House property & its management

Of standards we have heard much in connection with new housing, and, quite naturally, nearly always of material standards—of the number of houses to the acre, the size and the number of rooms, the provision of baths and the like; but of personal standards little, although persons of experience know full well that, where there are difficulties, half the trouble, at a moderate estimate, could be removed by personal action. The experiment of the ownership and management of large numbers of houses by Local Authorities is not free from the hazards of democratic control; some in full sympathy with the experiment view it not without some misgivings, and the misgivings will not be without place if adequate measures are not taken for proper management.

It is timely, therefore, that we should be reminded of the most instructive experiment made during the last century in the management of house property, the work of Octavia Hill. Her experiment in house management would probably have by now won her many more practical followers had she been less of a social worker; but had she been less of a social worker she would never have made the experiment. There may still be a few of the comparatively small number of persons who know of her work who look upon it as an attempt to insinuate a District Visitor under the disguise of a rent collector. District Visitors doubtless have their place and season; but the aim of those who would follow in the footsteps of Octavia Hill, the Women Property Managers, is to manage property on a firm business basis, to make it pay (and they have shown that they can make it pay, more so in difficult circumstances than business management of a dull routine kind), and to carry out the work with knowledge and experience, with sympathy and tact, and with as reasonable a regard to the genuine interests of the tenants as of the owner. This is their aim, and, where person and place fit, their achievement.

Octavia Hill’s influence was great in this country; but it passed beyond its borders. One of the most interesting reports issued in recent years on the management of house property has been that of the Octavia Hill Association, at Philadelphia, who report the uniform success of management on the lines laid down by Octavia Hill.^[1] In Holland, also, her influence has been great; and at Amsterdam, for instance, all municipal house property, which is extensive, is managed by women who have been trained in her methods.

The ideal in these matters, I think, is self-management, where the tenants in a group of houses manage their own affairs with a social regard to their own real interests, an almost impossible result at the present time unless the tenants have a substantial financial stake in the property. We are very far indeed from this solution as yet, though every effort is needed towards achieving it; and one disappointing result of the State-assisted scheme of houses is the very poor showing made by Public Utility Societies. But a large measure of self-management is not precluded from the scheme of management on Octavia Hill’s lines, as, indeed, has been demonstrated in practice.

There should be no spirit of patronage in management; if, as happens, the tenant comes to look upon the property manager as a counsellor and friend, this should grow out of the business management and as an incident to it.

Octavia Hill and her successors did not work simply by the light of nature, or believe that women, as such, had a God-given aptitude for this business, though, house management being primarily a matter for the wife and mother, it naturally opens a field for which women should be well fitted. But the same need of instruction arises whether the management be by men or by women. The pupil has to be put through a severe course of training; she has to be versed in the most important facts of the law as to rents, landlord and tenant, and sanitation; she has to be acquainted with the defects which occur in houses, and how most economically to remedy them. Above all, she has to acquire that measure of firmness, tact and sympathy without which success is not likely to be attained. A pupil who is likely to be fully successful must have a goodly measure of that personal aptitude which, though difficult to test by any system of examination, is as vitally necessary as are the essential technical qualifications.

If the manager of house property is to give of her best, she must be trusted with ample responsibility and authority. If hampered by restrictions, if limited in authority, if not granted powers for selecting and dealing with tenants and the control of repairs, if she has to refer to superior authority, whether an employer or an official or a Committee, before action can be taken, there is not much hope, even under favourable conditions, of more than a bare success. Here lies one principal danger, equally of autocracy or democracy. It is not good business or sound sense to pay a person for duties and to relieve her of the real responsibility attached to them, including the risk of dismissal for failure.

In dealing with slum property the lessons of Octavia Hill’s work are exceedingly encouraging. Weary years must pass before there can be extensive demolition and rebuilding of slum areas. Are we therefore to lie resigned and allow these grievous sores to fester in our cities and towns?

In properly qualified management we have one at least of the keys to a temporary, if not a permanent, solution of the problem; and in this way we may effectively deal with the real evil. The ordinary method of clearance and rebuilding has often resulted too much in the shifting of the evil to another quarter, though it may be, happily, in a less concentrated form.

One incidental gleam from the reading of the papers in this volume is of the great advances which have really been made in housing conditions. We are apt at times, not without reason, to gird at the slowness with which the manifest evils around us are being removed, but it is well occasionally, for a proper sense of proportion and for reform itself, to be reminded of the great improvements which have been achieved.

It is important to bear in mind that the principles of trained management apply as much to privately owned as to public property. If the owners of properties in areas which are now classed as slums would but join together and employ for the common management of their property persons trained and with aptitude for the work, it is no exaggeration to say that within a few years a great transformation would be effected in the slum problem of London and of other towns, a transformation which would not only ease the manifold burdens of public authorities, but would be less irksome to the owners of the property and of untold benefit to its occupiers.

Equally important is it to remember that the methods of management associated with Octavia Hill are as pertinent for new property as for old—indeed, in some ways more so, for prevention is better than cure. She learnt her secrets in dealing with bad property, just as the scientist wrests his secrets from the pathological. Management of house property on the general lines laid down by her, adapted and developed, and, as I believe, with increasing emphasis on co-operative self-management, will help materially not only in the minor achievement of preventing property from degenerating into slums—and this, as experience shows, may well happen even with good and well-planned property—but in the greater achievement of attaining that higher standard of contentment and of pride of home and locality which should be the aim of all those who have the interests of the country at heart.

The following are some papers written by Miss Octavia Hill in connection with her housing work.

They are republished in the hope that her methods may be widely adopted in the efforts that are now being made to improve the very defective housing conditions in our cities.