Fixed term tenancies

Housing policy has travelled a long way from post war Britain. The modern approach was described by Housing Minister, Aneurin Bevan. When announcing major investment in building social housing he said he wanted to see places, “...where the doctor, the grocer, the butcher and the farm labourer all lived in the same street. I believe that is essential for the full life of a citizen... to see the living tapestry of a mixed community.”

Today, housing policy has regained its Victorian ethos; a tool used to divide. A scalpel is being applied to the ligaments that bind community. Where there is harmony, they bring discord. The gap between the haves and the have nots, the deserving and the undeserving poor, is growing wider. For individuals, that divide is increasingly difficult to breach.

Remember 2016. It is not just the year that for the first time the state permanently stopped subsidising the building of social rented housing, it is also the year that the undeserving were chased out of their homes. After previous voluntary arrangements failed to take off, legislation is now introduced to force councils to only offer fixed term tenancies - limited to between two and five years, with an extension to 10 years for some groups.

The legislation implicitly casts social housing as the exclusive preserve of those on benefits. Home ownership is seen as the default tenure for normal people; welfare housing is for the poor and deprived. Exposed in the Government’s ‘Lifetime Tenancies - impact assessment’ published this May, the main aims of the policy are to:

improve landlords’ ability to get the best use out of social housing by focusing it on those who need it the most for as long as they need it
ensure that those who need long term support are provided with more appropriate tenancies as their needs change over time
support households to make the transition into home ownership where they can

Statutory guidance will set out the circumstances in which local authorities will be expected to use tenancies of different lengths. 5 years will be the normal maximum (for households without children of school age), with 10 years applicable for those with longer term needs, such as older people, the disabled and their carers.

The justification for this policy is that 1.24 million households are on social housing waiting lists, 247,000 social tenants are forced to live in overcrowded conditions due to lack of suitably sized properties, whilst 338,000 households occupy social housing with two or more spare bedrooms. But instead taking a collective responsibility by building new homes, regulating the privately rented sector or changing preferential tax arrangements for home ownership, the individual must pay with the loss of their home. The assumption is that people only have a temporary need for the welfare safety net.

Young people in particular, will find it difficult to keep hold of a social housing tenancy. Already subject to the highest proportion of sanctions on their benefits, there is now the combination of the freeze on Local Housing Allowance and the benefit cap at £13,400 p.a. (outside London). For 35s and under only the shared room rate of benefit applies. For 18 to 21 year olds, all benefits for housing are removed completely. At least one housing association in England has already stopped housing those under the age of 36.

Many have serious concerns that this will inevitably lead to an increase in youth homelessness. Homeless charity Crisis reports that it’s already on the rise: 8% of 16-24 year olds report recently being homeless and in four years the number of young people sleeping rough in London has more than doubled.

Even those with a job and some money will struggle. Sky high house prices mean that many young people are locked out of buying a home. If you are young and lucky, it is generation rent; not so lucky, uncertainty, poverty, a shared home and the risk of homelessness awaits.

Comments

Leadership and Seductive Innovation

Whatever sector, whatever industry you are in, these are challenging times. It is all hands to the pump to find the right course. And for those fearing their very survival, it is understandable that the search for that new, powerful idea should dominate. But success will never lie in new technology alone; it is also critical to look in the right direction, not to get waylaid into seemingly seductive solutions. Look at the business and be honest, are a series of technological innovations likely? And if they are, will they make the impact on your industry that you anticipate? For service organisations in particular, constant technomania is probably an absolute distraction from the core business. Worse, it will beguile you into believing there is a promised land; that there is a magic bullet that will solve the organisation’s problems. The techno-fetishists earn their crust by promoting ever whackier and unachievable ideas. New jobs are being created, innovation labs are springing up. Cha...

A National Scandal: Empty Homes and the Housing Crisis

Everyone deserves a safe and secure place to call home. Yet in England today, a growing number of people struggle to access this basic need. While hundreds of thousands of properties sit empty, the housing crisis deepens. A Growing Problem, a Missed Opportunity But there's a glimmer of hope. Studies show that repurposing empty properties could create up to 40,000 affordable homes within four years. It wouldn't solve everything, but it would offer a lifeline to countless individuals on the brink of homelessness. This is a wasted opportunity. No one should face homelessness when solutions exist. Families with children are crammed into single rooms, forced to prepare for work in drafty cars, or uprooted from jobs and support networks due to a lack of affordable options. The government's inaction on empty properties is unacceptable. Long-term empty homes, vacant for over six months, have skyrocketed to over 248,000 – a 24% increase in just six years. This coincides with recor...

Shared Ownership - a housing market fix?

