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Housing disaster
• NEW housing minister Margaret Beckett is said to be considering proposals from the Chartered Institute of Housing to scrap council housing tenure for life.
Camden Federation of Tenants, through the New Journal, invites the council leader, all-party groups and our two MPs publicly to join us to oppose means-tested or time-limited council tenancies. We look forward to a swift and united response from all concerned.
If this proposal became a reality it would add to the disgrace of the government’s asset-stripping of council housing, and directly contribute to a socioeconomic disaster.
How does it address the melt-down in the private housing sector? How is it compatible with the government’s commitment to sustainable communities?
The government needs to invest in more council housing, not less. The lack of council homes means only the most disadvantaged qualify for one, making estates less mixed and allowing tenants to be unfairly stigmatised as second-class citizens.
We need enough top quality council homes for every one who needs and wants one. That way we can attract the plumber, the doctor, the architect, the shop-keeper, and build strong, sustainable and genuinely mixed communities.
Some people wrongly believe government is subsidising council housing. Please visit www.moonlightrobbery.org.uk to see how council tenants are subsidising the Treasury.
Meric Apak
Chair, Camden Federation of Tenants and Residents Associations
Camden Street, NW1
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Your comments:
It is not just council housing that will be means tested, but all social housing. Housing association tenants seem to be forgotten about, but they are also going to find the security of their homes at risk under the sweeping attack on welfare and social housing that is currently in process. As rents rise towards the government 'target rents, service charges going up, people in all kinds of social housing who are on low incomes but above benefit levels (low paid workers, people with small private pensions for eg) are already wondering how to pay the cost of their housing. On top of this, the new 'choice' in the level of services provided by the landlord (tenant empowerment), when taken up on estates with a lot of market rental or leaseholder sale properties, will probably result in yet higher charges for extra services. The people on lower incomes will end up having to move to 'cheaper' homes on estates that are less salubrious and have fewer services. Tenants with slightly higher incomes will face regularly prying into their affairs to see if they can afford to pay more rent or to move out to private accommodation or house purchase. The minority who can just about manage this may be seen losing their homes in the next credit crunch.
And next on the government's agenda is 'scrutiny' of housing benefit for social tenants. We could all be forgiven for thinking that the government is deliberately driving those on the lowest incomes out of central London, out to where rents are lower, leaving the 'better' and more central estates for the HAs to fill with market rent tenants, or for leasehold sales. It would only be good business practice to use the better located and more attractive properties for this, as they will bring in more income than flats sold or market rented on sink estates. Central London is being 'sanitised', social housing is to become low standard 'last resort' housing for the chronically ill, the elderly poor, the band and the ugly! All of whom will be kept under strict social control and monitoring.
Unfortunately housing association tenants do not have active campaigning organisations to fight for their rights, and do not have the same history of activism as council tenants do. A great many of them seem not to have realised how all these changes may affect their lives.
V. St Clair
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