international discussions about tenant management

I recently dug up this material from earlier in the decade, while sorting through old files. It is part of an e-mail list I ran about housing,, that split off from one on other poverty issues. I think it ended because idiots were posting and those who had something to say could say it better off the list. It is well worth reading by any one who wants to do sometthing about housing in Toornto. So it goes on the new Ourhomes page.

First, this is a message I got from Nick in the U.K.

(He is some sort of official in the coop movment in U.K.)

Dear Tim;

[snip]

In this country, there are 2 main housing providers:

Council housing (LA) - established since the end of the war through local authorities housing associations (HA) - private’ companies that run housing that were largely promoted by Thatcher because she wanted to break up the local authorities’ power base.

Unfortunately, local authorities played right into this, because they ran council housing so badly, and they contributed to the rise of housing associations. However, council housing is still the largest housing provider in this country, with places such as Birmingham (where I live) having about 90,000 properties owned by the council. But, starved of resources, and due to bad mismanagement, gradually most local authorities are in the position where they have to consider transferring their stock to some form of private vehicle to raise private funding to regenerate the stock (most of them having been built in the 60s and 70s).

Tenant representation in both LAs and HAs varies. There is usually funding available to tenants of LAs, from either the LA itself or from central government, to investigate the setting up of a local tenants association, but these will usually have very little real influence on anything, and performs more of a social and community function. There are also area Housing Liaison Boards, and in some cases LA wide bodies, but so far as I know none of these are elected, and realistically they play a minimal role in housing policy. There is next to no tenant activity in the HA sector, although some more enlightened HA staff have managed to motivate some tenant activity. Usually HAs allow very little tenant influence on any decisions, and because LAs are elected bodies themselves there is a stronger culture of tenant activity within them.

Alongside this, there are various forms of tenant controlled organisations in this country, but the percentage of tenants living in tenant controlled housing is a tiny percentage compared to councils and housing associations.

The different forms of tenant controlled housing include:

Par value, fully mutual housing co-operatives (PVCs)- usually small organisations that are monitored and regulated in the same way as housing associations, but which are run totally by the tenants of the properties.

Par value means that each tenant pays £1 to be a member and gains voting rights that way, and fully mutual means that all tenants have to be members of the co-op, and would lose their tenancy if they weren't. Tenant controlled community based housing associations - the phrase 'Community based housing association’' (CBHA) was brought in to give PR value to the transfer of council stock, and usually means little more than a housing association that covers a specific geographical area. A tenant controlled CBHA means that the board of the HA has a majority of tenants from the properties, although there may be different ways in which they got there.

Tenant management organisations (TMOs) - there are 2 forms of tenant management organisation - tenant management co-operative (TMC) and estate management boards (EMBs).

TMOs started out in the 1970s in LA housing as a means of bringing ordinary people in properties into the management of their homes. With a TMO, the landlord of the properties remains the LA or in some cases HAs, but the TMO has a management agreement with the landlord, with an agreed management allowance, to run some or all the functions of management of the properties. Therefore TMOs do not own the properties, but just make decisions about how they are run.

TMCs will have a committee that is made up entirely of tenants, while EMBs will have a board that is made up of tenants and 2 councillors (elected regional politicians). TMOs were significantly encouraged in the 1980s, because again Thatcher wanted to break up the local authority power base, and this paradoxically led to the setting up of a number of strong TMOs. With the growing pace of stock transfer, many TMOs are now considering transferring ownership to themselves.

The Price Waterhouse report was research commissioned by the Department of the Environment (a government body) into the value for money of the various different tenant controlled organisations. They specifically studied a number of PVCs, TMCs and EMBs (see above for initials), and compared them over time with equivalent non-tenant controlled comparators in the LA and HA sector.

The report found that most co-ops outperformed their Local Authority and Housing Association counterparts and provided more effective housing management services with usually better value for money. Tenant Management Organisations also delivered some wider non-quantifiable social and community benefits. The most effective Tenant Management Organisations were those whose members had greatest control over their housing management, finances and environment.