Shared Ownership has given homes to around 180,000 families and it’s claimed that it offers a third way, an opportunity to house many more at a lower cost, another tenure that broadens the landlord offer. Some housing association websites go further and claim “It’s about getting your foot on the housing ladder. It’s a great alternative to renting and perfect if you can’t afford to buy a house outright.” Really? Whilst housing associations like selling them, the experiences of the occupiers can be quite different. Higher entry costs, administrative charges, rents rising annually, plus the responsibility for all repairs can mean the worst of all worlds. Why do increasing numbers feel trapped in the tenure? “It’s a step on the ladder” , yet Cambridge University found ( 2012 ) that over 12 years only 27,908 had staircased to 100%, and in many rural areas freehold ownership is expressly prohibited. They concluded that many shared owners simply cannot afford to buy their property in fu...

Redefining acceptable conduct: Using social landlords to control behaviour

Abstract The 1996 Housing Act brought ‘antisocial behaviour’ within the remit of housing legislation for the first time. This legislation is directed exclusively at those living in council housing. There still remains uncertainty about the exact nature of ‘antisocial’ behaviour. This has implications for the reasons for outlawing it and for the application of this legislation. Using data from the British Crime Survey, it is argued that there is insufficient evidence of a growth in antisocial behaviour. This legislation is directed exclusively at those living in council housing. What appears to be occurring on local authority housing estates is that a combination of, among other things, high unemployment, high child densities and lack of public funding in community and associated facilities is resulting in higher rates of vandalism. The legislation, in reality, seeks to legitimise opposition to a range of previously acceptable behaviours. For publication click here . For complete ...

Our Housing Crisis: a tale of broken trust

Complaints to the Housing Ombudsman are on an inexorable rise , revealing a festering issue at the core of housing organisations. These repeated failures have seeped into the national consciousness, catching the attention of both the media and concerned citizens. Even politicians, typically ensnared in their own agendas, have been forced to take notice. We yearn for housing to be a central theme during this general election - a #planforhousing that couldn’t be ignored. And the public? Well, they’ve noticed too. Over the past few years, a relentless stream of reports has flooded in, painting a grim picture of subpar living conditions. In this financial year alone, the Housing Ombudsman has censured 48 social housing organisations with the allegation of severe maladministration. The Secretary of State has taken notice, penning stern letters to each offender. But this crisis didn’t emerge overnight. Yes, factors like right-to-buy policies, chronic underfunding, aging housing stock, and th...

Homing in on the public sector

Published in The Guardian, 8th February 1995

Who should cast the first stone?

Published in The Guardian 18th April 1998

Rents Hit Record Highs - it's time for controls

It’s time for an informed debate on rent controls. The laissez-faire, competitive market approach in the privately rented sector has demonstrably failed - as average private rents in Britain have climbed to record highs, renters are suffering and excessively high rents create a drain on the economy. Property website Rightmove has said that in May this year, the typical advertised rent outside London reached a record £1,316 a calendar month. In London it was £2,652 a month – almost three times the £894 asked for in north-east England. Rightmove said the average advertised rent outside London in May was an inflation-busting 7% higher than a year earlier. This leads those in the property industry with a vested interest to argue for an increase in supply. But it’s economically illiterate to believe that simply adding more privately rented housing will bring rents down. We need to look seriously at rent controls. Rent control policies vary widely across European countries, with ...

Time catches up with Eric Pickles

Eric Pickles has been in the news again. He’s a busy man. Almost exactly a decade before his reappearance, I attended ‘Herefordshire 2020: A Vision for the County’, a half day conference in Hereford. It was a brave attempt to demonstrate how the private and public sectors could work together for a positive future. The star of the show was the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who gave a bizarre and disturbing performance . The theme of Eric Pickles’ speech was that we need to get away from the central control of policy; we need to deregulate and stop the tick box mentality where there are regulations for everything. Make government officials with clipboards get a sense of perspective. On entering his department, he proudly told us, he gave his civil servants his three priorities; localism, localism and localism. “Localism will support growth and growth will support localism”. His confidence grew. To a Parish Councillor trying to achieve change he chided, “...

Green Ambitions, Stalling Reality: Can the Market Deliver Clean Energy?

Soaring renewable energy installations masked a harsh truth in 2023: the clean energy transition is faltering. Fossil fuel use continues to climb, with China shouldering most of the renewables burden. China's secret? State-owned companies prioritise national goals over profit, driving massive clean energy projects. The West, reliant on profit-driven private enterprise, struggles. Renewable energy offers modest returns, a stark contrast to traditional energy sources. Intense competition further squeezes profits. Subsidies keep the West's renewables afloat, but don't guarantee strong profits. As the Earth heats inexorably, Governments face a stark choice: accept the failure of the free market for clean energy, or embrace climate catastrophe

Housing: creative solutions

Search This Blog