The overall aim of the research is to document residence based initiatives to integrate immigrants into the United Kingdom . This report presents an analysis of the relationships between social housing policy, provision and practices and the integration of immigrants. The analysis is al so based on fifteen projects which cover the spectrum of types of initiatives in this area. Large scale immigration into the United Kingdom, largely from its overseas colonies, started in the late 1940s. Over the years since then, the scale and nature of dramatically. immigration has changed Today, the main flow of “immigrants” are migrants from the European Union. Immigrants from the former colonies were eligible for British citizenship until 1976, when de colonization was largely complete and there were immigrant Sections citizens. The main elements of change in social housing policy over the last 30 years have bee n stimulated by the need to reduce public sector debt and the need to address the deteriorating physical condition of older social housing stock. These aims have been pursued in the context of the increasing revisualization of social housing, which have concentrated the poorest population groups in the social housing stock.

Two broad policy approaches have been used to achieve these aims firstly, reorganizing the tenure structure of social housing and, secondly, centralizing the financial control of local authority housing. The end of the Fordism era meant that a large proportion of the skilled working class had achieved incomes which allowed them to become owner occupiers. Previously, this group had pre dominantly been local authority tenants. Rising vacancy rates in local authority housing, which constituted 95% of all social housing and 35% of all housing in 1971, led local authorities to seek their tenants among poorer groups who could not afford owner occupation. The reduced potential rental base led to the introduction of a central government financed rental assistance programme (housing benefits) and to an increased tendency among local authorities to reduce the physical maintenance of their stock, a substantial proportion of which was in need of major capital reinvestment to prolong its useful life.