What has January looked like for housing?

Since the beginning of the new year, there have been a number of proposals - or expected proposals - regarding the housing crisis in the UK and how the current government plans to rectify it.

First, it has been proposed that tenants deemed antisocial will be banned from council housing for two years…

Plans are set to be unveiled this week that tenants deemed to be antisocial will be banned from being assigned council housing for two years, forcing them to turn to the often unaffordable private rental sector or risk homelessness.

Social landlords would be allowed to get rid of tenants after three warnings for behaviour such as playing loud music, with the idea first being suggested in the ‘antisocial behaviour action plan’ last October saying that “landlords and law-abiding tenants will benefit from stronger laws and systems to ensure those who are persistently disruptive are evicted.”.

Another scheme set to be proposed this week is placing British families as a priority on the waiting lists for social housing…

With the aim of prioritising ‘British homes for British workers’, Downing Street’s plan for social housing in the UK places focus on giving British citizens faster access to homes, adding to his crackdown on immigration. Refugees are able to claim social housing, but anyone not entitled to welfare is not, meaning most foreign people in the UK are already excluded from the waitlist, 90% of social housing tenants already being British citizens.

In a joint letter from sixteen housing professionals, charities, and council representatives, Rishi Sunak has been warned that “further rationing of an already scarce resource does not address the fundamental failures” of housing policy of the last 40 years.

England’s housing ombudsman has called for an independent royal commission to “reimagine the future of social housing” with a re-established connection between housing and its health impacts.

Richard Blakeway addresses thousands of tenants’ complaints about mistreatment, discrimination, etc. and has said that parts of the social housing sector have reached breaking point. He told The Guardian: “The system in some areas is really close to being overwhelmed…the scale of the challenge hasn’t been grasped”.

He added: “It’s not one policy, one landlord or one government [to blame],”…“it’s a cumulative impact of poor choices.”.

Sources:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/29/antisocial-tenants-will-be-banned-from-council-housing/#:~:text=Anti%2Dsocial%20tenants%20will%20be%20evicted%20and%20banned%20from%20applying,such%20as%20playing%20loud%20music.

https://www.cih.org/media/xu1phiuk/housing-sector-letter-to-pm-and-sos-luhc-re-british-homes-for-british-workers.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/26/uk-citizens-priority-social-housing-homelessness
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/22/richard-blakeway-ombudsman-england-social-housing-health