Therefore the report was very favourable to the organisations that are run by tenants, and particularly emphasised the importance of the engagement that co-ops can generate on a local level, but one way or another, the powers that be have systematically tried to rubbish the report or ignore it. If you want a copy of the summary of the report, I can send that to you, but I'm not sure if it will help you.

As well as all this, particularly since the election of the Labour government in Britain, there has been a plethora of ideas about getting tenants involved in some way with the running of their local neighbourhoods, some of which is OK, but a lot of which is about getting good PR.

HAs, in particular, have been the hardest hit since the new government came in and have therefore come up with all sorts of ideas about getting tenants onto their boards, who generally play a pretty insignificant role there. In terms of stock transferred from LAs, theoretically this is an opportunity to get more tenants involved in the management of properties, and there is a particular vehicle that is similar to an HA, called a Local Housing Company (LHC) which was officially designated as having one third tenants, one third councillors and one third other odds and sods on the board. The problem with a lot of these transfers is that in order to make the economics stack up, they are usually very large, and to me, the problems experienced by LAs in the 1970s was due to them being remote landlords dealing with far too big a problem, and the same will happen with the new transfer vehicles and with the larger HAs.

The reason why I am telling you all this, is because I think you might have misunderstood what a tenant management organisation is and what the CCH does. We specifically represent housing co-operatives, which are very much tenant controlled housing organisations, but we also support and speak for any form of tenant control (i.e.. where tenants take their own decisions about how they want their housing run). Your Non-profit housing provider’ sounds very similar to some of the stock transfer scenarios we have over here where the economics of the situation are saying to councils that large chunks of stock need to be transferred together, and also they don't really want to relinquish power anyway, but on the other hand, they need to come up with some sort of tenant involvement strategy, because that is currently political flavour of the month, so they come up with some sort of pig's ear which usually doesn't work and tenants usually see it as the scam it is, and therefore don't really engage with it (apart from the sad buggers who are into it for the ego-trip).

Having said all of that, I'm not totally sure what we can do to help you. There isn't a good tenant representation system’ in this country, at least not on the scale you are talking about. I think that if there are 39000 properties in your housing organisation, the only way it could lead to some sort of real democratic system where ordinary people were properly involved then it would involve some sort of breaking the properties into smaller areas which ordinary local people could relate to, of something like 50-100 properties, and asking each of these areas what they want and how they want their housing run (i.e.. give each of these areas the opportunity to set up a housing co-op, or a tenant management organisation, or whatever they want, so that they all had some sort of local control - that's not to say that there couldn’t also be a centralised system of service provision, nor that the overall ownership wouldn’t remain with the larger organisation, but it might build a system of local autonomy, from which something better might grow).

In this country, I have heard many times about big housing organisations saying to tenant activists, you are not representative - and in order to be representative, you have to set up this that and the other thing - and then we might listen to you’. This is usually shorthand for "You disagree with what we are proposing to do to your homes, therefore we will only listen to tenants who agree with us."

I think there can be a problem of representation, where you do get some tenant activists who are really not speaking for the people who they should be representing, and somehow, we need to come up with ways in which representation is built up. But that process to find genuine tenant representation should be tenant-led, and unless you already have a genuine tenant democracy, I would say that there is no alternative to direct tenant elections to tenant positions on governing bodies. I agree that there should be structures built up underneath that, and the elected tenant representatives have a responsibility to try to build that, but the system that you are describing where a local area elects a representative to a local committee, who elect a representative to a regional committee, who elect a representative to the overall governing body, while being fine as a theory, cannot work in practice because no individual (apart from really sad buggers who have no other life) will have the time to be involved in all of this. In my experience this kind of structure is often proposed because the governing body really doesn't want tenant influence over its decisions. Therefore I agree with you and Toronto City Council that there must be direct elections to tenant positions on the governing body and anything else is a sham.

