WE SUPPORT CAMPAIGN TO HELP HOMELESS

The need is desperate

for social housing

It is something that most politicians agree on, yet not one of them gets to grips with: Britain needs much more social housing..

Now the influential social  housing magazine Inside  Housing is giving a lead and  in  a new campaign is  calling for the next government to do what is needed and build social housing.

“ We are calling for all political parties to insert a commitment to build substantial numbers of social rent homes into their manifestos at the next general election” says Inside Housing`s current issue

The magazine goes on:

“The reasons for urgent action to deliver better outcomes for people in need of stable housing are painfully obvious. To quote just a few: right now there are more than 100,000 households living in temporary accommodation in England including131,370 children,14,000 households, including 9,130 children in Scotland, 4,465 households or 13,000 people inWales, and almost 4,000 households in Northern Ireland.

 These figures have been rising steadily and represent a blight on the lives of children, individuals and families across the UK. They are unacceptable and need to ch

“We are calling for all the main parties in the UK to commit to a major programme of building homes for social rent in their manifestos for the next general election.

“We are calling for all parties in England to pledge to build 90,000 homes a year over the next decade, or 900,000 in total. And we are calling on parties in Scotland to commit to 7,700 homes for social rent a year and 4,000 homes for social rent a year in Wales, adding up to at least another 11,000 homes a year in total.

“Organisations such as Shelter and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) have made similar calls, and in 2021, research for the Association of Retained Council Housing (ARCH), the National Federation of ALMOs and the Local Government Association called for 100,000 new social homes a year.

“The figure we are using in Scotland is essentially a commitment to deliver on the figures in the existing Programme for Government and in Wales it is in line with the Welsh Government’s existing target to deliver 20,000 social homes for rent during the current Senedd term.”

Carlisle Tenants` and Residents` Federation which publishes this blog has for many years called for much more social housing and campaigned on the  inadequacies and failures of the present social housing structures, particularly the failed  housing associations.

A Federation spokesman said :”Congratulations to Inside Housing. Good luck with your campaign”.

 

 

 

 

 

MINISTER NAMES AND SHAMES LANDLORDS

 

 Gove`s `extreme concern`

for tenants

 Housing secretary Michael Gove keeps up the pressure…He has now written to 14 social landlords over severe maladministration findings and a  breach of regulations.

In the letters to chief executives, Mr Gove criticised their failings and said he will be “taking a personal interest” in how the landlords, including seven councils and seven housing associations, continue to deliver their responsibilities to residents.

Failures like these have been ignored for far too long. Carlisle Tenants` and Residents Federation which publishes this blog has been campaigning against similar failures by Liverpool based Riverside Housing Associaiton  for about a  quarter of a century.

But the grossly inefficient, bossy and undemocratic Riverside carried on regartdless because that massive organisation is a law  only to itself.  Since Mr Gove`s appointment, things have changed  considerably down by the Riverside.

The seven housing associations, all of which were written to for previous findings of severe maladministration, include Sovereign, Hyde, Metropolitan Thames Valley. PA Housing, Peabody for findings against Catalyst and Notting Hill Genesis and Inquilab 

Ealing,Westminster,Tandridge, Nottingham, Milton Keynes and Lambeth councils all received a letter highlighting details of severe maladministration findings by the Housing Ombudsman. While Camden was pulled up for breaching the English regulator’s Home Standard.

As part of sweeping social housing regulation reforms, Mr Gove has vowed to name and shame landlords that fail to meet standards.

He has been writing to landlords and publishing letters since May  last year. 

Failures highlighted in the newly published letters include significant delays in complaint responses, vulnerable residents living in disrepair for months, a new born baby living in damp and mould, and a disabled tenant’s property needing 120 repairs.

Several landlords had previously already received letters, including Lambeth Council, whose most recent severe maladministration finding involved a family living in damp and mould for six years.

 

  It was also Mr Gove’s second letter to Ian McDermott (pictured), chief executive of Peabody, for a double maladministration finding for Catalyst after a disabled resident and her child were left in a mouldy home for 19 months. The housing secretary had previously written to Mr McDermott when he was the boss of Catalyst.  

In the case of PA Housing, Mr Gove wrote that he was “extremely disappointed” to be writing to the landlord again, describing two further findings of severe maladministration as “extremely concerning”. 

“In the second case, you took a staggering 585 working days to respond to a stage two complaint a resident made concerning a faulty roof,” he wrote. 

“You failed to acknowledge or offer an apology for your failures and, again, did not consider the impact your failures had on the resident. This is simply not acceptable.”

 Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277

 

FUNDING BLOW HITS SOCIAL HOUSING

Why they struggle  to help the homeless

Michael Gove, pictured, wants to build more social rented housing.In fact, he thinks it is “unconscionable, indefensible” that people in work are relying on low-quality temporary housing and wants 30,000 social rented homes a year to start turning the tide. 

