Water and food are commonly accepted as the basic needs of life. Housing, by providing us a shelter, is also necessary so that you survive. Therefore it is also a fundamental need. However, every house should not only be a shelter, but also a real home. What makes a house a home is a complex combination of factors. Sociologists usually agree to define a home as "an index of social status, an arena of intimate relationships, a refuge, a container of possessions and icons, and even the carrier of one's self image" . It is a place that provides "a sense of security, autonomy, privacy, belonging, personal identity, choice, expression, achievement and pride" .These perceptions are present or not depending on "the way in which the house is designed and used and relationships with neighbors and community" .
[...] Because of this form of discrimination, “People from minority ethnic groups who are social housing tenants live in the most deprived areas and they are generally over- represented in deprived inner city areas”[11]. They are also very often confronted to another form of discrimination called “subjective racism”[12], which is an affirmed racism expressed for example by private landlords. However, if all minorities are more likely to live in poor housing than White people, some groups are further on with being socially included in British society and experience less difficulties. [...]
[...] In our minds, owner occupation is still associated with middle-class socio-economic groups and affluent households. In many respects, these views are well-founded, in that the majority of owner- occupiers belong to professional and managerial groups. However, this is only a partial picture: ownership has become affordable not only for wealthy people, but also for members of lower classes. It is nowadays a very diverse sector, and home ownership should not be necessarily seen as a dream. The Pakistani case shows us on the contrary, that it is often just a last resort. [...]
[...] Housing policy implemented by the State really disadvantages Pakistani people who are concentrated in the owner occupation tenure. It does not tackle at all the social exclusion under which they live. On the contrary, it can be said that, in a certain extent, it worsens it. We could have naively said that housing policies created by the state reply to all needs expressed by diverse communities which live in Great Britain. It is far from being the case. By having progressively focused on the needs of people who live in private rented accommodation and social rented houses, the Government has forgotten poor people who live in the third tenure: poor owner occupiers. [...]
[...] At first sight, statistics seem to indicate that it is not the case and that most of poor people are concentrated in the other tenures: the private rented sector, over one-third is defined as poor and, in the social rented sector per whereas only 27 per cent of owner occupiers are defined as such. However, if we deal with these statistics according to the weight of each sector, results appear to be very different. As owner occupation is the most important tenure, it implies that, even if the percentage of poor within it is the lowest, the weight of the sector makes that around 50 per cent of people living in poverty are in fact owner occupiers. [...]
[...] What has been the impact of housing policies on the social exclusion experienced by Pakistani people? What should the State do to tackle it in an efficient way? In order to understand the situation of Pakistani people, we first have to explain in which housing tenure they are concentrated and why. As most of the other housing systems, the British one is constituted of three main housing tenures: social public housing, private rented sector, and, finally, owner occupation. During the post war period, the importance of each tenure has changed. [...]
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