Mulled wine induced memory loss appears to have set in at some national news outlets in recent days, with the reappearance of a couple of stories from last year.
Westminster Council’s plans to link behaviour to benefits were featured by the BBC the Financial Times and others on Friday. Even readers with not particularly long memories might recall a similar wave of stories published just a few weeks before when the council issued its plans.
Then on Sunday we were treated to a reprisal of housing minister Grant Shapps’ plans to criminalise the subletting of council properties and make social tenants who earn more than £100,000 a year pay market rents.
The subletting plan was first raised in March 2010, by Labour housing minister John Healey, and has been championed by Mr Shapps ever since. Raising rents for high earners – most recently dubbed ‘pay to stay’ by the housing minister – has also been on the cards since June and was set out in the Laying the foundations housing strategy in November.
This tells us a few things about the way the major news outlets in this country operate, but more interestingly also reveals a bit about attitudes to social housing. The Express’ take on the benefits story was ‘Families from hell could lose council-tax benefits’, while the FT went with a slightly more restrained ‘Council eyes loss of benefits for work-shy’.
On subletting the Sun went with ‘Rent scam tenants face jail’ and other papers were quick to condemn the ‘scandal’ of sublet homes.
Clearly subletting homes for financial gain should be stopped, and it also makes little sense for councils to be housing tenants who are earning more than £100,000, but the reality is these problems are pretty insignificant compared to the wider issues facing the sector.
Rising unemployment, housing benefit cuts, declining grant, and a chronic shortage of homes are much more fundamental issues that the sector will need to get to grips with in 2012. It is easy to see why papers pick up on topics like subletting and high earners, but the housing sector needs to make sure some of the other issues also get onto the national news agenda.
2011 saw housing gain much more prominence as a political and social issue. The battle for 2012 will be to turn this publicity into a realistic appraisal of the challenges facing housing, and the contribution the sector can make to improving society as a whole.
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From House work
Examining the latest news on allocations, evictions, rents, anti-social behaviour, and a host of other day to day housing management issues
Readers' comments (6)
Joe Halewood | 03/01/2012 4:37 pm
£100K issue is farcical and political chicanery of the highest order.
Social housing is a hand-up not a hand-out - is the starting premise and for arguments sake lets say we all agree on that.
But when it provides that hand up as it was intended your choice is:
(a) Have to leave it and your investment in it to someone else (why would anyone do this?)
(b) Have a 130% rent increase and make the hand up a hand down (again why would anyone do this?) or
(c) Trouser £50k by RTB own the property and become a worthwhile citizen overnight from being a money grabbing bar steward the day before.
RTB is the only logical way forward as not only do you keep the property youve invested in (and been able to invest in) you get a huge wad and the mortgage will probably be less than your rent.
So to summarise - the government position is social housing is a hand up ... until we reward you even more and you shaft you neighbours and those on the waiting list more by choosing RTB!!
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F451 | 03/01/2012 4:45 pm
I think what you are describing Tom is the continued demonisation of tenants by this government, so voluntarily put forward by the media, and so readily gobbled up by a public desparate to blame someone for the mess we are all in.
What is most concerning is the rabid leanings this is unleashing on tenants. I've already witnessed an incident of 'tenant abuse' within a community, which I'm sure is not isolated.
This government's whipping up of the mob is so dangerous a strategy, but one that has been used too often before. The outcomes are never positive for the societies concerned.
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Jono | 03/01/2012 9:59 pm
People have been awarded social housing because they 'need' it for some reason. What reason? If they have the funds not to need it, if they can live independently, why should they get a social home? Why draw the line at £100k? This is too high.
Someone who illegally sublets their social home and makes money from doing this deserves to be condemned.
Are you seriously saying Tom that "rising unemployment, housing benefit cuts, declining grant, and a chronic shortage of homes" is not receiving media attention?
Rising unemployment - should the Government spend more to create jobs? Or make it easier for the private sector to expand? Both have implications - higher deficit and loss of financial credibility or de-regulation, reduction of red tape with the implication that poorly managed organisations will make self-destructive decisions.
Housing benefit cuts - what are the alternatives? Spiraling welfare bills? State control of market rents? Perhaps we could go down the route of Hungary and Poland and look at seizing private pensions assets, although with the recent announcement on the Beeb that these have 'collapsed' it may be too late. How would you solve this whilst maintaining a degree of unity? Surely legitimacy is key, and taking away state help from the work shy and neighbours from hell sounds more legitimate to me than taking it from decent neighbours and hard working individuals.
Declining grant and a shortage of homes - the social housing sector is quite unique. When times are hard, there are more who demand its services, but there is less funding available to meet the demand. Providers bemoan the lack of funding and the chronic shortages caused by growing demand. Then when the economy recovers, more grant money becomes available and providers can spend more on building new homes. HAs looks like they are effective but this is not all it appears. Demand is met by additional supply of homes but it also reduces because of improving economic conditions. The true measure of how well that grant money was spent in the good times, and how well governed providers were is how they are positioned to deal with the enemy that is economic stagnancy and decline. Afterall, what good is an army which is only effective in peacetime?
Ironically, at this time of shortages in funding, many HAs are building up their reserves to record levels.
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Alpha One | 04/01/2012 10:54 am
Joe, what investment are you talking about? If you are a tenant you can't generally make alterations to the property or realistically improve it beyond painting and decorating, and putting in YOUR furniture. So I'm not sure what investment a tenant makes in a property, other than an emotional one.
F451, this isn't demonising tenants, it's pointing out two wrongs, one is illegal sub-letting (why should someone be allowed to sub-let their subsidised home and make a profit?), the other is making people who earn a lot of money pay their way in this world.
I'm sorry, but no matter how much you try to justify it, there simply is no excuse for people who earn six figure salaries to continue to receive state subsidised housing. They shouldn't have to move out, particularly if they've been there along time, but they should have the choice of buying it or paying a market rent.
Personally I think the RTB discount should be reduced, not by nationally set caps, but by caps set based on income, so those who are paid more receive lower discounts (nil if your salary is in excess of £100k), thereby making RTB about buying family homes rather than investments.
I'm afraid F451 you are going to have to swallow the fact that the majority of people in this country are fed up with paying taxes only for it to be squandered on those who don't deserve it.
The idea that people who once had a good case for subsidised housing are still benefitting from that subsisdy long after they needed it, really sticks for many, many people.
It seems that the days of the 'progressive elite's' idea of what the world want it coming to an end, and not a moment too soon.
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F451 | 04/01/2012 11:03 am
So your solution to the 'wasted subsidy' is to give these rich jonnies even more taxpayer dosh through a subsidised purchase, leading to the loss of the 'scarce social housing asset'.
Whilst it is true, as you point out, that many in our society object to others getting social benefit that they do not receive it is this lunatics running the asylum thinking that has led us to the very maddness of which you now complain.
The answer is more social housing not less Alpha, along with greater diversity in who occupies that housing, not less Alpha.
It appears that your eagerness to rush to the bottom in all things is alive and well in 2012 Alpha - it is still not right.
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Tom Lloyd | 04/01/2012 12:15 pm
Hi Jono,
The point I was making isn't that unemployment etc... doesn't get coverage, just that stories about high-earning tenants and subletting tend to get a disproportionate amount of coverage given the extent of these problems.
Clearly they are contentious issues - as the comments here illustrate - but it is pretty small beer when you look at the bigger picture. How many social tenants are there that are actually earning more than £100k?
I think the housing sector - Inside Housing included - needs to do a better job of arguing that investment in housing can solve wider social problems to counter the kind of demonisation F451 is talking about.
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