A stitch in time

When you are trying to promote a ‘can do’ attitude, it is depressing to observe ‘can’t do’ from front desk staff. Some weeks ago, I overheard a receptionist insisting that we don’t give housing options information. ‘Try the homelessness service or Citizens Advice,’ she told the bemused customer.

Now in theory, we do give housing options advice. Our housing officers are supposed to counsel not just our own applicants and tenants, but anyone else who cares to ask about every local housing opportunity.

Some of them do, but others are confused about the kind of advice they are supposed to offer; they aren’t trained about private sector housing options, so many of them don’t feel confident.

Narrow view

Then again, some of them don’t believe it is their job anyway. They think they only need to help tenants and applicants - not people who don’t even want a council house. They assume private tenants and owners in crisis will be dealt with by our homelessness service. Prevention, they will say, is surely that team’s remit?

Behind this ‘demarcation dispute’ a bigger issue lurks; uncertainty about how wide the range of a housing officer’s job really is. The narrow view is that we should focus on the task in hand and avoid distractions. The broader one is that, as council employees, we have a corporate duty extending beyond our daily work horizon.

Newer housing officers seem happier to take this broader view on board than old hands. Perhaps because the old hands learned the job in the days when housing management meant just that - managing the tenants in our houses and making sure they didn’t break the fittings.

In this age of austerity, though, when social housing is in short supply, benefits are set to shrink, and negative equity looms for homeowners, households in all tenures may find themselves in difficulties. More than ever, we need to ensure they get the best advice from us.

In particular, the less well-off face pitfalls. There are the various, horrible, benefits traps into which they will predictably fall. Have they told us about that new part-time job they have taken, or someone else in their house has? Are they keeping in touch as their income varies by the month, if not week? Have we processed their application fast enough to stop their landlord kicking them out?

Making mistakes

In all tenures, though, it is easy to make a mistake with your housing. We have to accept that people can make crazy housing choices out of quite understandable ignorance. Finding themselves intentionally homeless for leaving their conjugal house at the end of a failed relationship, for instance. Or walking out too young, without a notion of where they will go, let alone how to support themselves.

Until recently, you could have added taking on an unaffordable mortgage. At least the recession cloud has had one silver lining: no one is allowed to overextend any more. Many mortgagees will default all the same if interest rates rise or the weak economy takes a turn for the worse.

When they signed up for their loan, though, they didn’t know that they had taken a wrong turn. As with many housing ‘mistakes’, such misjudgements might not bear fruit for some time.

Households may realise they are paying more than they can afford. They may even be aware that those debts piling up will knock them from their perch, eventually. But it hasn’t actually happened, yet. By the time the crisis is apparent, it can be too late to reflect on what they might have done.

So good advice, early, is vital. Yet, how many people will think of approaching a homelessness service or Citizens Advice because they are worried that their housing situation might turn sour? Few can face the stigma attached to asking the homelessness service for help. As for Citizens Advice, it is so overstretched that an appointment may take weeks - or even months.

The wider media could help raise awareness, if it was interested in informing as well as entertaining. Unfortunately, unless the story is about plummeting house prices or benefit cheats, the mainstream press and television output tends to ignore housing issues. Schools could play a part by educating young people about housing’s harsh realities. But teachers have more than enough to do already, and with shrinking resources.

Which leaves us, the local authorities. Somehow we have to get the message out, not to just the crisis cases, or the people already known to social workers and homelessness officers, but Joe (and Joan) Public - even when they don’t realise they have a serious problem. These people are, to borrow US politician Donald Rumsfeld’s idea, ‘unknown unknowns’.

Early intervention

We cannot find everyone who needs help. But we could start by making it easier to get housing options advice. Households may have an inkling that their housing situation is precarious, but they need guidance to pin down their problem and tailored advice to avoid making mistakes. At the moment, too many people struggle on alone.

Diehard housing officers may refuse to engage with the issue.

But when the unfortunates arrive on our doorstep, homeless because they can’t cope, their problems become ours.

We need to do more for them than just point them in the direction of our homelessness service or another local agency or charity. They need help before the crisis, from knowledgeable and caring housing officers. Which I why I despair when they don’t get it.

Inside Housing’s anonymous columnist is a senior housing officer