Memorandum by Karen Buck MP (SRH 13)
The shortage of supply of social rented accommodation
(and affordable, family sized intermediate accommodation) has
left areas such as my own, in inner London, in a crisis of unmet
housing need, demonstrated by figures for homelessness and over-crowding.
It is hard to overstate the damage that is being wreaked on families
and vulnerable individuals, which in turn impacts negatively upon
community cohesion (racial tension aggravated by the competition
for scarce resources), health and well-being and educational achievement.
The key issues I would like to draw the Committee's
attention to are:
1. LEVELS OF
UNMET HOUSING
NEED
"I am writing this letter because I am
glad that you took care of those children that needed help but
now I am talking about myself, now I need your help. Me and my
brother and my mum live in a 1 bed flat. I am having to share
a room with my mum and my brother. I have no space to study or
to play. I got no room and I don't have any privacy to get changed.
Please can you look into our case. There are so many empty houses
next to my house. Why can't we have one of those houses?"—Extract
from a letter written by the son of one of my constituents.
There are currently 5,500 households on the
waiting list. In addition:
(a) Overcrowding
Westminster now has one of the highest levels
of overcrowding (in the council sector) in the UK. This is, in
part, because of high demand, and the borough's position as an
"area of arrival" for internal and external migration,
but even more because of the declining supply of affordable housing.
An assessment carried out under the new Housing
Health and Safety- Environmental Health of the M family stated
"...this housing association owned house consists of two
bedrooms, suitable for three occupants. Mr and Mrs M occupy the
house with their four children, girls aged 14 and 8, and boys
aged 12 and 1. This assessment has resulted in likelihood of a
harm outcome of 1 in 18... this means that a Category 1 hazard
exists at the premise". The council has issued a suspended
prohibition order prohibiting the use of the dwelling to be suspended
for six months.
The Housing Association's response was to say:
"Since April, we have only had three four bedroom properties
and one three bedroom property... all of them were in Brent and
the council had nomination rights... unfortunately, we are unable
to give Mr M greater assurances as to when he may receive an offer
of alternative accommodation... neither Westminster nor ourselves
are able to give firm time frames as to when he will move"
The B family are in a one bed-room flat. Mr
and Mrs B have three sons aged 17, 15 and 11. In reply to queries
the Council stated: "The family have been statutorily overcrowded
for the last two years... the quota for statutorily overcrowded
families has been met for this year... so it may be some time
before they are re-housed". When bidding recently for a property
on the Maida Vale estate, their bid was placed 21st out of 209
and they were not short-listed"
According to the Survey of English Housing 2005,
levels of overcrowding in Westminster affected 12 households in
every 100 in wards such as Church Street, Queen's Park and Westbourne.
The highest levels in the country can be found in Newham (where
25% of households are affected in the Green Street Wards), Tower
Hamlets (20% in the Spitalfields Ward), and Hackney (15% in the
Springfield Ward).
The integrity of the Choice-based lettings service
is also seriously undermined by the shortage of properties available
for bidding. A recent analysis showed that : the highest number
of bids for a single property last year was 209 and the average
number of bids for two-bed properties was 156. It is hard to overstate
the tension and bad-feeling, often expressed in terms of competition
between "locals" and "outsiders", that such
pressure generates.
(b) Homelessness
Homelessness continues to be a major challenge,
and whilst there may be a case for a fairer regional distribution
of homelessness application where there is no local connection,
this only replaces a problem concentrated on a small number of
boroughs with a problem distributed across the whole region (and
indeed, the country).
Households in temporary accommodation face a
series of disadvantages: the benefits trap locks many of them
out of employment; the insecurity of their existence keeps them
from putting down roots in the community; the high turnover and
precarious nature of their tenancies has a negative impact on
the wider community and is an expensive challenge for housing
managers. There are currently just over 3000 households in temporary
accommodation in Westminster.
From the point of view of effective public policy,
maintaining large numbers of households in expensive, privately
rented temporary accommodation makes no sense. In many cases,
homeless families are housed in ex-council properties that were
sold under "Right to Buy". It is not uncommon to find
two almost identical households next door to each other in almost
identical flats, where one is paying £90 a week in rent,
and the other, £430. Temporary Accommodation in Westminster
costs in the region of £55 million annually.
Homelessness prevention is a sound policy, but
displacement into the private rented sector has many disadvantages,
as does a much tougher "gate-keeping" policy. This does
not genuinely reduce homelessness—it merely hides it.
The committee expressed a particular interest
in the role of the private rented sector and Housing Benefit in
meeting housing need. Our experience is that this is very limited,
because of the cost and insecurity of tenure in the private sector.
