Strong leadership is needed to overcome the challenges ahead

Comment01.05.20by Peter Apps

With coronavirus set to dominate the sector’s thinking for the foreseeable future, there are key questions which will require some careful thinking and brave decisions, writes Peter Apps

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Decisive leadership will be needed to make the right decisions for the good of the housing sector, with coronavirus set to dominate thinking for the foreseeable future, writes @peteapps #ukhousing

“Social landlords must deal with the fact that over the next year many residents are not going to be able to afford their rent,” writes @peteapps #ukhousing

While politicians in Westminster remain tight-lipped about their ‘exit strategy’, it is time for the sector to start shaping its own.

Perhaps ‘exit strategy’ is the wrong phrase: the only exit is an effective vaccine or a game-changing treatment and the strategies we need now are less about exit and more about bridging the long gap between then and now.

For housing, this means finding solutions to a number of urgent questions – some of which are explored in our analysis section.

There will be pressures, for example, to get the construction of new homes back up and running. The government views this as critical to keeping the economy running and the pressure to provide affordable housing has not gone away. And yet, each site that opens for business means more workers on public transport, more social interactions and more opportunities for the virus to spread. Getting the mitigation measures right, ensuring they are observed and, when appropriate, making the brave decision that the risk is simply not justified requires careful, nuanced leadership.

These questions reverberate through a variety of services: do social landlords attempt to catch up on planned maintenance quickly or just move on? How long should an urgent-only repairs service be maintained? When should voids be made available to new families in dire need of housing? All these questions have trade-offs attached, none of which are easy.

Similarly, social landlords must deal with the fact that over the next year many residents are not going to be able to afford their rent. There is no easy answer for the best way to approach this. A level of rent collection must be maintained to pay staff and loans, and to fund the provision of vital services. But the sector was right to commit to not evict anyone due to coronavirus-related arrears early in this crisis and that is a promise that will be tested over the next year. Whether it is achieved through assistance with benefit claims, direct rent reductions or income support, it is a business challenge requiring careful planning.

While the supply of personal protective equipment is likely to rise, so will demand for it as more sectors of the economy open up. Access to it is now business critical for landlords. Procurement teams may not have expected rubber gloves to be top of their priority list at the start of the year, but that is the reality now.

The need for good leadership has never been greater.

Inside Housing will do what it can in the months ahead to provide information, debate and challenge to support businesses.

Peter Apps, deputy editor, Inside Housing