the sutton model dwellings trust, 1900-1939
765
desirable option for a wide range of poor people; their design was an
advance on anything previously provided. The mobility of low-income
households was reflected in the high turnover of tenancies on Sutton
estates, but some, including the poorest, came to stay or to move within
the same estate. Distortions introduced by legal and political controls
were fundamental to the trust’s operations. Nevertheless, its contribution
to housing the poor was substantial. It offered significant numbers of
people at or below the level of minimum subsistence a real chance to
improve their standard of living. A Sutton tenancy increased their social
and economic capability and offered a flexible means of pursuing their
own ‘intricate pattern of survival’, not least when the critical ‘black spots’
of old age, unemployment, and parenting threatened to bring them
into want.68
University of Salford
68 The relationship between levels of income, access to resources, and ‘living conditions, and
functionings’ in determining poverty has been explored in Sen, ‘Standard of living, 1’ and idem,
‘Standard of living, 2’. On ‘poor strategies’, see Vincent, State and the poor.
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Economic History Society 2000