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From the archive: homeless families shipped out of London

Inside Housing looks back at what was happening in the sector this week five, 15 and 25 years ago

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25 years ago this week: public wants more investment in housing #ukhousing

15 years ago this week: tenant bodies meet to define participation #ukhousing

5 years ago this week: rise in homeless families placed outside London #ukhousing

25 years ago

Most people 25 years ago wanted the government to spend more money on housing for those on low incomes, Inside Housing reported.

A story based on data from pollster Mori, commissioned by Shelter, found that seven in 10 people wanted more spent on housing, while a massive 91% thought housing and homelessness was a serious problem.

Popular policies included redistributing tax relief on mortgage interest to those on low incomes (supported by 69%), and using money from sales of council houses to build more homes (68%).

The majority disagreed that political parties were paying a lot of attention to housing problems. Shelter was hoping the Conservative government of the day would bear this in mind when “wielding the spending axe”, in the words of the charity’s director Sheila McKechnie.

Picture: Getty

15 years ago

Tenant groups from the four countries of the UK joined together to draw up a manifesto on the future of tenant participation.

The groups met to thrash out the main messages that would make up their call for action. Carol Kay, director of the Tenant Participation Advisory Service Cymru, said the move would help organisations to lobby consistently and learn from each other. She said: “The four nations will put together a few simple messages about what [tenant participation] is and what it isn’t so we can lobby about it in a consistent way.” Ms Kay also stressed that a range of participation methods was needed to suit different communities and circumstances.

Worries of the time included social landlords switching to view tenants as “customers”, which the groups feared would see them turning away from traditional models of tenant participation involving representative bodies of residents.

The groups were looking at minimum standards that could be applied across the UK. Consistent funding from landlords for tenant groups and training for tenants was also on the agenda.

Five years ago

London boroughs had doubled the number of homeless families they were placing outside the city, making a front page story for Inside Housing.

We had sight of unpublished documents from London Councils revealing that 789 households had been shipped out of the capital in the previous 12 months, to as far away as Manchester, Birmingham and Swansea. In the first three months of the year, there was a 129% jump in the number of people placed outside London. Meanwhile, councils in the rest of the country said London boroughs did not always let them know of families placed in their area.

Nigel Minto, head of housing and planning at London Councils, put the trend down to rising costs in the private rented sector and temporary accommodation.

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