In his latest opinion piece, Coastline Housing CEO Allister Young talks about how dangerous and ill thought-through political language has the power to divide and create anger instead of helping everyone focus on a solution.
Two weeks ago we heard the announcement of the government’s latest initiative to solve the housing crisis. They announced something called ‘British homes for British people’, designed they said to ensure that “decent and hardworking people that have contributed to this country will be prioritised for new social tenancies”.
At first glance that might seem reasonable. You might wonder why a group of 17 housing organisations (including the Chartered Institute of Housing, the National Housing Federation, PlaceShapers, Shelter, Crisis and Generation Rent) wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister to push back strongly against the proposal?
Well, I agree with the reason the 17 organisations wrote to the Prime Minister to object.
It’s about the language of the proposal, which tries to paint a picture that there is a shortage of social housing for “decent and hardworking people” who have “contributed to this country” because the social housing we have is being taken by people who are not “decent or hardworking”, or who haven’t “contributed to this country”. It tries to blame ordinary people for the shortage of social housing.
In fact, the reason that there is a shortage of social housing for “decent and hardworking people”, is that successive governments for about 40 years have decided against having a housing strategy. And with no housing strategy, it’s no surprise that the country hasn’t built enough social housing (or indeed housing generally) so that everyone has access to a safe, secure, affordable home that meets their needs.
It’s also worth noting that there are already rules in place that mean the only people allowed to access social housing are UK citizens or people the government has given ‘settled status’ to. In Cornwall, 95% of all homes go to someone with a connection to Cornwall.
To cut a long story short, the proposal will make little or no difference to the housing crisis in Cornwall, or in the rest of the UK.
But rather than get further into what can be an emotional and polarising debate about who ‘deserves’ to be allocated social housing, I thought I would try and make a rational case for building more social housing, looking at the financial reality of the situation. Actually, I’m going to cheat a bit, and rather than re-inventing the wheel, I’m going to set out the argument using an excellent thread by a journalist called Pete Apps which I saw recently on The Social Media Platform Formerly Known As Twitter. Here goes!
First of all, are social housing customers’ rents subsidised by our taxes? Not really.
But, you might ask, what if the person living in the home is on benefits and not paying the rent themselves?
But some people argue, couldn’t we make more money and be financially better off overall as a country if the homes were let at full market rents?
OK, you might say, but what about the grant funding that the state gives towards building new social housing?
So overall, does it cost the country money, or save us money?
So there you have it. A rational financial argument for why we would be better off if we spent more time thinking about how we can solve the problem by building more social housing, and less time trying to blame certain groups for why it’s difficult to find a social home to live in when you need one.