It has been a pretty tough few years to be young in Britain and as I wrote in my previous column it is unlikely to get much better anytime soon. There is one policy area however which presents by far the biggest challenge – housing.
It has been hard to escape ludicrous housing stories this week. Whether it was Myleene Klass’ idiotic comments about £2 million garages in London or the report of two neighbours spending £500,000 arguing over ownership of a ditch, it seems they are everywhere.
Unfortunately, far less attention was paid to the publication of research by the Joseph Roundtree Foundation (besides, that is, on these pages on Monday) showing that rents are expected to rise by 90 per cent – twice as fast as wages. The result will be that by 2040, people who rent will be twice as likely to be in poverty as homeowners.
It is a depressingly familiar tale. One of the defining features of this parliament for young people has been the emergence of ‘generation rent’. With the average house price now reaching almost seven times a person income, it is no surprise that home ownership levels have fallen for the first time since Census records began. More and more people under 40 are being priced out of the market and increasingly find themselves trapped in costly rented accommodation, with little prospect of saving enough for a deposit.
It is also worth remembering that this housing crisis won’t stay confined to housing for long. If we carry on like this soon it will be a pension’s crisis as well. For many older people downsizing in retirement is their one hope of having enough money to enjoy a decent standard of living throughout their later years. What all those 30-something’s who can’t get on to the property ladder are going to fund their retirement with is anyone’s guess.
The temptation when big policy problems like this hit the headlines is for campaigners to tell politician’s to ‘wake up to the reality’ or ‘understand the problem’. On housing for once politicians can’t be accused of being out of touch. All the leaders of the main parties will tell you the same thing – the solution is to build more affordable homes and this is what they plan to do.
Yet so often it does not turn out like that. Despite the promises, somewhere between the builders who claim they can not make a profit, the developers who blame the bureaucrats, the planners who blame the developers and not to mention the hordes of nimbys, the reality never seems to match the promises. The end result is that the current number of affordable houses actually being built is less than half of what’s needed.
But if you want evidence that the objections can be overcome when it comes to building in Britain, then you only need to travel five miles from parliament to the Emirates stadium. Seventy five per cent of residents objected to the building of Arsenal’s stadium. Yet thanks to support from the local council, the GLA and central government there it is. Where there’s a will, in the commercial world at least, it really does seem like there’s a way.
So why is it not the same for large scale residential building programs? Like many problems it’s not the solutions which are lacking. Merely the political will and the reassurance for politicians that if they do act, voters will be there to support them when the time comes. With only half of under-25s voting at the last election it is no surprise that most politicians assume that young people won’t be there for them at the ballot box.
So it is time to be honest with young people (and increasingly the not so young). They need to be told that voting is not something they should do out of some sense of civic duty alone. If there ever was a time when that was true it is not now. Not at time when public resources have moved beyond scarce. Right now people are voting to protect their interests and those who don’t vote shouldn’t expect their interests to be protected.
If generation rent want government to feel the overwhelming pressure to build more houses then they need to have the political muscle to make politicians act. That means being as vocal as the people who oppose every new development or argue that new houses are needed but just not around here. It’s time for generation rent to start moving from protest to action. The next election has to be different. This time they have to vote.
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Rich Durber is a former speechwriter for a shadow minister and writes a fortnightly column for Progress. He tweets @richdurber
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It is also good to take note of this in the local context and that of the danger devolving power to local authorities for example when looking at housing and rents, one should also look at the role of council tax. For example, Regarding the recent local Adur and Worthing survey on council tax, I see the local Adur Tory/UKIP council with Worthing Council now engaged in hitting the poor, those unwaged and those struggling with families on low incomes to which I find totally
immoral and unethical.
What we really are seeing is a process of social cleansing of those in poverty and unwaged and low incomes in Adur.
