Call For Unoccupied Homes To House People On Waiting Lists

GMB call for local authorities to be given powers to use vacant dwellings left empty for prolonged periods to house people on housing waiting lists. Overall there is no alternative but for councils to increase the supply of council homes for rent at genuinely affordable rents, but using the already existing housing stock to house people is something that shouldn’t be overlooked, says GMB London In 2018 London had a total of 22,481 long-term vacant dwellings, 2,244 more than the year before. At the same time, in 2018 there were 232,409 households on Local Authority housing waiting lists. Read more on the GMB website.

https://www.gmblondon.org.uk/news/gmb-call-for-unoccupied-homes-to-house-people-on-waiting-lists

Housing Services Could ‘Grind To A Halt’

Housing services across Sheffield could ‘grind to a halt’ after council staff voted to take industrial action. Members of the GMB union at Sheffield Council’s housing services voted in favour of action in a row over changes to workers terms and conditions and the introduction of the council’s new housing management scheme, Housing Plus. They are planning a period of working to rule, starting in a week, followed by strike action in January. Staff claims the scheme is not working in the south-east area of the city where is it being piloted and customer satisfaction is low. They also say the restructure will result in pay cuts and staff becoming ‘jack of all trades and master of none.’ Read more on the Sheffield Telegraph website.

Tory Plan To Demolish Council Estates

Tory Appointing Lord Adonis Paves Way For Plan To Demolish Council Estates For Lower Paid Workers To Make Way For Expensive Housing. Wandsworth Tories have already begun this policy of knocking down council estates as in Roehampton estate in South West London 600 homes face demolition says GMB. GMB commented on the Tories appointment of Lord Adonis to oversee big buildings projects in the UK. Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary, said "The Tory Party claim to be the party of workers is nonsense. As well as taking £1,200 per year in tax credits from 3m workers, with the appointment of Lord Adonis they plan to demolish the council estates where these workers live to develop luxury housing for sale.” Read more on the GMB website.

Housing Benefit to Private Landlords Set To Rise by £440m a Year

The amount of housing benefit paid to private landlords will increase by £440m a year due to the ‘rapid’ growth in buy to let lending, GMB is warning. A new study said that if the growth in the number of new buy to let homes continues at its current rate, there will be 80,000 more claimants by the end of 2015. ‘This growth in buy to let lending will give rise to even more claims for housing benefit to pay the rents quite apart from pricing would be home owners out of the market,’ said Kamaljeet Jandu, GMB national officer for equality. ‘This latest growth will likely add another 20,000 new claimants in a single quarter and 80,000 over the year. The annual cost next year to taxpayers will be at least £440m.’ Read more on the LocalGov website.

Trade Union Calls For Council Regulation of Private Landlords

A trade union is calling on councils across the sector to enforce standards in the private rented sector by regulating landlords. Spurred on by the growth of amateur landlords in the sector, courtesy of Buy-to-Let, the GMB union said councils must be required to set up systems of regulation of private landlords. The union said that councils should set up a register of private landlords, and the condition of registration should require minimum standards for length of tenure, terms of contract, safety, the condition and energy efficiency of rented accommodation. This should include “at least reserve powers to intervene to impose fair rent levels”.  Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

Sheffield Tops Council House Waiting List With 30,000

Sheffield has the highest waiting list for council houses in Yorkshire. Sheffield Council says more than 28,600 people are waiting to be housed. But officials added only a ‘small proportion’ are actively seeking properties, with fewer than 7,000 people putting in a bid since October. The figures have been issued in response to the GMB union naming Sheffield as the place in South Yorkshire with the highest number of people on a council housing waiting list. The GMB’s figures are from April 2013. They put the number of households in the city on the housing waiting list at that time at more than 60,000. Read more on the Sheffield Star website.

Private Landlords Reap the Benefits from a Lack of Social Housing

A trade union has spoken out against a growing buy-to-let rental sector it says is costing the country a fortune in public money that could be better spent building social housing. The GMB argues that government spending on housing benefit to help people meet private sector rents is money ill-spent; better – and cheaper – to invest in building more social housing to provide lower rents homes that will reduce the benefits bill. As it is, the union says that around £9bn a year in housing benefit payments is simply “lining the pockets of the already wealthy”. And this is set to worsen, it suggests, as the buy-to-let sector fuels growth in the private rental market alongside the decline in availability of social housing stock. Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

Union Backs Protest against Private Landlords' HB Profits

General union GMB has put its support behind a planned protest outside a private residential property management company that received more than £2 million in housing benefits over 2012/13. The protest against Earlsfield Properties is driven by a belief that such a "large sum of public money going to private 'middlemen' is wrong". Last month a GMB study on the top 20 company landlords that receive housing benefit direct from councils for tenants renting their properties showed that for 2012/13 Earlsfield Properties received: £754,298 from Wandsworth, Merton £725,964, Croydon £414,072, Sutton £116,611 and Kingston-upon-Thames £86,858. The total of £2,097,804 makes the firm the 9th largest private recipient of housing benefit in the UK. Read more on the GMB website.

Use Housing Benefit Cash to Build 80,000 Social Homes a Year

More than 80,000 new homes could be built in Britain each year if just half of the country's total annual housing benefit bill was invested in new stock, the GMB Congress in Plymouth has been told.  A report presented to the Congress showed that much of £411 billion spent on housing benefit over the last 30 years has been funnelled to private landlords due to the shortage of social housing.  It called for a "fundamental break" in housing policy and for the billions spent subsidising private landlords to be switched to building new social homes.  Read more on 24dash.

Thatcher's Legacy

Nearly 40 per cent of homes bought under the right to buy in one London borough are now owned by private landlords. The GMB has found 6,180 of 15,875 properties sold by Wandsworth Council under the right to buy are now rented out privately.  The union has also discovered 977 landlords own more than one of these properties, with one owning 93. Using Land Registry data it has identified several of these landlords, who it describes as a ‘millionaire elite’.  Paul Kenny, general secretary of the union, said: ‘It shows private businesses making vast profits from the public purse while the people these homes were built for sit on waiting lists that never move.’  Read more on the GMB website.

GMB Slams ‘Fatcat’ Landlords Profiting From Right to Buy

Wealthy landlords are profiting from former council homes that were originally sold under Right to Buy (RTB), according to the GMB union. Focusing on the London Borough of Wandsworth, the union claims that 40% of ex-council homes in the borough are now owned by private landlords, including what it called a “millionaire elite”.  In a report presenting the union’s case, it said that out of 15,874 dwellings in council blocks in Wandsworth – where tenants acquired the leasehold under RTB legislation – some 6,180 homes are now owned by private landlords. That’s nearly 40% of the stock sold, the union said.  Read more on the Housing Excellence website.