These were the comments the housing secretary made in a recent interview with ITV News  saya an article in in the social housing magazine Inside Housing

 

 The article goes on “Well-informed readers need no reminding of these numbers. But just for the record, when the Conservatives came to power as lead partners in the coalition government in 2010, there were 39,562 social rented homes being built every year and 49,680 households in temporary accommodation. 

“Last year, we built 7,644 social rented homes and now have 101,300 households in temporary accommodation. 

“The reduction in social rented homes is solely and completely to do with the government’s decision to stop funding them in 2010. While Mr Gove’s colleagues will doubtless brand this among the “difficult choices” they had to make at the start of their reign, it has also undoubtedly been a political one.

“In the interview, Mr Gove took credit for a renegotiation of Affordable Housing Programme funding which will see it deliver 30,000 social rented homes over the five years to 2026. 

“But this remains a historically low figure – owed as much to Theresa May as it is to Mr Gove. It is around half the number of homeownership products the programme will produce and comes at about one-twelfth of what most experts think the requirement is in England to meet demand.

“As “indefensible as it might be for families to live in temporary accommodation, the cabinet in which Mr Gove serves evidently does not agree. Otherwise it may feel inclined to raise Local Housing Allowance rates, which  have slipped to the lowest 18 per cent of the local rental market and make it nigh on impossible for local authorities in high demand areas to find permanent housing for their homeless families.”

   Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277

EXECUTIVES GET DOUBLE THE AVERAGE PAY

Greedy housing bosses lose their way

 With their bosses earning twice that of other charities, have housing associations lost their social purpose? asks Andrew Kersley, pictured, in an article in the publication, Byline Times.

 The UK’s 13 biggest housing associations paid their executives over £22m with bosses earning almost double the average for the UK’s biggest charities says the article

 

 Analysis of annual accounts for the members of the G15, the group of the UK’s biggest housing associations, found that their chief executives earned netted some £3.9m between them, or an average pay packet of around £300,000.

Meanwhile, the average salary at the UK’s 100 largest charities, was just £175,000. Pay at major housing associations outstripped the pay for the heads of some of the country’s biggest charities, including Mind and Cancer Research UK.

Non-executives, meanwhile, earned almost £2.5m last year usually for giving the 13 firms a few hours of advice a month.

The findings have led housing campaigners to warn that the nominally ‘non-profit’ housing associations have lost their “social purpose” and were wasting money even as many were failing to give thousands of their tenants a “decent home”. 

Housing associations are private non-profits that run 63% of social housing in the UK – accommodation linked to local incomes in order to make it affordable for those on average incomes or using benefits. 

But the G15 housing associations in particular – including L&Q, Clarion, Peabody, MTVH and Notting Hill Genesis – have been the subject of constant scandals in the past two years over the poor quality of the homes they offer their often vulnerable tenants.

Byline Times previously found the biggest private providers of social housing are registering billions of pounds in surpluses – despite the record numbers of tenants reporting damp, mould and other disrepair in their homes.

This blog which is published byCarlisle  Tenants` and Residents Federation has frequently  campaigned agaunst the very excessive surpluses  and  grossly excessive pay to executives of the Liverpool-based Riverside Housing Association

 Andrew Kersley`s article continues:The three highest-paid G15 executives worked for Peabody, Clarion and L&Q, and all netted over £320,000 in pay and bonuses last year, with the highest-paid directors at Peabody earning £438,000 in pay and bonuses.

One Housing Group – which was recently taken over by fellow housing association Riverside in search of  "financial resilience" – paid over £1.7m across its leadership team in pay and bonuses last year, one of the highest rates in the G15.

Pay has stayed steady for executives at the 14 ‘non-profit’ housing providers and did not significantly drop between last year and the year before. 

“It’s just another symptom of the fact that major housing associations have lost their social purpose,” says Suzanne Muna, the secretary of the Social Housing Campaign Group.

“If you look at the traditions and where these associations come from their founders would be horrified”. 

Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on 01228 522277

 

 

SADIQ KHAN SHOWS THE WAY FORWARD

 

 New council house revolution

on the way?

Welcome news  from London: the Mayor Sadiq Khan (pictured) has cleared his target of 20,000 new council housing stsrts by 2024 a year early – with 10,000 starts last year alone. 

 

  Lower-income families who have been increasingly frozen out of the capital’s housing market ar those who will benefit most. The news  also shows shows that a return to mass council homebuilding is possible if the policy environment is right.

Councils can grow their stock through acquisition as well as new build, and it was interesting to see one London borough (Lewisham) reveal the positive results of its programme top buy back council homes sold under the Right to Buy.

Obviously this represents an overall loss to the public purse: a home built by public expenditure, sold at a discount and then purchased again at full market value. But it is a quick and sensible way to grow a council’s stock of available housing, providing homes that are already situated.

Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is availableon 01228 522277