Community Self-build for Young Homeless People: Problems and Potential

Abstract

In this paper, the authors' evaluation of the first self-build scheme for disadvantaged young people in Wales is set alongside evaluations of similar schemes set up in England in the 1980s and 1990s. Community self-build differs from traditional self-build where individuals, usually with skills and employment, build their houses for ownership. Community self-build is agency-initiated, builders are unskilled and usually working for state benefits and the finished houses belong to a housing association. The paper outlines how housing regulations, state benefits, (which are increasingly restrictive for young people), and training structures hinder community self-build projects. Moreover, community self-build schemes are usually set up in areas of social deprivation where the labour market is difficult, housing often residualised and the young people likely to be recruited are already alienated from education and training. Such innovative schemes often find themselves hindered by bureaucratic structures but they cannot work outside the law or in the informal economy.

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