SOCIAL SECURITY Journal of Welfare and Social Security Policy Public Housing: The Failure and the Fight Guest Editors: Erez Tzfadia and Orly Benjamin Published by THE NATIONAL INSURANCE INSTITUTE OF ISRAEL July 2014 No. 94 EDITORIAL BOARD Jon Anson, Editor in cheif Daniel Gottlieb, Chairman Leah Achdut Orly Benjamin Aaron Cohen Abraham Doron Sylvie Fogiel-Bijaoui John Gal Miki Malul Shlomo Mor-Yosef Guy Mundlak Amir Shmueli Moshe Sikron Jochanan Stessman Yossi Tamir Review Editor: Nissim Cohen Managing Editor: Maya Orev-Attal Copy Editor: Hava Rimon Typesetting: Onit Computer Services Ltd. CONTENTS Editorial Introduction Erez Tzfadia, Orly Benjamin Excluded Citizenship: The Case of the Hidden Homeless Women Shlomit Benjamin Public Housing Policy among Project Renewal Neighborhoods in Israel Zvi Weinstein Disputed Public Housing: A Critical Reading of Judicial Decisions regarding the "Continuing Tenant" in Israeli Public Housing Neta Ziv, Anat Rodnizky When Welfare Services and Neo-liberalism Meet: Neo-liberal Ethics in Juridical Deliberations Concerning the Right to Public Housing Ella Glass Barriers and Resources in Activist Organizing of Low-income Neighborhood Residents Suffering from Housing Distress: The Case of the Bomb Shelter Settlement Roni Kaufman Summaries of the Main Articles Journal of Welfare and Social Security Studies vii Editorial Introduction A public housing policy which respects citizens’ right for housing, particularly housing in the areas where they grew up, has a fundamental role in promoting social justice. It moderates poverty or, when entrenched, intensifies it and its ramifications. For the last three decades the State of Israel has systematically neglected many of those in need of public housing, particularly in the inner cities. What we have tried to bring together in this special issue is the state-of-the-art academic research in Israel with the voices of those who have taken a persistent role of activism in this area since the 1970’s. Thus, next to studies looking into how policy has changed (by Zvi Weinstein), how the courts have changed their stance towards the right to housing (By Neta Ziv and Anat Rodnitzky in one paper and by Ella Glass in another), how past community activism remains important in this area (by Roni Kaufman) and how gender is salient for the understanding of the consequences of state neglect of its citizens (by Shlomit Benjamin) – we have included different types of articles, as follows: An interview with Prof. Lawrence Vale – an important voice among American scholars in this area – pointing out the defeat of low-income households by the current American housing policy. The activist Lital Bar presents an emerging issue in the Israeli public debate on the right to decent housing. Contrary to studies showing that most Israeli citizens support generous welfare expenditure, Bar responds to views heard in talkbacks and in newspapers stigmatizing and legitimizing the exclusion of those in need. Ran Cohen, an ex-MK who worked for the promotion of the 1998 law on public housing, explains the achievements of this legislation despite its drawbacks and its unintended consequence as a result of the lack of renewal of construction for this purpose. Doron Zabari, director of the "hell compartments of public housing”, presents the roadmap used by his team in the first step adopting the point of view of women struggling with front-line bureaucrats at housing corporations. Ella Glass brings the protocols of the people’s court which found the government and housing corporations guilty of the destruction of public housing in Israel, of a range of atrocities and neglect, of lack of transparency, accountability and proper procedures, of exerting bureaucratic terror and depriving citizens of their right to decent housing. Sapir Slutzker Amran viii Social Security adds to these convictions by analyzing five stories of women who experienced direct clashes with housing corporations but were not defeated; on the contrary, they became the leaders of political activism against current policy. One-time activists Shlomo Vazana and Dada Benisti were interviewed by Mijal Simonet Corech and Roni Kaufman, and their interviews are documented in this special issue for all future activists to follow their path, which was successful in promoting the 1998 legislation. The books reviews section presents several reviews of books on public housing. Erez Tzfadia1 and Orly Benjamin2 _____________ 1 2 Resident of, researcher and social activist in the Negev on topics of spatial policy and its social implication; head of and lecturer in Department of Public Policy and Administration in Sapir College; member of executive board of Bimkom – planners for planning rights, and in Voices in the Negev – Center for Training and Guidance for Social Change in the Negev. Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and at the Gender Studies Program. She's a joint Director of the Unit of Poverty Research of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Bar-Ilan University, board member of the Israeli Association of Women and Gender Studies and member of the editorial board of Social Security journal. She's also a social activist at the Coalition for Fair and Direct Public Sector Employment. Journal of Welfare and Social Security Studies ix Excluded Citizenship: The Case of the Hidden Homeless Women Shlomit Benjamin1 Homeless women embody in themselves the phenomenon of excluded citizenship, since their Israeli citizenship does not grant them the socio-economic rights that would ensure them a dignified existence and as a result they are de facto deprived of their political citizenship. Statistics tend to present a partial and very limited description of the gender characteristics of the homelessness problem in its Israeli context and show that the great majority of "street dwellers" are men. This data confirms the repeated feminist claim that these findings reflect only specific aspects of the