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A shared mission to tackle the housing crisis could unite the country
A major Shelter commission report this week called for radical action to tackle the housing crisis. Commissioner and economist Miatta Fahnbulleh argues that the proposals could also help to unite the country in a positive vision for the future
Rarely has a year started with so much uncertainty about what the future holds.
It’s not only Brexit. Almost everywhere you look, global norms are being turned on their head.
But amid all this uncertainty, one thing has become clear through my work on an independent, cross-party commission for housing charity Shelter: our housing crisis will only get worse unless there’s a fundamental and historic shift in our approach to housing.
Having spent a year gathering evidence and speaking to tens of thousands of people, my fellow commissioners and I have reached a consensus on how to tackle this country’s housing emergency. We have made an ambitious call to deliver 3.1 million new social homes over the next 20 years.
If we can once again tap into and embrace the kind of optimism that powered post-war politics and built a generation of social homes, I believe we can unite the country in a positive and far-reaching vision for the future.
But if we carry on as we are, the research carried out for our commission suggests that within the next 20 years, there will be more than a million more young families trapped in private renting.
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An increasing number of children will be brought up in homes with high private rents and without the certainty that they’ll be able to stay from one birthday to the next.
And it isn’t only younger people who will get priced out and struggle to find a stable home.
The housing crisis will increasingly hit older people, too.
“No one wants to live under the constant threat of being forced to move because the landlord suddenly decides to sell or jack up the rent”
By 2040, as many as one in three 60-year-olds could be renting from a private landlord. If you’ve been working hard all your life, you want to be confident that when you reach retirement you will have a place to live where you can feel comfortable and secure.
No one wants to live under the constant threat of being forced to move because the landlord suddenly decides to sell or jack up the rent, or in one of the more than 600,000 private rented properties plagued by hazards and poor conditions.
And you don’t want to put up with the everyday gripes familiar to today’s private renters, such as constantly chasing to get a simple repair done, living in a flat share with people you don’t know, or being forced to beg permission to put a few family snaps on the wall.
For some people, the consequences of inaction will be worse still.
It is impossible to avoid the serious and growing problem of homelessness in this country, both on our streets and in the huge number of families forced to live in temporary accommodation.
“In the decades after World War II, governments of left and right learned how to house the nation well by building thousands upon thousands of social homes”
Almost 280,000 people are homeless in England today, more than the entire population of Hull. Evidence submitted to our commission indicates that, without action, hundreds of thousands more could become homeless over the next two decades. This is staggering and utterly unacceptable.
Many of them will end up languishing in temporary accommodation such as hostels and B&Bs for weeks, if not years, on end. For others, tackling the crisis will be a matter of life and death. More than 500 men and women sleeping rough on our streets died last year, in some of the most horrible circumstances conceivable.
This future is bleak, but we can choose a different path.
In the decades after World War II, governments of left and right learned how to house the nation well by building thousands upon thousands of social homes – decent council and housing association properties with rents that people could afford. Over three and a half decades, these governments built 4.4 million social homes – an average of 126,000 a year.
It’s a lesson that we’ve collectively forgotten. For the past 40 years, the number of new social homes has slowed to a trickle. Last year it was just over 6,000.
“We can tackle homelessness for good”
Now is the time to re-learn the lessons of our post-war past. Through a bold programme of social housebuilding we have a vital opportunity to invest in our future. With support crossing political and Brexit divides, this shared mission to tackle the housing crisis could unite the country.
A huge expansion in public housing means we can deliver decent, affordable homes for families who are just starting out in life, right through to those in old age. We can tackle homelessness for good.
The moral case is undeniable. Analysis carried out by Capital Economics for the commission shows that the economic case for government investment is sound, too.
At the start of 2019 it’s hard to be certain of much. But on this, we know that the cost of doing nothing is too great. Let us work together to build a better future for generations to come.
Miatta Fahnbulleh, chief executive, New Economics Foundation and commissioner, Shelter social housing commission
At a glance: the Shelter commission’s recommendations
Complaints and regulation
- The government should create a new consumer regulator to protect renters and ensure their voices are heard. This should operate alongside the Regulator of Social Housing, focused on its core economic brief.
- Social housing residents need better protection. Government should require standards of social housing to be proactively inspected, publicly reported, and strongly enforced in order to hold failing landlords to account.
- If residents are to be protected and given a voice, there must be clearer standards for social housing providers. The government should direct the regulator to make consumer standards more specific; setting clear, minimum expectations, like timescales for dealing with complaints.
- All groups of residents (whether recognised by their landlords or not) should be able to refer their concerns directly to the new regulator where they have common concerns they believe are caused by a systemic failing in the landlord’s services.
- Residents should not have to prove they might be at risk of serious detriment for the regulator to intervene. The government should remove the ‘serious detriment’ test for intervention in complaints about social housing, which is a barrier to proper enforcement of consumer standards.
- To make it easier for social renters to get redress on individual complaints, barriers to complaining must be removed. The government should remove the democratic filter for referral to the Housing Ombudsman
- Residents must be given support to complain. The government should extend the Legal Help scheme to cover detailed advice and support to make a referral to the ombudsman or the regulator.
Tenant voice and involvement
- Tenant panels should be encouraged and taken seriously. The government and Regulator should urgently require landlords to actively support the formation of tenant panels and share good practice on how this should be done.
- Residents of social housing must have a voice with national, regional, and local government. Government should support establishment of an independent tenants’ voice organisationor tenants’ union, to represent the views of tenants in social housing within national and local government. It should involveas wide a range of tenants as possible.
- Residents must have a leading voice in major works to existing homes or neighbourhoods. The government’s good practice guidance on estate regeneration should be revisedto reflect this.
- The government should compile good practice on cooperative and mutual social housing models. Transfers of existing homes to such models should only happen if triggered by tenants, and if voted for by a majority of tenants.
Reforming private renting
- Government should require all private landlords with over25 homes to register with the new consumer regulator.
- The new consumer regulator should set consumer standards for all private rented housing.
- The government should increase resources for local enforcement to tackle rogue landlords and poor conditions, in line with the growth in the number of private rented properties.
- The government should protect private renters from no-fault eviction. It should end Section 21 by changing the law so permanent tenancies are the legal minimum for all private renters. It should make sure they are protected from eviction by above-market rent increases. The government should explore how to introduce more detailed information about rent levels for different property types at a ward level.
Building more social homes
- Government should deliver enough social homes over the next 20 years for the 3.1 million households who will be failed by the market, providing both security for those in need, but also a step up for young families trying to get on and save for their future.
- Government should reform the Land Compensation Act 1961 so that landowners are paid a fair market price for their land, rather than the price it might achieve with planning permission that it does not actually have. It could do this most simply by; amending Section 14 so that no account is taken of any prospective planning permission in land designated by local authorities or city regions for infrastructure including housing; amending Section 17 so that Certificates of appropriate alternative development cease to apply in those areas designated by local authorities or city regions for development.
- In future assessments of housing need, government should specify the need for social housing.
- Government should remove the exemptions that mean Section 106 rules do not always apply to new developments and conversions.
- Government should ensure that any Right to Buy scheme(s) are sustainable, by replacing any social housing sold.
- Government should embrace modern methods of construction in a way that reduces risk and builds public confidence, using methods that are proven to work over the long term.
- Government should set a standard to ensure investment in maintaining and improving homes and neighbourhoods over their full lifetime.
- Anyone involved in delivering social housing should ensure that new social homes are delivered as part of tenure-blind, mixed-community developments. This includes avoiding design that will contribute to a sense of exclusion, e.g.avoiding separate entrances to the same building that divide households based on tenure.
