The global financial crisis of 2007-08 was triggered by sub-prime mortgage mis-selling in the US and the global sale of these debts as new bonds. Austerity programmes are designed to reduce the borrowing that governments undertook to stabilise failing banking systems but the UK's Coalition government is using 'austerity' as a cover to dismantle the welfare state. Housing is at the forefront of these changes. Mortgages and rental costs are rising as 'the market' dictates them, while people with low incomes now receive substantially less financial help from the welfare state. In this much-needed text by an experienced author with a policy background, current housing finance issues (and their history) are linked with broader social policy and political themes. It covers the finance of building and refurbishment, managing and maintaining property for all the different tenures (owner occupation, council housing, housing association and private renting), and discusses whether current arrangements are sustainable. Written for housing, social policy and politics students and staff, it is also accessible to anyone concerned about housing in Britain today.

Issues of 'difference' are on the agenda right across the social sciences, and are encountered daily by practitioners in policy fields. A central question is how the welfare state and its institutions respond to impairment, ethnicity and gender. This book provides an invaluable overview of key issues set in the context of housing. Touching on concerns ranging from minority ethnic housing needs to the housing implications of domestic violence, this broad-ranging study shows how difference is regulated in housing. It deploys a distinctive theoretical perspective which is applicable to other aspects of the welfare state, and bridges the agency/structure divide. Housing, social policy and difference: brings disability, ethnicity and gender into the centre of an analysis of housing policies and practices; offers a new approach to housing, informed by recent theoretical debates about agency, structure and diversity; develops the ideas of 'difference within difference' and 'social regulation'; looks beyond the concerns of postmodernism to create an original account of difference and structure within the welfare state. The book will be an important text for students and researchers in housing, social policy, planning, urban studies, sociology, disability studies, gender studies and ethnic relations. It will also interest practitioners committed to greater equalities of opportunities and a fairer society.

The global financial crisis of 2007-08 was triggered by sub-prime mortgage mis-selling in the US and the global sale of these debts as new bonds. Austerity programmes are designed to reduce the borrowing that governments undertook to stabilise failing banking systems but the UK's Coalition government is using 'austerity' as a cover to dismantle the welfare state. Housing is at the forefront of these changes. Mortgages and rental costs are rising as 'the market' dictates them, while people with low incomes now receive substantially less financial help from the welfare state. In this much-needed text by an experienced author with a policy background, current housing finance issues (and their history) are linked with broader social policy and political themes. It covers the finance of building and refurbishment, managing and maintaining property for all the different tenures (owner occupation, council housing, housing association and private renting), and discusses whether current arrangements are sustainable. Written for housing, social policy and politics students and staff, it is also accessible to anyone concerned about housing in Britain today.

Cathysweightlossdiary.co.uk was a popular website running from 2001 through to 2012 following the ups and downs (literally) of one woman's battle with weight, husband, children and life in general. Written with candour and humour it had people connecting in each week to see not only how the weightloss was going, but how Cathy's life in general was going. At times sad, often funny, it was nothing more than the truth and one that many people could identify with. Every page of the website was created from scratch by Cathy and eventually this just became too time consuming. The lure of Facebook and Wordpress drew her away and in 2012 the website was closed down. Because of the number of words written and the number of photographs taken, to do the website justice the book has been broken down into several volumes. This is Volume 1 and deals with the years 2001 - 2003.