It seems to me that what the government is proposing to do about social housing is neither all good nor all bad.  It seeks to tackle one of the major problems with it – that there isn’t enough of it to go round.   But their answer is based on trying to increase turnover, shuffle people between types of property, and keep people off the waiting list.   And that only amounts to tinkering at the edges.  It doesn’t address the fundamental problem, which is that there aren’t enough affordable homes for everyone who needs one.

I’m perhaps being a little unfair.  Alongside the changes to tenancy lengths and rights, the government is trying to bring empty homes back into use, and they are also introducing a sort of a bribe to get councils to agree to having extra housing in their areas.    But I’m not sure either of those things will work, especially in more rural areas where people don’t want to see more land used up for development.

I think there are other things that could be done better that would help.

I’m in favour of councils being encouraged to keep council houses.  If they can look after the houses, build more to provide more homes for people that need them, and fund it from the rents they receive, then they should be encouraged to do so, not have blocks put in their way, which is what’s been happening for the last 30 years.   It is absolutely ludicrous that for years now tenants have been able to buy their council houses and that most of that money goes straight to the Treasury – and that councils haven’t been allowed to build a new home to rent to replace the one that’s been bought.    Removing the Right to Buy would possibly be political suicide –  but using the income to fund new council houses must make sense.

And we have to get away from the idea that council estates are all like something from an episode of Shameless.  There seems to be some sort of mindset that says that social housing is only for layabouts and scroungers, and is rife with rubbish and anti-social behaviour.  It isn’t.  But if we keep treating it as though it is, in the end it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.    There will, of course, always be people who cause trouble, and who don’t look after their homes, but the vast majority of council tenants don’t cause any problems at all.   Why should they have to put up with being labelled as the dregs of society?  And why should they be expected to put up with living alongside people who behave badly?  We should be working much harder to control those who are badly behaved.     I can’t help thinking that the reason people look down on council housing is that the small minority of bad tenants are so visible that they are perceived to be the norm.

And finally, we should think much harder about the types of houses we build, and how the estates are put together.  We should think about the environment people will be living in, not just about how cheaply we can throw the buildings up.    

One of the things we could do is to involve tenants much more in the decisions that are made about their housing.   That might help produce the sort of social housing that is needed.  Less interference from the centre and more flexibility to fit local requirements would help too – and luckily that is something that the government seems to be trying to do.

Of course, if it was easy to sort out housing, someone would have done it by now!

I would be interested to hear from you about what you think the problems with social housing are, and your ideas for curing them.

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