability and habitability or it could be looked at in policy terms. “Also housing need must be resolute by impartial circumstances, for example household arrangement and the standard of stock for housing, which should not be according to revenue”. (King, 2016:31) states “need is defined externally”. Robinson describes this as acknowledging the quantity and different kinds of belongings which is needed in that environment. Though, what is essential is some means of determining people in that environment must be assigned these homes. (Doyal and Gough, 1991:50) looks at need as providing the dormant for a worldwide declaration on facilities which is social. They claim that “there are two basic human needs that are required to ensure the ‘avoidance of serious harm”. The first need they discuss is personal autonomy, (Doyal and Gough, 1991:53) describes this as “the ability to make informed choices about what should be done and how to go about doing it” and the second one as physical endurance and well-being which links with security and housing, which they say is “the ability to carry out necessary actions”. They describe these needs as worldwide needs.
(King, 2009:31) states Bradshaw (1972) looks at four kinds of needs and he contends that before we look at the different types of needs we must recognise that Bradshaw looks at needs as not personal but furthermore communal. Social need is what society altogether recognises as unruly or an absence of it, which therefore pursues to help the delivery of a social service, for instance social housing. The four types of needs are normative needs, felt needs, expressed needs and comparative need. Normative needs are linked to environmental needs which is used to recognise the needs of a population, in addition to differentiate between the people. This need is a normative standard to where the definite height of provision is reliant on precise time and place instead of being unqualified. Now if an individual comes under that standard then these people are in need and therefore could be further assisted. Felt needs links to a person’s individual valuation of their necessities. This need can be measured by examinations, surveys or discussions, which therefore could be extremely individual. Expressed needs are similar to felt needs because felt needs leans towards expressed needs. This need is publicised by our buying behaviour; economists describe this as an operative request. This does not separate between definite need and individual wants, because we have finances to purchase something does not mean we need it. people might observe choice-based lettings systems to reflect this need, since individuals essentially might have to look at the proposition for detailed belongings in specific areas. This demonstrates what people actually need and want. lastly comparative need is when comparisons are created with people who previously are offered a service. When we associate individuals with a better housing to individuals who do not have good housing. This need stresses equal behaviour and equality.
We have to realise that the government and the state are not the same thing, the government is omnipresent (King, 2009). Meaning that they contribute in many of the events. The state is a dominantly controlled bureaucratic community where authority is employed over the region with reverence to monetary resources obtainable within it and to utilise its force in social connections (MacCormack,1993).
Social policy, referring to the genuine part of the state and the market, could be realised in relations of wants and needs. (Levine, 1995:31) states that “Needs are things ‘imposed upon me independently of my will” and wants are things ‘we choose for ourselves as a way of expressing who we are”, he puts forward that wants has to be achieved through a market, but needs might have to be achieved by government action which could be seen as better. Need is an essential notion to validate the contribution of the state as the focus of social policy. This denotes that social policy are rules, values, legislation and actions that influence living circumstances favourable of the welfare of humans, for instance an individual’s value of life.
