Memorandum by Local Space Housing Association
INTRODUCTION
Local Space Housing Association has developed
a model that provides immediate temporary accommodation for homeless
people.
In the longer term this housing can be turned
into permanent social housing.
Using this model, the £500 million a year paid
out in Housing Benefit to private landlords in London alone could
support a £15 billion investment that could deliver 50,000
extra affordable homes at no additional cost to the taxpayer.
ABOUT LOCAL
SPACE
1. A registered housing association,[28]
Local Space was set up in 2006 in partnership with the London
Borough of Newham. Its short-term goal is to provide an immediate
supply of good quality and well-managed temporary housing for
homeless people.
2. It is buying ten street and estate properties
on the open market a week with a mixture of Housing Corporation
Grant and funding from the Royal Bank of Canada.
3. It is on target to deliver 1,000 extra
homes to the social housing sector by March 2008. Leading property
services group Savills monitors all the Association's property
buying activities to ensure probity and value for money
4. The properties are brought up to the
Government's Decent Homes Standard before they are let to tenants
nominated by the London Borough of Newham. Currently there is
no explicit requirement by Government that housing benefit investment
in to the private sector as temporary accommodation or settled
homes, delivers decent homes for homeless and other vulnerable
people.
5. In the longer term, the Association will
use its T2P model to convert the temporary accommodation into
good quality permanent accommodation using Housing Benefit to
service the mortgages on the properties. This makes a great deal
more sense than paying huge sums of public money in Housing Benefit
(more than £500 million a year in London alone) to private
landlords for temporary accommodation with no long-term social
benefits.
6. The Local Space T2P model can be used
in other local authorities to provide decent homes for homeless
people and to provide a rolling programme of permanent additions
to the affordable social housing stock.
7. The Association is supporting the Government's
sustainable communities agenda by helping to develop mixed tenure
communities, by filling empty homes and by contributing to neighbourhood
and community regeneration programmes.
8. It contributes to the Government's PSA7
goals by delivering decent homes to vulnerable households.
LOCAL SPACE
AND GOVERNMENT
POLICY
1. In March 2005 the then Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister published Sustainable Communities: Settled
homes; changing lives setting out its strategy for further
tackling homelessness. Key to this strategy was a new target to
halve the number of households living in insecure temporary accommodation
by 2010.
2. Under current definitions Local Space
and similar schemes based upon a lease to a local authority, are
viewed simply as temporary accommodation and therefore not seen
as assisting councils in meeting their 2010 temporary accommodation
reduction target. This is despite the fact that such long-term
lease arrangements demonstrably offer occupants far greater stability,
certainty and security (in every sense other than the legal tenancy
status) than the alternative being promoted by the DCLG of a direct
private sector Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST). Such lease arrangements
are also viewed more positively by funders.
3. It is important to note that the target
set out in Sustainable Communities: Settled homes; changing
lives, refers to halving the number of households living in
"insecure temporary accommodation" by 2010. However,
the ODPM offered no clear definition of the difference between
insecure and secure temporary accommodation.
4. Local Space believes there is a genuine
need for DCLG to redefine insecure temporary accommodation using
the conditions and nature of the accommodation and occupancy and
even the landlord (for instance, where accommodation is owned
by a housing association) rather than simply the tenancy status.
A new definition would enable local authorities to invest time,
effort and resources to establishing good quality "temporary
to permanent" initiatives providing quality accommodation
and a longer-term social housing asset.
5. If this is not done, achieving the target
will result in many more vulnerable households depending upon
a potentially volatile private rented sector, funded largely by
Housing Benefit where longer term physical and management standards
are not protected. Furthermore, these households could be forced
out should the housing market see a major change in future years.
POST 2010
1. Even if the 2010 temporary accommodation
reduction target is met under current definitions, more than 25,000
temporary homes will still be needed in London.
2. Local Space has urged the Government
to state clearly that from 2010 it expects local authorities to
use T2P schemes to provide most of their temporary housing provision.
Now that vehicles like Local Space are available to capture the
Housing Benefit revenue flow and convert it into social housing
assets, it would be a scandal for local authorities to continue
to pour such huge sums of public money into the private sector
beyond 2010 by way of short term private sector leasing or other
schemes.
TIME FOR
A SHIFT
IN PERCEPTIONS
AND POLICY
1. A shift in perceptions and policy is
needed to realise the enormous potential of the Local Space model
and similar initiatives. At present, there is a concern that perceptions
within Government may limit their role. Local Space fears the
Government sees these initiatives simply as a means of addressing
homelessness through temporary accommodation and short term solutions
and risks overlooking the significant role Local Space and similar
initiatives can play in providing additional permanent social
housing. There is some concern that it could have a limiting effect
on the potential of the schemes.
2. This limited view of the work of Local
Space and others is mirrored in the view of most local authorities
that see T2P schemes primarily as a new form of temporary accommodation
for homeless households. We believe local authorities should see
our work as part of the bigger housing supply picture and factor
T2P schemes into their mainstream housing supply equations.
3. Ministers could help to change this limiting
view, both at central government and local government level. The
business and social case for their intervention is overwhelming.
In London alone more than 50,000 homeless households have been
placed in temporary accommodation by local authorities at a cost
of about £500 million a year as part of a laudable drive
to end the use of bed and breakfast accommodation. The private
sector providers charge market rents, face limited risks and reap
the benefits of long-term equity growth in their properties. Furthermore,
they have no obligations to meet the decent homes standard or
to provide proper housing management.
4. London's Housing Benefit bill could be
put to better use to provide up to 50,000 properly managed and
maintained permanent houses and flats in the social housing sector.
Nationally this figure could be doubled, if full advantage was
taken of T2P schemes. However, it will take a major policy shift
by both central and local government to realise the full potential
of Local Space and other T2P models
CONCLUSION:
Through its T2P initiative Local Space delivers
good quality temporary accommodation for homeless people In East
London. In the longer term this is converted into permanent and
affordable social housing, using Housing Benefit as investment
capital.
The work is carried out through a partnership
with the London Borough of Newham that could be used nation-wide
by other local authorities.
The potential is enormous: 50,000 homes could
be added to London's social housing stock.
And all at no extra cost to the taxpayer.
28 Local Space is registered as an RSL with the Housing
Corporation (Reg. No. LH4454) and with the Financial Services
Authority (FSA) as a Registered Charitable Industrial and Provident
Society (Reg. No: 29840R). Back
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