Dealing with ‘Unacceptable’ Tenants: British Housing Management and the Dutch Woonschoolen before 1939

What to do with unacceptable tenants? The question how social housing providers should deal with those they believed would behave too badly to accommodate is a long-running and controversial one. Even to frame the question uncontroversially is difficult. That opening sentence focuses explicitly on behaviour but often it was the alleged character defects of potential tenants that were identified. Historically labels and categories have been more readily applied and everyday language, of course, is often far more explicit. This post explores how public landlords have dealt with ‘those who through their lifestyle appeared to be unfit to live in the same building with other families’. (1) It will use British council housing as a known and significant comparator but focuses principally on the Netherlands where municipal authorities as well as housing associations addressed the issue far more bluntly, most notably in the woonschoolen – specially designated and discrete estates or…