Housing: creative solutions

The horrific death of George Floyd in May 2020 and the subsequent Black Lives Matter movement shone a spotlight on systemic discrimination within organisations. Since then many have been examining their roots to identify whether they are founded on racism. Social housing has that same responsibility, and it may help us understand why racial discrimination persists in current activities and practices.   The Transtlantic Slave Trade saw 12 - 12.5 million people transported from central and west Africa to the Americas where they were put to work growing crops such as sugar, cocoa, coffee, cotton and tobacco. As property, the people were considered merchandise or units of labour, and were sold at markets with other goods and services.   These crops generated vast wealth for many traders in Europe, and from 1769 to 1853 Britain dominated. After the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 the following decades saw slave trading gradually reduce. How could this atrocious period in our hi...

  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, “...

  Government intervention has inflated house prices to unsustainable levels; a crash is now predicted - and those on lowest incomes will suffer. The Conservative ideological obsession with home ownership, and antipathy to social housing, blinds them to the need for a balanced housing market that supports the needs of both the poorest and of business. Help to Buy was exposed in June 2019 by the National Audit Office (NAO) and excoriated on Left Foot Forward. It’s worth repeating some of that analysis again, Around three-fifths of those using Help to Buy could have bought a property without it, over 8,000 of those using the scheme had household incomes over £100,000 and more than 20,000 had incomes over £80,000. 1 in 5 of those using Help to Buy aren’t even first-time buyers. It’s boosted the profits of Britain’s biggest property developers. And of course since then, the scheme has been extended to 31st March next year. The NAO noted then that the government had indicated that it ...

  Housing association tenants are more likely to be suffering from social isolation, threats to employment and exposure to Covid-19 in poorly paid jobs. Few realise that they’re also facing a rent hike. This Monday, social landlords increased their rents by 2.7%. Little wonder that pressure is growing to suspend rent payments to ease financial pressures. In countries implementing a lockdown, those renting their home are becoming more vocal on the possibility of rent strikes. Pressure is mounting across the globe and there are demands in Boston and New York in the US, South Australia and Canada . In the UK, rent strikes are being discussed in numerous major cities, notably in Islington in the capital. In Cheltenham, estate agents shop windows have been graffitied with slogans such as “Can’t Pay? Don’t”. One area where there is a greater degree of influence over rents is in housing associations. Following nearly 50 years of subsidy, these are wealthy organisations. In England, t...

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...

  8 facts you need to know about welfare reform This blog is simple. It gives facts that contradict commonly held and repeated views. It debunks the myths that we hear regularly. Print it out and keep it near you. MYTH 1. Keeping the rise in benefits to only 1% is fair because it hits shirkers, not workers. Fact: 60% of the reduction falls on in-work households. Why? Because the 1% rise - which equates to a real-terms cut - affects universal benefits like child benefit and tax credits like child tax credit. MYTH 2. Spending on benefits for those out of work is out of control. Fact: the majority of all welfare spending is on pensioners - 53%. Also, benefits for those out of work is less than a quarter of the total welfare budget. Second, on average, between 2000 and 2010, welfare spending grew annually, in real terms, by only 1.75% - compared to 5.5% in the 1950s and 1960s, and 3% in the 1980s. Third, benefit spending in 2011-12 accounted for 10.4% of GDP, lower than the mid-80s ...

 

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...