You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Let’s stop converting social rented homes to affordable rent
We talk about Right to Buy, but converting properties is doing real damage too – and it’s time the housing association sector stopped doing it, says Tony Stacey
This blog has one simple message: housing associations should stop ‘converting’ social rented homes into so-called affordable rented properties.
This has been one of the most damaging practices that has emerged in our sector in recent years.
We should treasure our social rented housing stock in the same way as we value the NHS. It is a tragedy that we have lost 150,000 social rented homes in the period from 2012 to 2017.
But it doesn’t stop – we are set to lose a further 80,000 by 2020, according to projections from the Chartered Institute of Housing.
“Conversions were a last-minute fix to preserve at least some government grant.”
We know about the problems that Right to Buy has caused, but we talk far less about the damage that conversions have done.
More than two-thirds of that loss (102,000 properties) is down to conversions over the past five years. We all understand why the practice was introduced – at a critical moment – when ministerial control lay with Eric Pickles and Grant Shapps, and there was a very real danger that the entire grant-funded programme for sub-market housing could be swept away. Conversions were a last-minute fix to preserve at least some government grant.
READ MORE
Had the programme been swept away in its entirety, it would have been very difficult to have persuaded government in the future to reinstate funding.
But it was intended to be a short-term measure. Unless we act now, there is a real danger that this will become a permanent feature of the funding framework.
And what damage it has done.
“Unless we act now, there is a real danger that conversions will become a permanent feature of the funding framework.”
The most shocking analysis I have seen is the report published by Crisis last autumn, which found that future projections of homelessness will see the number of rough sleepers and other homeless households increase exponentially over the next 25 years.
And we think it’s bad now.
Last year, according to Crisis, 160,000 households were homeless at some point in the year in the UK.
At exactly the time when we need more access to social lettings, the number of new social tenancies created in general needs housing is falling.
New social lets dropped from more than 170,000 in 2008/09 to 155,000 a year ago. Over the same period the proportion of new social lettings made to homeless households dropped from 35% to just under 25%.
We know, don’t we, that the private rented sector has almost stopped housing homeless people.
Many people made homeless have problems with mental health, addictions or have faced traumatic life experiences, but the majority do not.
What applies to almost all of these households, however, is that they are facing poverty. According to Crisis’ date, the upper quartile income for a homeless household is just £15,200, and the median is £8,500.
There is only one solution for most: a social rented tenancy.
Of course we need to build more social rented homes, but base one is surely to stop losing the valuable stock we already have.
What about associations whose business plans depend on the assumption that conversions continue?
As a sector, we have coped remarkably well with four years of rent cuts.
Our value for money agendas are delivering real results.
This time let’s not push through cost savings at the government’s behest.
It’s time we stopped this mission drift.
Tony Stacey, chief executive, South Yorkshire Housing Association