Tenure Preference, Discourse and Housing Debt: Language’s Role in Tenure Stigmatisation

The British housing market has been characterised by a preference for owner-occupation which derives, in part, from the fact that there are many structural (primarily economic) forces that have resulted in tenants being increasingly marginalised. This is particularly true of tenants of local authority housing, which still makes up over 20% of the housing stock of Great Britain. While it may be possible to address these structural forces, and to propose programmes which may reduce the marginalisation, this paper seeks to address whether the stigmatisation of local authority tenants and of their landlords has now also become a problem of discourse itself. The paper seeks to examine this through the language used in relation to arrears of rent and mortgage payments, Drawing on interviews with both tenants and owner-occupiers, the paper suggests that the way in which individuals experience and talk about arrears is in fact relatively tenure neutral. Both owner-occupiers and tenants talked about their arrears in similar ways. This is then contrasted with how housing arrears have been portrayed in the print media. Here the portrayal of the causes and consequences of arrears is not tenure neutral. While owner-occupiers are portrayed as being the victims of forces beyond their control, and the institutional lenders are generally portrayed as seeking to minimise the impact of these forces on the individual borrower, the position for tenants is different. Here the individual is more often portrayed as feckless and a deliberate non-payer. Local authority landlords are similarly portrayed as inefficient at best and corrupt at worst. The paper concludes by suggesting that further marginalisation of those who are not owner-occupiers cannot be fully addressed without understanding that tenure neutrality is not only a question of economics but also one of language.