social problem and depict blindness concerning its gender aspects, insofar as women experience homelessness in a different manner that isn't always visibly manifested in the public space. This way, the statistics in this field do not succeed in giving expression to a large number of women who are negatively affected by the housing public policy. A policy which does not provide homedeprived women's socio-economic rights and abandons them to repeated violence in the hands of men, landlords, housing companies, the police, the bullying of the execution office, the threats of separation from their children by welfare workers, in practice it condemns them to homelessness. The purpose of the article presented here is to examine the question of how, from the point of view of the "home deprived" women who were interviewed, are the experience of homelessness and the action roads accessible to them for the changing of their condition conceived by them. For this purpose I illustrate the gender aspect of the social problem through interviews with home-deprived single mothers with political awareness who were among the leaders of the social housing protest in the summer of 2011. I discuss the way these women, who are forced to rent apartments in the open market with minimal financial help from the Ministry of Construction and Housing, see in retrospective their own history as home-deprived single women working to obtain a house and the change that occurred in their consciousness and their consequent activities as a result of their participation in the protest. _____________ 1 Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel-Aviv University. x Social Security Public Housing Policy among Project Renewal Neighborhoods in Israel Dr. Zvi Weinstein1 The article describes and analyzes one of the core social issues of Israeli politics in recent years regarding the sale of public houses to their tenants. Public housing policy in Israel has undergone fundamental changes – from a universal and socialist policy during the 1950's and the 1960's to the neo-liberal and capitalistic policy of free market and privatization since 1977. These changes caused a widening of the social and economic gaps among different population groups. The limit quantity of nearly 60,000 units left to day is concentrated in 65 neighborhoods included under Project Renewal out of 94, correct to 2013. The central question of our discussion is whether the transformation of public housing dwellers in Project Renewal neighborhoods from rent to ownership status has contributed socially and economically to the neighborhoods' residents. The issue of public housing became one of the most significant social issues in 1998 when the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) discussed the Law of Public Housing initiated by Ran Cohen, at that time a Parliament Member. Unfortunately, the law was passed only in 2013 after long political debates and suspension procedures by the Law of Regularization. In between these two dates, in the summer of 2011, we witnessed a protest led by young people, followed by the Trachtenberg Committee and many suggestions by Knesset members and NGO's organizations on how to solve the issue. During the first 30 years since the establishment of the State of Israel, the central government adhered to the ideology of population dispersal of new immigrants and the creation of development towns. About 60%- 70% of public housing were built in periphery towns and remained there as a reservoir Since the early 1980's, Project Renewal encouraged residents to buy the apartments that they were living in as a policy aimed to prevent the emigration of the residents due to the physical and social deterioration of the neighborhoods and simultaneously enabling them to improve their quality of life by enlarging and _____________ 1 Project Renewal Coordinator, Ministry of Construction & Housing. Journal of Welfare and Social Security Studies xi renovating their buildings – a privilege that only owners deserve. More than 40,000 units were renovated as a result. The transfer from rent to ownership status continued over the years, reaching 72% in the 2008 population census. Still, in the long run, these changes caused further negative consequences: families who became more affluent migrated to the center of the country to find opportunities to raise their income, to achieve higher education and to find better jobs. The issue of public housing places a challenge to the government to ensure a proper standard of living in a period when disadvantaged populations struggle with difficulties caused by social service privatization, a decrease in public housing stock, a dramatic rise in housing prices and a widening of income gaps and poverty. The social, economic and political environment of the new government elected in 2013 – facing huge budget deficit and statements of social equity, social justice, partial implementation of Trachtenberg Committee recommendations, sectorial housing solutions, housing policy focused on central Israel and neglect of the periphery and a neo-liberal economy – caused great uncertainty. The accumulation of all these negative factors may produce a "social explosive bomb" at the national level. There is no a clear answer to the question posed above. On the one hand, the sale operations of public housing by the government benefited many families with significant improvements in their quality of life, but on the other hand, it did not stop the social and physical deterioration due to population composition changes, critical budget limitations on Project Renewal activities, privatization of housing policy and the instability of the government housing policy over the course of many years. Our conclusion is that the government must take responsibility for public housing policy through effective measurements of the economic, social, political and budget aspects of this policy. Public housing policy must be carried out according to a new