Housing

Housing Poverty: Housing and Dependency Report |Published 02 December 2008

The 134-page report charts how many of the stable and prosperous working class communities of the 1960s and 1970s have degenerated into sink estates trapping their tenants into lives on benefits from which few ever escape. It proposes incentives designed to reduce welfare dependency and enable the poorest families to begin to acquire assets and join the mainstream of society.

Click here to read the Housing Poverty report
Click here to read Executive Summary

Introduction

Britain is experiencing a housing crisis. Demand for housing far exceeds supply and the shortfall between supply and demand is growing. With housing increasingly unaffordable, owner-occupation is now out of reach for large sections of the population. Vulnerable people and social breakdown are ever more concentrated in our social housing stock. Rather than helping disadvantaged people out of poverty, social housing is all-too-often reinforcing their dependency.

Everyone aspires to live in a decent home in a safe community. We believe that this is achievable. Increasing the supply of housing in the social, private-rented and owner-occupied sectors must be central as part of a wider solution. However Britain’s housing problems cannot be solved by building alone. As well as providing shelter for the most vulnerable, social housing must better encourage and reward hard-work and positive choices.

Housing Working Group Brief, 14 November 2007

• The rate of employment related mobility within social housing is strikingly low. Nationally, 1 in 8 moves is associated with work, but only a few thousand social tenants each year move home for job related reasons.[i]
• The national shortfall is currently over 50,000 homes every year (with nearly 210,000 new households being formed in England compared with little more than 150,000 new homes built).[ii]
• More than one million homes in Britain are unfit for human habitiation – and yet more than 90% of these are occupied. [iii]

“I do want to go to work. I don’t like sitting on the couch all day…[but] I’m scared to get off benefits. It kind of gives you a security blanket. You know your rent is being paid, you know your council tax is being paid... When you go back to work, they cut it all.”
Single mother claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, speaking at CSJ focus group hosted by Tomorrow’s People, Hastings, 21 April 2008

“The people you’re talking to at the job centre or the housing office... don’t even know what they’re doing. Half the time they put you in a muddle and once they’ve made a mess of it they can’t iron it back out... So you’re running around like a headless chicken. You don’t want to muck around with your benefits... because you’re going to end up in arrears. And if you end up in arrears, you get thrown out of your house.”
Long term unemployed woman, speaking at CSJ focus group hosted by A4e, Plymouth, 10 March 2008

1. The law should be changed so that local authorities are free to use new social housing, and existing social housing as it becomes vacant, as they see fit.
2. The current homelessness obligation must be changed so that authorities are required to assess the housing and other social needs of people who present as homeless, focusing on the underlying causes of their homelessness. Their emphasis must be to agree an appropriate package of support to meet those needs in a holistic way.
3. We must secure a wider mix of tenures, and through this incomes, on failing social housing estates. Wherever possible this should be achieved by using the surplus land often found on such estates for market housing, accompanied by open market sales of existing social housing. In high demand areas the receipts should be reinvested in social housing elsewhere to avoid a net loss.
4. Getting people from welfare into work should be a first principle of government, and the drive to encourage social and economic mobility should be the key focus of all agencies working with the poor and families in need.
5. There should be a requirement that new working age tenants and their landlords sign commitment contracts under which the tenant agrees actively to seek work and the landlord agrees to provide or access support such as training or childcare to help them do so.
6. We need to differentiate the offer. Those who are able to meet their own housing needs could access services themselves, or manage their own homes, as in the private sector.

Kent No Use Empty Initiative

The initiative was originally launched in East Kent in April 2005. Following its successes in East Kent it was expanded in 2008 to cover the whole county. It is a partnership between Kent County Council and the district councils that brings together the powers and expertise of housing, building control, environmental health, council tax and legal service officers. The initiative provides training, support and guidance to empty property officers, backed by a £5 million fund providing subsidised loans to owners willing to renovate empty homes for sale or rent, and funding necessary works on homes where owners fail to act, recovering these through charges on the properties. Owners of empty homes are offered free advice on the options available to them and guidance on issues such as renovation, letting and grant funding. Where appropriate interest free loans are provided.

Where support and guidance prove ineffective enforcement action is taken, using the threat of empty dwelling management orders, compulsory purchase orders or enforced sales. In addition to increasing the availability of affordable housing the initiative supports the regeneration of communities by removing eyesores which devalue neighbouring properties and attract anti-social behaviour, vandalism, graffiti and fly tipping. In its first three years nearly 500 empty homes were brought back into use.

“In Britain there are over five million homes owned by housing associations and local councils. They are often rented to people on low incomes, the elderly, or people with special needs. Rented housing like this needs people who will manage it and provide the services that its customers need. This is where the housing professional comes in. More than 150,000 people are employed in housing and housing management within the UK. Most of these work for local authorities and housing associations.”

Extract from A Career in Housing; What is Housing Work, The Chartered Institute of Housing.

CHAIRMAN

Kate Davies
Kate joined Notting Hill Housing in mid-2004 following roles as Chief Executive of Servite Houses and Director of Housing in Brighton and Hove. She also has experience in local government and the private and voluntary sectors. She has two degrees and qualifications in housing management (MCIH) and housing association development. She is particularly interested in families, parenting, equality issues and regeneration. 

WORKING GROUP

David Cowans
Group Chief Executive, Places for People

Cllr Angela Harvey
Chairman of Built Environment Overview & Scrutiny Committee, Westminster City Council

David Ireland
Chief Executive, Empty Homes Agency

Dr Peter King 
Reader in Social Thought, De Montfort University

Ferdinand Mount
Author and former head of No.10 Policy Unit

Malcolm Offord
Partner, Charterhouse Capital Partners

Dr Mark Pennington
Senior lecturer, Department of Politics, Queen Mary, University of London

Cllr Lee Rowley
Deputy Cabinet Member for Communities & Economic Development, Westminster City Council

Cameron Watt 
Deputy Director, the Centre for Social Justice