This enormous ramble probably hasn't helped at all. To my knowledge I am not aware of any large scale system of tenant democracy that has worked, with the possible exception of Denmark, which I visited many years ago, but it sounds like your social worker types are attempting to set up a system similar to that. A lot of these things can work if there are staff who have the right attitude towards it, and if it is a scam then it won't work.

Yours Nic Bliss

I also had conversations with someone who runs a small cooperative in Australia, and said he was an anarchist. He is a much different type of Anarchist than the shits in Toronto. He said;

I found the letter from Nic Bliss of the UK Council on Co-op housing quite interesting. I'm a member of a housing co-op in Australia, currently also President of the Tasmanian Co-operative Housing Development society, representing 8 small housing co-ops in Tasmania.

The development of housing associations is obviously a lot further advanced overseas than it is here. In Tasmania housing associations has, until the last couple of years, meant small local community housing providers, mostly providing housing to aged people. Lately there has been a push for larger, state-wide housing associations, usually set up by the Salvation Army or such-like, to which the state housing authority transfers housing stock. These organisations manage the stock under an agreement with the housing authority.

Housing co-ops for low income tenants have been developing in Tasmania for over ten years, under auspice of federal funding administered by the state housing authority. Here in Tasmania housing co-ops are fully self-managed, and largely autonomous, that is to say they do not depend on continuing patronage from government because they receive only capital funding and then must depend entirely on rental income. They are also quite small (the largest has about 24 properties.)

Other Australian states have very diverse arrangements. This is because the Federally-funded Community Housing Programme under which many housing associations and housing co-ops were set up is administered by state housing authorities. Not only does this result in different arrangements in different states, but as governments in each state changed over the years, or the bureaucratic personnel changed, some states have implemented several different systems within some states.

I was struck with Nic Bliss's comment that tenant controlled rental housing is demonstrably the most efficient and cost effective system for administering public housing. Though this varies here in Australia. It needs to be noted that the most efficient system is the one we have here, small co-operatives. The advantage of small co-ops is that the small workload permits small autonomous co-operatives to manage the housing stock without a need to employ paid administrative staff. If co-ops get too large then the workload forces the organisation to employ someone to do the work, inevitably this also leads to decision-making becoming more professionalised and remote from the tenants who theoretically are supposed to be in control. So the co-op becomes less of a co-op and more hierarchical.

I understand that some, or perhaps many, larger (100-odd properties?) housing co-ops in Canada manage to operate with voluntary workers doing all the admin though. It would be interesting to get some feedback on how that works and how common it is?

We have also experienced the syndrome that Nic mentioned of "the powers-that-be" refusing to acknowledge the efficiency and superior cost-effectiveness of small autonomous co-ops. Despite several professional management consultant reports commissioned by the housing department itself having identified this, the powers that be have kept up with intermittent pressure for co-ops in Tasmania to merge or centralise the management of housing stock. The same has happened in other states, in South Australia for example all co-operative housing is now under the centralised control of a statewide statutory authority, which has had the positive result of a big boost to the numbers of dwellings, but at the cost of a crushing and unsustainable debt burden and lack of autonomy for local co-ops who have to do everything according to the rules set down by remote bureaucrats.

Because of our efficiency, co-ops in Tasmania are able to finance 20% of the capital costs and 100% of the recurrent costs of social housing under their control. Although the federal Social Security system does provide a form of ongoing subsidy, in the form of Rent Assistance, payable to tenants receiving welfare. The maximum Rent Assistance people on welfare or low income working families are eligible for varies between about $35 (for single pensioners) to $50 pw for families with 3 or more children.

Despite this, the state housing authority are now preferring to fund large housing associations which require 100% capital funding and at least some initial funding of administration. But then here, as everywhere, economic common sense is not the strong point of housing authorities. Housing authorities all operate a substantial recurrent deficit, that is their rental income doesn't cover even the cost of maintenance, administration, etc.

