No Evidence That Immigrants Have Preferential Access to Social Housing

Recent research has looked at the access of immigrants to social housing.  This is important because rents in the social sector remain substantially below those in the private sector, and the social sector offers much greater stability of tenure.  So social tenancies are very valuable to certain parts of the population.  Around a quarter of white British people in the UK feel that they are treated worse than people of other races by social landlords (councils and housing associations). This perception has varied a little over time but it has been consistently high. Such a level is extremely high – only the black community feel more discriminated against by parts of the criminal justice system than white people do by social landlords. Although most immigrants are likely to be eligible to apply for social housing, there is no evidence (once demographic, regional and economic circumstances are controlled for) that they have preferential access to social housing – if anything the reverse seems to be the case. Read more on the LSE website.