Fast-track eviction plan for landlords criticised
Social landlords have claimed their tenants are being stigmatised by the government’s plans to evict tenants who commit anti-social behaviour miles from their homes.
They have rounded on proposals to give housing associations and councils a discretionary power to evict tenants who commit crime - even when they have acted long distances away from where they live.
In response to a consultation on the proposals introduced following the summer’s riots, the Social Landlords Crime and Nuisance Group said linking the changes to the unrest ‘serves only to reinforce the negative stereotyping of social housing by some politicians, the media and commentators as being a significant contributor to disorder and other social ills’.
The Chartered Institute of Housing also criticised the plans as being ‘not well thought through and not based on sound analysis’.
Currently, the law states tenants can be evicted for criminal or anti-social behaviour committed in the ‘locality’ of the property in which they live in order to protect other residents from ongoing problems.
The CIH warned that measures focused on one tenure are ‘not appropriate’. ‘Possession action should not be regarded as a tool to deal with ASB and criminality where it does not relate to the landlord’s housing management function’, it added in its consultation response.
The National Housing Federation suggested that the new clauses appeared ‘to be at odds with the minister’s introduction of the original proposals, which focused on the need to stop anti-social tenants making the lives of their neighbours a misery’.
Inside Housing is working with the Chartered Institute of Housing and National Housing Federation to produce The Riot Report looking at ways to prevent future disorder.