So they are keen to get involved in transferring their housing stock to organisations like the Salvos. Though there has been some problems resulting from some of the charities being disappointed when the housing authority tries to fob them off with the worst of their properties.

Bill Bartlett

here is some further back and forth

You want feedback about co-ops in Toronto, or social housing in general?

Feedback on social housing in general in Canada is good. I'm trying to understand a little of the context, your list is helping with that. On co-ops specifically is what I was asking for though. I'll check out those websites. [...]

That's a big problem everywhere it seems. I have reached the same conclusion as you, such people fuck up co-ops. The core concept is self-management, control of your housing, if people don't want that then you don't have anything. You can lead a horse to water, etc.

But the expectations themselves is quite unrealistic. The idea is self-MANAGEMENT, in other words democratic control. That is not the same as do-it-yourself. I've also seen many people get the two concepts confused, almost as if they can't even *conceive* of the idea of self-management.

The other thing that needs to be noted is that there has to be a proper structure in place to facillitate democratic self-management. As you mention, a certain degree of equality is necessary - though I don't agree that complete equality of income is essential. A housing co-op is not a whole economic system, it is only a system for providing housing. I think the crucial issue is that the the co-op has to be able to afford a decent quality of service to everyone out of its income.

Clearly a co-op which is predicated on the fantasy that it can do things on the cheap by a do-it-yourself structure is deliberately putting itself in a position where it can't provide an adequate housing service.

It can either provide an *inadequate* service to everyone, or a good service to some and a bad service to most. Not a formula that seems likely to foster co-operation, in fact such a model guarantees that members must do the exact opposite, they must compete to try to be the ones getting the good service. Competition and co-operation are mutually-exclusive models.

In other words, the minimum pre-condition for a co-operative to function is that there to be enough for everyone. The same rule for a socialist society, there has to be enough for everyone for it to work, equality of misery is not something that human being aspire to or are willing to put up with. Equality of plenty on the other hand... that is the human spiration. [...]

Of course, my building, non-profit social housing, has the same problem. Over there the rules of co-ops in Ontario forbade them to hire security guards.

You just touched on somthing of great interest to me. What the fuck are the rules of co-ops in Ontario? These comments of yours suggests to me is that co-ops in Ontario are merely puppets of some larger agency. This is something that is developing in Australia too (though not in Tasmania yet, as we're quite backward here). In fact I am currently in communication with a woman from a co-op in Queensland which looks like it will soon fold as a result of all the rules and regulations which are being imposed on it from outside. One of the things my correspondant told me, which stunned me, was that the state housing authority in Queensland even puts a ceiling on how much the co-op can spend on maintenance. Only allowed to spend $1,000 per year per property, even though they have an overflowing bank account.

My co-op spends twice that on maintenance. It almost seems as if the housing authority were deliberately trying to sabotage co-ops in Queensland, by imposing an artificial degree of scarcity and thus competition. (perhaps they share your misguided belief that all Queensland need is a mango tree to sleep under ;-) [...]

I think that would vary. 50 might be optimum for units that are in very close proximity, like 50 units in the one building, but if it were 50 separate houses, spread out across different suburbs or even differnt towns (like my co-op) then 50 would be difficult to manage. The idea is to try to avoid professional management too, I think. Pay contractors to do maintenance work, but once you start paying someone to manage you, they'll probably do just that. Maybe a big co-op could contract out book-keeping though, to an accounting form, that would take away the biggest administrative burden and the co-op could keep up with property management for 50 or so properties.

It is crucial that actual management be done by residents democratically. You can't hire a worker to be a property manager and retain democratic management but you can't be a co-op if you don't all take joint responsibility for actual management decisions.

That principle is terribly important, it is a point overlooked by idiots such as Lenin with tragic consequences. But I think it needs to be pointed out that co-ops are not a complete economic system, they are only set up to provide housing, so the economic equality between members outside that sphere are not always relevant. The housing has to be affordable of course - to every single member, if that is what you mean by it being necessary to achieve a minimum average standard of wealth, I agree. But I wouldn't agree that every member of the co-op needs to be necessarily in the same economic class. You take account of income. Adjusting income is more logical and efficient, but somewhat outside the control of a mere housing co-op - that is the task of a future socialist revolution.

