In his path-breaking book Social Justice and the City the eminent geographer David Harvey (1973) observed that ‘the rich command space; the poor are trapped by it’. A similar observation applies to contemporary housing markets: those able to command resources have unprecedented levels of choice and opportunities for consumption, while the poor and marginalised within society are confronted by an increasingly regressive system of housing provision. The retreat from direct government intervention in housing supply is evident in many nations (already discussed in Chapter Three), and the move to ‘workfare’ models of welfare has coincided with a crisis of housing affordability in many nations that has squeezed the most vulnerable within society. The consequences for individuals and households have been devastating, with large-scale mortgage default and foreclosure in the US, a growing incidence of eviction in Australia, the persistence of inadequate and unhealthy housing in New Zealand, and ongoing social exclusion on large social housing estates in the UK.

For many at the bottom of the housing market or system of social housing supply there are no good choices available and they are confronted by an ongoing churn through the housing market as they shift from one precarious housing arrangement to the next. Whole groups within society are affected by these processes, and this chapter examines the housing transitions of the marginalised within contemporary developed economies. In particular, it considers those trapped within precarious housing before moving on to consider the housing fate of workers made redundant from the automotive sector. Finally, the chapter examines the housing transitions of immigrants in the UK, Ireland and Australia in order to shed light on the intersecting impacts of social policies, cultural factors, social mobility and the structure of housing markets.

Precarious housing and movement through the market

Precarious housing has received relatively little direct attention from housing researchers, although the individual components of precariousness have been examined in detail. In part, the issue of precariousness has been examined as a matter of security of tenure, and prior research on this topic has considered the legal entitlements and obligations associated with differing tenures across jurisdictions. Precariousness, however, is much larger than the simple presence or absence of a set of legal protections. Instead it reflects a history of movement through the housing market that is marked by frequent, involuntary relocation, often into housing that is insecure, of poor quality and/or unaffordable.