Housing was a mixed bag for the Labour government. Fewer policies make me prouder than the Decent Homes Programme, but we never built enough new homes where demand was highest and, too often, we sounded technocratic. We talked about houses not homes, and reeled off lists of bathrooms renovated and kitchens installed, rather than talking about lives improved and dignity affirmed.
Housing problems are highly regionalised, but from Walthamstow the problems are acute. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone ‘has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including … housing’. It’s not clear that we are fulfilling this most basic of rights. The average household income in Walthamstow is just under £29,000 yet, at this income, there is a complete absence of affordable housing. There is virtually nothing available until your family earns more than £35,000.
Think about it – this is both extraordinary and scary. Imagine a situation where the average family – in the UK, in 2012 – couldn’t afford to feed themselves. A home for your family is just as fundamental a human right and, yet, the average family can’t afford to provide that. And this situation is getting worse: demand is up and supply is down, creating the perfect storm of rising rents and falling quality.
In common with many parts of London, Waltham Forest’s population is growing by about a quarter every 10 years. This places enormous strain on our schools, doctors and other public services – we have more residents but, because of spending cuts, less money. So demand for housing increases – our waiting list for social housing is now in excess of 20,000 and more will be moving in because of reductions in benefits and the total benefit cap. Yet, as demand rises, the supply of decent social housing isn’t keeping pace – in real terms, supply is decreasing.
The government is slashing their grant to housing associations, and allowing them to charge up to 80 per cent of market rent for new homes. This will have two effects: it will impede the development of new family-sized affordable homes and it will make rents affordable only for those on benefits. For a government that wants to build more homes and to incentivise people to leave benefits and take up work (which we would surely agree with), this isn’t good news.
As demand goes up and the supply of social housing goes down, more and more families will rent in the private sector. The private rented sector in Waltham Forest has nearly doubled in 10 years, and my basic economic knowledge tells me that when demand goes up and supply goes down, prices increase. This is exactly what is happening to private sector rents, and it has a knock-on effect for housing association tenants, as housing associations can now charge 80 per cent of a now-increased market rent.
So, rents are higher for tenants of housing associations and private landlords, but what about the quality of accommodation provided by those landlords? Over 40 per cent of privately rented properties do not meet the Decent Homes standard. And the situation is even worse for housing benefit tenants: a DCLG survey in October 2011 showed that fewer than 50 per cent of landlords were willing to rent their properties to housing benefit tenants because of the government’s reduction in the local housing allowance. So, rents are up and quality is down, and down the most for those with the least.
This all might sound quite technical, but we mustn’t lose sight of the basic point – in one of the richest countries of the world, in 2012, many of our poorest citizens cannot provide for one of the most basic human rights. Ken Livingstone is right to shine a spotlight on these housing horrors. The question is: how can we force recalcitrant landlords to improve quality and keep rents affordable? Ken’s London-wide non-profit lettings agency and campaign for a living rent would do both these things. In Waltham Forest, we accredit landlords who reach the ‘Waltham Forest standard’, pushing up standards among some, but not all, landlords. But we must do more. Housing might never be the sexiest political issue but, for many people in London and elsewhere this is a matter of their basic rights being denied. We should never lose sight of that.
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Mark Rusling is a Labour and Cooperative councillor in the London borough of Waltham Forest and writes the Changing to Survive column
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Mark,
key to propelling housing to the top of the political agenda is ability to show that poor quality and the sheer unaffordability of housing directly relates to the ‘sexier’ issues like health, education, law and order, welfare and of course the economy. And that is the main task of those who, like you, believe that decent housing must be seen as of right.
Home ownership is in decline, and the biggest winner is the private rented sector. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17026462) It is therefore right to draw the attention to minority of ‘rogue landlords’, and the ‘Waltham Forest Standard’ accreditation scheme will also no doubt go some way towards raising accommodation standards in the borough, and help to breach the gap with council, ALMO and housing association homes, where such standards already exist.
Weeding out the worst landlords won’t, however, make rented housing on the whole more affordable. National Housing Federation’s Home Truth reports clearly show that despite Waltham’s enviable position as a borough with London’s fourth lowest ratio of house prices to salaries, an average house would have set you back 9.6 times your salary if you happened to be on a median income in 2010, and that’s up from 2009’s ratio of 8.9.
http://www.housing.org.uk/publications/home_truths_list.aspx? With fewer people able to buy a home of their own the demand for rented housing, and therefore rent, inevitably goes up.
How to increase the supply ofhousing at different rents and ownership options, if and how to subsidise it and how to pay for it is what the party must focus on. ‘Rogue landlords’ by definition are out of the ordinary, and although they can truly make life hell for their tenants, dealing with them won’t make homes cheaper and better for most of us.
Affordable homes but not homes to rent social housing is not a world used in Newer labour.