And it is very important that it also be a good quality of housing. Not minimum quality, not luxury quality either, GOOD quality. That satisfies people's basic needs. There must also be some realistic opportunity for people to be able to go on improving their housing environment (opportunity for improvement seems to be a basic human psychological need). And they need to be able to feel secure, if the internal politics of the co-op are perceived as a possible threat to their security, then any rational person will try to exercise control over (rather than co-operate with) others. But if not threatened personally, then trying to dominate other people is irrational behavior, the product of a sick mind.

So what I'm saying, in general, is that there are pre-conditions which are essential to a co-op. I'm trying to understand more about what they are, what the pitfalls are.

I would like to know more about this, it hasn't been the lesson that I have drawn, though I have seen some problems. To me it has seemed that the problem is resolved by the fact that middle-class members of co-ops have tended to drift away, they have other options, greater choice of housing and also of course they just tend to move more in line with employment. Perhaps though this is because I live in Tasmania (a "rust-belt" state)?

Yes, our co-op charges rent at 25% of income. But we also have a minimum rent system. We've just had to increase the minimum rents substantially to remain viable in fact, which created some tensions. Mainly this was because, over time, the proportion of single and low-income tenants in the co-op has increased substantially. Like I mentioned - middle class people are more likely to leave the co-op because of work opportunities or because they have more attractive housing opportunities. Low income and single people hardly ever leave. So we have just had to bite the bullet and plug the financial hole.

Of course, if we were in some kind of regulatory straight-jacket and unable to fix the problem, we would just have gone broke or become a slum landlord unable to properly maintain the properties. If a couple of our members had had their way we would have done that anyhow, they would have preferred to see the co-op go broke rather than pay higher rent and it took me 3 of arguing the necessity, while our financial reserves dwindled to less than zero, to convince the rest of the members to simply over-rule the minority who refused to agree.

What finally won the day for my argument was not my charm or perspicasity though, but the fact that our cheques were starting to bounce. ;-) And I had a detailed plan ready.

Most tenants of my co-op are subsidised, though by rent assistance which is paid by the government to tenants themselves. Of course it is really a subsidy to landlords, but they don't get paid directly by the government. I understand the government in Canada pays it directly to landlords?

The sad part is that most members of my co-op received only minimal rent subsidies from the government because our tenants simply were paying too little rent to qualify. The increase in minimum rents was actually 75% subsidised by increased rent assistance. A $40 increase in rent payable got the tenant a $30 increase in rent assistance. Yet it still took me 3 years to talk them into it, unbelieveable but true!

Thought you got rid of that old Mac. Anyhow, if you can afford to let it waste memory on quacking it can't be that old. My ancient relic of a Mac thinks your young whippersnapper of a Mac ought to stop whinging.

Tim Rourke wrote:

[...]

The problem is not that they can't figure it out, the problem is they have different objectives in mind. Social workers are poverty police, they are trained in keeping the riff-raff under control. They do a lousy job of managing housing, but that is their cover, not their primary function. Their task is to manage the people in the housing, to keep us from controlling any part of our lives. From all accounts they are doing as good a job of that in Toronto as they are doing here.

Just imagine if they learned they don't need the 'economy', that they can manage their own lives? Those social workers have a very important job.

Bill Bartlett Bracknell tas

says wikipedia;

Bracknell is a small rural town in northern Tasmania, Australia. The town was established to serve the needs of the forestry industry but is now a centre for the local farming community. At the 2001 census, Bracknell had a population of 358.[1] Its economy is based on mostly dairy, livestock, and poppy production for the pharmaceutical industry. All the streets in Bracknell are female names.

Nearby towns are Bishopsbourne, Liffey and Cressy.

Bracknell has a post office, a take-away and a community hall.