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COVID-19 has demonstrated the value of our sector
We must seize this moment and ensure that all UK governments and all political parties recognise investment in social housing is key to our recovery from COVID-19, says Sally Thomas
There is absolutely no doubt that the UK’s social housing sector faced challenges in 2020 that we would previously never even have thought imaginable. Like never before, COVID-19 put a focus on the importance of our homes, as well as demonstrating the value of housing associations and co-operatives and why investment in the sector is critical for social and economic recovery.
Scotland has been more fortunate than other parts of the UK in terms of investment in affordable housing, but we can’t afford to rest on our laurels. In 2016, the Scottish Government announced a target of delivering 50,000 affordable homes by 2021, including 35,000 for social rent, with investment of £3.5bn.
“However, even with this investment, we were still not keeping up with housing need in Scotland”
The programme has delivered the most affordable homes for a generation in Scotland and it was on track to meet its target – before the coronavirus pandemic hit. However, even with this investment, we were still not keeping up with housing need in Scotland. COVID-19 will have only made the problem worse.
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With the current parliament ending this year, 2020 was always going to be the year when the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) set out the case for continued investment for affordable housing. We planned to do this with two key research projects: one to set another robust housing target and the other to demonstrate the impact that housing associations and co-operatives’ homes and wide-ranging services have on people’s lives.
We knew both pieces of research were going to be important when we commissioned them, but we would never have guessed we’d be launching them during a global pandemic and that their findings would become even more significant.
“Investment in the social housing sector generates economic and social benefits for Scotland and its people”
In June, together with Shelter Scotland and CIH Scotland, we launched Affordable Housing Need in Scotland Post-21. This was a follow-up to research produced five years ago that showed Scotland required 60,000 affordable homes to be delivered between 2016-2021 and informed the current Affordable Housing Supply Programme.
This year’s study found that increasing affordable housing supply levels from the current target of 50,000 homes over five years to 53,000 will help to address existing, as well as newly arising, need from 2021.
Then, at the beginning of September, we released The Impact of Social Housing: Economic, Social, Health and Wellbeing, which was written by the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence and HACT for SFHA, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Public Health Scotland, and the Rural and Islands Housing Associations Forum.
The report found that investment in the social housing sector generates economic and social benefits for Scotland and its people, including reducing poverty and homelessness, improving health, and creating jobs.
Both projects prove that the Scottish Government must see investment in the social housing sector as a vital element of the country’s COVID-19 recovery.
“The pandemic has shone a spotlight on the value of housing associations and co-operatives”
The pandemic has shown just how vital it is that people have access to good quality, affordable, warm, energy efficient housing. Its financial effects will have left many in desperate housing need.
It has also shone a spotlight on the value of housing associations and co-operatives and their wider impact that goes far beyond ‘just’ delivering affordable housing. Our members have continued to deliver vital services during the pandemic. They have acted as community anchor organisations, supporting some of Scotland’s most vulnerable people by delivering food and medicine, providing access to technology and the internet to keep people connected, carrying out well-being calls, and donating emergency hardship funds.
The impact that housing associations and co-operatives have on people’s lives is, of course, not unique to Scotland; it is replicated across the UK. The UK’s social housing sector can deliver the economic and social value that our country and people now so desperately need.
“The UK’s social housing sector can deliver the economic and social value that our country and people now so desperately need”
We were pleased to see the Scottish Government acknowledge in its response to the Advisory Group on Economic Recovery from COVID-19 that “housing plays a vital role in the lives of everyone across Scotland and is a critical asset for a well-being green recovery”. However, the election is not until May, so it is vital that we don’t lose the momentum that is growing.
We must seize this moment and ensure this is recognised by all UK governments and all political parties so that investment in social housing is acknowledged as being key to the recovery from COVID-19. We know it is – now we must make sure those in positions of power do so as well.
Sally Thomas, chief executive, SFHA
