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Shelter launches 'Living Home Standard'
A homelessness charity has launched a ‘Living Home Standard’ to measure the acceptability of housing across all tenures.
Shelter today published the new standard, which draws inspiration from the Living Wage to provide a “definition of what the British public believe everyone needs from a home”.
Research on behalf of the charity found 43% of those polled live in homes which fail to meet the new standard.
According to research by Ipsos Mori, which conducted 1,961 representative interviews across Britain on Shelter’s behalf, private renters fair the worst, with 69% failing the standard, compared to 20% of those who own their home outright.
However, 68% of local authority homes also fail the standard and 66% of housing association homes fail, too. It is unclear on exactly which measure these homes are failing on.
Shelter came up with 39 tests to meet the standard, which it divided up into five areas:
- Affordability
- Decent conditions
- Space
- Stability
- Neighbourhood
Twenty-seven per cent of people live in homes which fail on affordability, while 18% live in homes that fail on poor conditions such as pests and damp.
Within the five areas, some tests were classed as ‘essentials’ – conditions that if not met, the home would fail the Living Home Standard. Other tests were classed as ‘tradables’ – features that were desirable but not universally applicable.
Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said: “Now is the time for a national mission to get to grips with our housing crisis once and for all. We’re calling on the new government, alongside businesses and other charities, to work with us to turn things around and increase the number of homes that meet the Living Home Standard.”
Gavin Smart, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, said: “This is a really valuable contribution to thinking about the standard of homes that is necessary in modern Britain. The use of relative measures of poverty is now a well-established approach and expanding the concept to housing provides real insight into what the public think the standard of housing should be.”
Tony Stacey, chief executive of South Yorkshire Housing Association, said: “My guess would be that most housing associations would want to sign up to this standard as a badge of pride.”
