Living through housing policy changes in twentieth-century England: some implications for today

Abstract

There were signi fi cant changes in the housing sector in mid – late twentieth-century England that are now attracting research interest, in particular in terms of the extent to which these changes affected people ’ s well-being and participation in community life. Information about people who rented accommodation in the private sector is particularly elusive, not to mention those who moved into (and out of) home owner- ship. The story of one artist ’ s experience of changes in the private rental sector of the 1950s and of their sequelae is provided, based upon auto/biographic and histori- cal documents. This sets the scene for considering how these experiences might have been tied both to a sense of belonging in a community and a place, and resonate beyond this circumscribed story in the expanding and problematic private rental sec- tor of today. It concludes with an assessment of the value of an auto/biographical and historical research lens.