(King, 1998:38) argues “the existence of state intervention appears to presuppose two things”. He says that firstly people are not able to create their individual ends without the government’s help, and secondly, perhaps they are able to, but they shouldn’t do what they want whatever the penalties are. People might not have an idea on what their needs are, therefore if individuals are left to their personal devices they might not be able to attain the utmost positive results for themselves or for people around them, Percy-Smith (1996). Meaning that the state is intervening on behalf of individuals by aiding them to understand what their needs are, and could help them through direct provision. there could be benefits and drawbacks for the state intervening with this issue for example what the state delivers is simply tyrannical and that there is no specific purpose for it maybe because of their set of ideas and apathy. (King, 1998:38) looks at why the state should be involved when concerning needs, he contends that “individuals lack sufficient knowledge to properly to meet their needs. Individuals may not be aware of the consequences of their actions”. What this means is that if people have a rational behaviour in their personal interests they might not be conscious that their activities might unfavourably have an influence on individuals to the verdict which is seen as an undesirable externality. Another reason for the state intervention is that people have positive rights. For example, what rights people do, and they must have. An individual’s quarrel could be that if people have rights then it should be achieved (Berlin, 1969). People have rights this means that their needs has to be satisfied. The state has a contribution and states that the state is to been seen as the guardian and to impose people with personal rights, secondly they are supposed to be seen as the intervention where people attain their rights, (Kateb, 1992). However, there are always theorists that criticise others and some have a right’s based approach and argue that first part of the state intervention is vindicated but only to a negligible extent. A wide-ranging state could interrupt personal rights instead of bettering them. Looking at the two we can see that one side take a more positive sides to rights whilst the other has a negative approach to it. What we can see is that one person is discussing that in order to fulfil individual’s need then firstly, they have to acknowledge that they have rights and that the state should intervene on their behalf, but on the other hand another argument is that will the state could exploit people’s needs if they capitalise on their rights, to an extent they are both right, the states has the overall power so, they could decide if they want to help individuals get the needs that they deserve or possibly the state not paying attention to the needs of these people.
(Government, 2010:6) state “looking at childhood circumstances and experiences has a crucial role in a peoples chances”, they want to make sure that children are able to obtain resources for instance housing which is top quality, so that they can have a normal healthy life and also to help their well-being for the future, which means that the state are trying to help the well-being of individuals by providing them with top housing provision due to their needs, as this is a big necessity, as they are aware without good housing then the well-being of that person will be in jeopardy because their dwellings might not be top quality and therefore, could become sick an example of this homeless people, the state must act upon their needs as they need to show equality. The state intervenes by giving subsides to houses and landlords. (Oxley and smith, 1996:40) state that housing subside is “an explicit or implicit flow of funds initiated by government activity which reduces the relative cost of housing or consumption below what it otherwise would have been”. (King, 2009:79) argues “This might be to make housing more affordable, to encourage landlords to build more or better quality housing, or to ensure the housing stock is of sufficiently high quality” People have needs and need housing for example an accommodation or dwellings, and now because the government has intervened by giving individuals housing subsides they are able to get cheaper and reasonable price on houses. The government also intervenes through council housing which is social housing where individuals cannot pay their rent from a secluded sector or purchase their own household, so the government gives them rented homes, linking this back to needs, the government knows that people need housing so they provide them with a plan to reduce prices and give them a suitable dwelling place.
Some theorists argue that wants and needs has to be deliberate we have to be conscious of the circumstances (Griffin, 1986). Needs can be linked to the welfare role of housing is because people are not aware of their needs then the choices that they produce could have an influence on their well-being. Griffin talks about two needs which are basic needs and instrumental needs, linking this back household (King, 2015:34) links needs in the welfare role as he states “once a woman is pregnant, she now has certain needs as a result, and once the child is born, the household has additional needs in terms of space, income and health care”. This denotes that if her needs are not met then the well-being of that child will be at risk because the mother is going to need all the help she can get based on her needs and if this does not happen, then she might have to look at the possible consequence of her choices for having a baby, so the state/government needs to intervene on the behalf on the mother/child or else there could be a consequence of the baby dying or might have to go for an abortion because her needs are not met and therefore the well-being of both of them will be at great risk. This also means that if she manages to get a better house then her needs will be fulfilled.
Conclusion
This report has managed to interpret what needs are and how needs are applied to housing, and also to the justifications of the state intervention, we can see from this report that the government and the state are initially not the same but has similar roles, to be fair the state should continue to intervene when come it comes to humans needs, due to the fact that they all have rights, although some theorists has argued that they could manipulate the situation and make their own choices because of their power, which could affect the well-being and needs of that population. We should agree that needs of humans should be recognised by the government or the well-being of individuals will be at risk given the example which was given to the pregnant woman and her child, so to reiterate needs still play a big role in housing to this day and the state/government should still intervene to help people get top housing provision in order that their well- being will be healthy because of dwellings that are situated in.
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