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It is common knowledge that the Right to Buy movement, which was initiated by Mrs Thatcher’s government and embraced by the government, eroded council housing stock. For example, between the years 1981 and 2004 two point two million council homes were sold to tenants. This mass privatisation led to an unethical disparity. The better off tenants bought the best of the stock leaving the poorest tenants in the worst accommodation .
The Right to Buy, coupled with a rapid depletion in the number of social houses being built, for example from 43,000 homes built in 1995 to 21,000 in 2003 has led to a severe shortage of housing stock for those of us who are not able to afford private rents or mortgages. The escalating need for social housing is well documented. For example, research in 2003 suggested that social housing must increase by 17,000 to 23,000 a year to meet housing need. In 2005, Shelter stated that 60,000 social rented houses were needed before 2011. Finally, in May 2008 the LGA (Local Government Agency) forecasted that by 2010 almost one in ten people in England and Wales would need social housing.
Yet, housing poverty is not restricted to the inadequacy of accommodation in the social sector. It may also refer to a poverty of attitude. Tenants in social housing have suffered a pincer movement of discrimination. On one hand, the depletion in manufacturing jobs and primary production has made consumerism , facilitated by massively irresponsible credit secured by property ownership, the backbone of our economy. Those who owned property could take advantage of low interest loans and finance schemes leading to a suggestion of affluence that far exceeded actual earnings. Those who rented property had no security on which to raise credit. They existed in an artificially induced relative poverty when compared with their mortgaged neighbours. On the other hand, the media created the Chav , an expansion of the American Right Wing theorist, Charles Murray’s idea of an underclass . The underclass are stereotypically, second and third generation unemployed dysfunctional people who live on social housing estates . Politicians have embraced the idea of a socially ‘provided for’ underclass. For example, in 1993 John Redwood launched a scathing attack on single parents on welfare, and in May this year, New Labour’s housing minister Caroline Flint suggested making up to 1,000,000 people in social housing actively seek work as a condition of their tenancies.
I believe that this stigmatisation is a divisive and unhealthy attitude which condemns the majority of honest individuals and families. It also takes the pride out of a system that should be admired and which gives security to those who, under the prevailing housing madness, will never be able to mortgage a house at a reasonable price.
For those of us who are ineligible for mortgages, the option of renting from a private landlord may initially seem attractive. For instance: there is rarely a lengthy waiting list for accommodation; there are no stringent criteria to meet, and sometimes the accommodation is partly furnished. However tenancies in the private sector tend to be short term and less secure than those for social housing; rents tend to be higher and often a deposit is required. Therefore, renting from a private landlord is often an impossible or unwise choice for people with families, and for those whose income is low or precarious.
So, depletion of housing stock and the impossibility of meeting demand for social housing as repossessions soar has re-opened the debate on how to provide more socially rented houses. Prior to 2005, the government had worked on three proposed means of investment into social housing. These were: stock transfer (LSVT), Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) and Arms Length Housing Management Organisation (ALMO). If local authorities did not use these options, it was unlikely that they would receive increased development from the Housing Development Programme. In 2005, the results of an enquiry from the House of Commons Council Housing Group showed unanimous support for the ‘Fourth Option’ of public investment into council housing, with the facilitation of a Public Investment Allowance. Unison, and the TUC have shown full hearted support for this Fourth Option, yet, to date, there has been no concrete progress.
I believe strongly that social housing stock should remain a public commodity. The revenue raised through public housing should be invested, as it was, in the maintenance and building of public housing stock. Instead of schemes for ‘affordable’ housing we should return to the old principles and supply affordable social housing for all who need it. Now, as unemployment rises and the so called ‘credit crunch’ or recession bites, we need to return to principles that ensured adequacy and affordability to those who need it most.
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