Already we know that housing benefit has risen in Adur with those on low incomes and in work, struggling to live, for example, in Adur the number of Housing benefit claimants in work from 2010 was 751, the number of Housing benefit claimants in work from 2014 was 1067 and
increase of 42% according to Stat-Xplore DWP and this does not count those unwaged. Secondly, we also view in our area that the housing cap of £650 a month for a one bedroom flat is too low and that the cap has failed to stop rising rents in the private sector. We also have an acute housing shortage with an added influx of wealthier middle class professionals into the area for private rental adding to the problem.
We also have seen before this imposed national housing CAP, the local authorities had already a in-house housing rental cap. So we have seen in a sense two caps imposed. This then leads to those unwaged in private accommodation, having to top up their rents with their JSA
and then leaving them in even more debt and poverty. Then a choice of having to go without food to pay bills which then leads to one having to go to a foodbank with a restriction of only three visits, then left to starve.
We now see that the Adur council seek on one hand to freeze council tax bills as stated in the local paper, some weeks ago for those on average and higher earnings and yet also to seek to impose a charge on those unwaged and low income and in poverty by deception. For example, if one is to read this survey promoted by two so called leaders of the Worthing and Adur councils you will see they use the words ‘those on low income of working age’. And seek to weaken the deception effect by using a multiple choice survey. Then they also use the words ‘flexibility over the level of reduction in council tax bills’.
Also, they state in the survey ‘some claimants currently have no council tax to pay because they have been awarded the maximum level of council tax support’. Rather than stating….. those unwaged in poverty or those poor and vulnerable on very low incomes. Clearly,one can see the use of key words and preconceived textual sentencing is at hand to influence the outcome and to create a simple them and us position. Infact it is shoddy, the policy decision has already been made it seems within the subtext, this is simply to view a
clarification of a process to be seen as democratic, but really in truth, what we see, is a game of political smoke and mirrors by design by local, so called politicians, who think they know best.
I find this survey outrageous in its wording and format and quite clearly again, puts
the burden of the national debt, caused by bankers and politicians on the poorest in society at the local level. These councils, should release the money, they have in their banks accounts, gaining interest for a rainy day or even cut the pay of the expenses of councilors and that
of the senior staff and CEO.
Even the IPPR in their report, The Conditions of Britain, Broad Rental Markets Areas (BRMAs),
pages 186, para, 2-3 states, that in a sense the (BRMAs) do not work and local housing Allowance (LRAs) are failing and that the price values set are insensitive to the local areas. For example here in Adur, it should be around £750-£800. Just look at the local letting agencies for one or two bedroom flat, if you can find one in Shoreham.
So what we are now seeing is a hidden and silent social cleansing of the area. And those that have families and children and those separated, divorced etc who have lived in these areas for years are being forced to move away from their families and this puts also more of a burden
on those on low income in work. Infact these so called local politicians seem
to revel in hitting the poor.
I was a speaker at the first ever national poverty hearing with Church Action on Poverty and Paul Goggins MP in 1995-6, and as I have always stated, poverty and exclusion is a battle of
invisibility and a lack of power to controls ones life, those in power need to help create a just and moral society to make the voices of the silent people visible towards a better life for the common good of all in society not condemn those poor and in poverty to a live of misery
and social cleansing by design.
These two so called political local leaders should be ashamed of themselves in support of such a survey and policy and fall on their swords immediately or be sacked as immoral and unethical local politicians, wanting to just put the political boot in on the poor, these are not leaders
but charlatans of the people, bloated by power. A true leader, walks with all, not the few and does not pick on the weakest in society but seeks to protect and offer hope.
I wonder if such a survey is actually legal, as its wording is leading and unbalanced in my view and also has this survey been through a board of ethics of any kind and has a impact assessment been achieved before such a policy that leads to in a sense social cleaning of the
poor in Adur. I urge all to object to this type of process regarding housing that also effects thr young.
do view the website:
http://www.adur-worthing.gov.uk/surveys/council-tax-support-low-incomes/