'A risk' or 'at risk'? Reconceptualising housing debt in a risk welfare society

In England, the economic circumstances of housing, employment and social change have served to create problems of housing affordability and sustainability which leave some within the clefts of social divisions. At the same time, the individualisation trend within housing and other areas of social policy is increasingly driven by notions of self-responsibility and risk which can contribute to such divisions. This paper suggests that social policy could be well served by reconceptualising the constitution of risk to recognise its multiple and situated identity and to question, rather than utilise, its associations with mechanisms of individual culpability. It is also suggested that, for housing policy, this requires a re-examination of the legal basis of housing contracts.