model to provide a suitable standard of living to poor population groups by continuing to build public housing, to integrate social and public housing in new neighborhoods, to enable redevelopments on national land, to build affordable housing in Project Renewal neighborhoods, to update criteria for eligible citizens to public housing and to implement the Trachtenberg Committee recommendations. xii Social Security Disputed Public Housing: A Critical Reading of Judicial Decisions regarding the "Continuing Tenant" in Israeli Public Housing Neta Ziv1 and Anat Rodnizky2 This research analyzed approximately 250 judicial decisions between 2005 and 2013 in the magistrate, district and Supreme Court in Israel, adjudicating disputes between public housing tenants and public housing companies. The main issue in these proceedings was the status of the public housing tenants, many of whom demanded to be recognized as "continuing tenants" under the Public Housing (Purchase) Act. This legal status would enable them to continue living in a public housing dwelling following the death of the original ("contractual") tenant, usually a parent or grandparent. In some cases, recognition as a continuing tenant would entitle them to purchase their apartment at a significantly discounted price. This research continues a previous one that examined the struggle of public housing "second and third generation" claimants to secure their right to live in the family apartment following the death of the original tenant. The previous research drew a clear connection between the identity of these tenants and their original country of immigration to Israel. It explained the reason for a high correlation between the status of public housing tenancy and immigration from North African countries to Israel, mainly from Morocco, hence demonstrating the distributive effects of the legal status. The current research shows that the courts' tendency is not to recognize claimants who asked to be recognized as continuing tenants as a _____________ 1 2 Professor of law, Director of the clinical programs at the Buchmann Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University and academic director of the Housing, Community and Law Clinic. Clinical attorney in the Housing, Community and Law Clinic at the Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University. Journal of Welfare and Social Security Studies xiii distinguished social group; courts thus disregarded their historical and social characteristics (i.e., country of origin). In most cases, the courts adopted the formal narrative of the state (and public housing companies), which situates the continuing tenants in rivalry to those who are eligible for public housing but are on a "waiting list" for a vacant apartment. Hence, direct and specific competition is formed between two disempowered groups over a public resource. Such competition over the distribution of social resources is not created in other contexts, such as welfare, where there is no specific waiting list. The study suggests implementing the rights of continuing tenants in public housing in a broader manner that recognizes the historical and distributive features of this legal issue, and calls for expanding resources for public housing in Israel. xiv Social Security When Welfare Services and Neo-liberalism Meet: Neo-liberal Ethics in Juridical Deliberations Concerning the Right to Public Housing Ella Glass1 This article explores the ways in which moral and normative views affect juridical deliberations on the right to public housing in Israel. The findings are based on interpretative readings of 38 court verdicts issued in the last decade by various judges in different courts. An analysis of the verdicts reveals that courts in Israel acknowledge both the social purpose and importance of public housing and the socio-economic distress of the citizens in need of such housing. However, they reject most of the citizens' appeals. This article attribute this to a hybrid logic that underlines the verdicts, according to which in order to be entitled to public housing a citizen must act according to a normative model consistent with the values of neo-liberal ethics. This model relies on informal socio-economic criteria which are not met by the majority of the citizens who are in need of public housing. _____________ 1 Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University. Journal of Welfare and Social Security Studies xv Barriers and Resources in Activist Organizing of Low-income Neighborhood Residents Suffering from Housing Distress: The Case of the Bomb Shelter Settlement Roni Kaufman1 The article describes and analyzes the role of various barriers (personal, community, policy) and mobilized resources, in an organized effort by a group of low-income people to build an affordable cooperative housing project in their "childhood neighborhood". The case study occurred in a major urban development program in Israel which included a citizen participation component. The uniqueness of the case study was in the dramatic shift in mode of action from a self-help group to a political protest group. A conceptual framework was developed, based on both barriers and resource mobilization approaches. Based on the case study findings, the research discusses a number of theoretical and applied issues, such as the interaction between barriers and resources, their impact on modes of action and on the success of the organizing effort; the need for and contribution of citizen participation programs in light of the many barriers to their success; and the "price" that low-income groups "pay" for the institutional and political resources that they mobilize. The article recommends that housing efforts on the part of low-income people use both self help and social political modes of action, and that local housing struggles be linked to national housing struggles. _____________ 1 Spitzer Department of Social Work, Ben Gurion University of the Negev