"I am a 60 year old single woman with a
number of medical problems... .I have osteoarthritis... and have
gradually lot some of my vision... Due to pain, lack of money,
visual impairments and the loss of my business, I lost my home
and had to take up temporary accommodation in a guest room. I
stayed there for three months but was asked to leave as it was
a temporary arrangement. I then went into a rented flat and have
been waiting for Housing Benefit since the spring of 2005... there
is a mortgage and service charges on the flat and unless I can
pay the mortgage will company will take over the flat and I will
be evicted. I have been in regular contact with the housing benefit
office and was initially told that they had to check that I had
lived in the temporary accommodation in Earls Court. I was then
told that they had to send an independent person to verify that
I still live at the current address. Every time I went to enquire,
I was told that it was still being assessed. Then, eventually,
I was told that they have a decision but to return in 10 days.
When I went back last week, I was told that the file has now been
sent back as I have not paid Council Tax"
"Mrs D... submitted an application for Housing
and Council Tax Benefit on 19 July 2005. Unfortunately, her claim
was not assessed until 22 June 2006. I feel that there were unnecessary
delays by the Benefits Service that could have been avoided and
would ask that you convey my apologies to Mrs D"
An additional problem within the private rented
sector is the inability of councils to be proactive in advertising
Discretionary Housing Payments, to help low income tenants cover
shortfalls between their rents and Housing Benefit levels. Many
councils do not make full use of their allocations, and others
exhaust their resources leaving significant unmet need. An analysis
of allocations and expenditure under the DHP system may be of
interest to the committee.
2. LIMITATIONS
OF SUPPLY
Despite these levels of need, the provision
of social housing has declined sharply.
By 2001, the number of social housing units
in Westminster was between 1,600 and 1,800 units lower than in
1981. The supply of Family-sized units; street properties and
homes in more affluent wards reduced first and most sharply. Social
housing now represents 29% of homes in the borough compared with
39% in 1981.
(a) Out-of-borough moves
Sub-regional partnerships were established in
2003 to help reduce pressure on high-demand boroughs by "matching"
them with other councils with greater capacity. In theory, this
partnership should allow households in need access to homes in
lower-cost and lower demand areas. This has not worked to date.
Westminster has only had access to 27 (Check) nominations in the
three years of sub-regional partnerships and the number will be
even lower this year.
Families keen to move out of Westminster, in
need and with local connections in authorities linked to Westminster
via sub-regional partnerships are simply unable to access nominations.
Mrs C has been sharing a 1 bed flat with her
three children, and the property is also in substantial disrepair.
An older child was living with his father in a borough within
Westminster's sub-regional partnership, so Mrs C enquired about
the possibility of moving out there. The council replied to say
"Although Westminster is part of the sub-regional group,
we have only received a very limited supply of properties... there
is no indication as to when the supply of properties outside the
borough is likely to increase".
Altogether, I have been told that only 14 units
were made available to Westminster through the sub-regional partnership
in the period 2003-06, with another 68 coming on stream in the
next two years. Overall, only 90 new units are expected to come
on stream this year, in-and out-of-borough.
Anecdotal reports indicate that some councils
are classifying many of their new properties as "disabled
units"; or are otherwise finding ways of preventing nominating
councils from gaining access to more than a minimal number of
allocations.
There are, of course, those who would argue
that high-cost areas such as inner London should not be on option
for low-income households at all. The two problems with this argument
are:
— Many suburbs and rural areas do not
have social or other affordable housing to offer to households
in need. Many families in Westminster would like to move to places
like Harrow or Barnet—but there are no opportunities for
them to do so.
— The tendency will be to concentrate
all low income households in places like east London, but of course,
these tend to be poor areas already! In the interests of genuinely
"mixed community", there should be a fair distribution
of social and low cost housing.
(b) Cost and other disadvantages facing lower
income households in shared ownership/leaseholders
The relatively high priority placed on home
ownership options (whether Right to Buy or Shared ownership) undoubtedly
mirrors the aspirations of many people to own their homes and
share the benefits of property based wealth. However, there are
also serious limitations and risks which have not been fully recognised.
((a) The level of subsidy available makes it
virtually impossible to offer affordable family sized accommodation
in inner London. The important objective of retaining families
in the inner city cannot be realised without substantial extra
resources—but there is a real question as to whether this
is the best use of a scarce resource.
(b) Large numbers of low-income homeowners
are struggling with service charges and Major Works Bills which
they had not anticipated and have no means of affording.
Mr and Mrs S bought their 18th storey council
flat in 2004, with £26,000 in loans. They (and several hundred
others like them) have just been issued with S20 notices for Major
Works under the Decent Homes Initiative. Their prospective bill
for this work is £58,000. Their total household income is
£14,000. Even the Hardship Fund option of an interest-free
loan requires the £58,000 to be repaid over two years. Over
recent years, many families in similar circumstances have sold
or let their homes—in many cases, with some irony, back
to registered social landlords which then place homeless families
in them!
In summary, there is an urgent need for additional
family sized accommodation, in the social rented and intermediate
housing sector. Without a further, substantial increase in provision:
which can also include a programme of conversions and extensions;
conversion of temporary to permanent accommodation and open market
purchases as well as new build, there will not be a sustained
reduction in homelessness or overcrowding, and choice-based lettings
systems will continue to be a good idea on paper but extremely
limited in practice. The private rented sector will rarely provide
a viable alternative for families with children or for vulnerable
single people.
| 
