Housing Services To Be Brought Back In-House By Trafford Council

 Vital housing services are being brought back under direct council control in Trafford after more than 15 years. From April 1 2021, the council’s social housing provision waiting list, homelessness services and homes advice services will all be run by the council for the first time in 16 years after they were outsourced in 2005. Since 2015, Salix Homes have been the council’s providers but now the authority has made the decision to bring the service back under its own control ‘as part of its commitment to providing social housing and tackle homelessness’. Salix Homes staff will be moving over with the service when it returns to the council. Read more on the MEN website.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/vital-housing-services-brought-back-19102530

Council Owed £5.5m In Housing Benefit That It Overpaid To Residents

Stockport council is currently owed more than £5.5m in housing benefits it has wrongly paid out to residents. The figure represents the total amount of money outstanding - including from previous years - that is yet to be recouped by the authority. Overpayments made to people in receipt of the benefit totalled £2.2m over the last financial year, while some £354,000 was written off over the same period. The council - which was owed a total of £5.8m at the end of 2018/19 - has warned it will ‘exhaust all reasonable avenues’ in order to recover the money. Read more on the MEN website.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/stockport-council-housing-benefit-overpaid-17089176

Social Housing Being Sold Off On Rightmove While Homelessness Soars

Social housing is being sold off to private landlords via Rightmove because housing associations don't want to spend money refurbishing the homes. One provider, Jigsaw, has sold off scores of homes to the private rental sector in the last three years, arguing nobody else wants them and it is ‘not economical’ to do them up itself. Jigsaw, which took over Manchester housing association Adactus earlier this year, says it is using proceeds from the sales to build more homes for rent. But none of them are in the south Manchester neighbourhoods where many of the sell-offs have taken place. Read more on the Manchester Evening News website.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/social-housing-being-sold-rightmove-15324425

5,000 Council Houses Were Sold Off And No Replacements Built

Calls are growing for the government’s ‘Right to Buy’ policy to be suspended in Greater Manchester after it emerged that more than 5,000 council houses have been sold off across the region since 2012 - but not a single one built to directly replace them. The findings from Greater Manchester’s housing commission, part of the combined authority, reveal that despite government promising ‘one for one’ replacements for any home sold off over the last five years, nothing has in fact been built with the £27m generated from those sales due to heavy Whitehall restrictions on councils. Read more on the MEN website.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/calls-right-buy-policy-suspended-15154742

Housing Crisis Looms As Population Growth Outstrips New Builds

Manchester’s population is growing nearly 15 TIMES faster than homes are being built, new analysis reveals. Stagnating levels of house-building in the city combined with a surging population is likely to mean the current housing crisis will only get worse over the next few years. According to the latest official figures, just 290 homes were built in the city in 2015-16, bringing the total number of dwellings (houses and flats) to around 218,500. That translates to a growth in Manchester housing of just 0.13 per cent between 2015 and 2016. In comparison, the population of the city grew by more than 10,000 people between mid-2014 and mid-2015 - the latest data available. Read more on the MEN website.

Soaring Cost of Emergency Payments to People Hit By Bedroom Tax

Greater Manchester’s councils spent nearly £5m helping people hit by the government’s controversial bedroom tax last year. The region’s town halls spent £4.8m in discretionary housing payments to help people on housing benefits who could no longer afford their rent because of the removal of the spare room subsidy. People living in social housing are penalised for having spare bedrooms, say opponents, with some residents effectively priced out of their own homes. The latest DWP figures show there has been a near 16pc increase in Greater Manchester in discretionary housing payments made because of the bedroom tax. Read more on the Manchester Evening News website.

Town Hall Rubber Stamps Housing Transfer

The transfer of 8,500 homes from the council to private ownership has been formally approved. Salford council rubber stamped the transfer of town hall-owned properties to Salix Homes at its full council meeting. This came after a tenant ballot in November when tenants voted in favour of the stock transfer. The transfer is expected to take place at the end of March and Salix Homes, which already manages the homes on behalf of the council. Salix says it will invest millions into the homes to bring them up to a decent standard by 2020 and maintain them. Read more on the Manchester Evening News website.

Call To Replace Right to Buy Homes

David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, has written a letter to Housing Minister Brandon Lewis which has been co-signed by 20 housing associations, calling for a radical overhaul of the initiative to ensure that homes sold under Right to Buy are replaced on a “like-for-like” basis. Mr Orr said: “We support Right To Buy for helping people into home ownership but that should not be at the expense of the 1.7 million people currently waiting for desperately needed social housing across England. Selling off homes at a price that leaves very little to replace them does not make sense. Unless we can replace every sold home with a new affordable home, there will be drastic consequences for future generations.”  Read more on the Manchester Evening News website.

Human Cost of Welfare Cuts

The first detailed study into how benefits changes are hitting Manchester has revealed the ‘human cost’ of swingeing welfare cuts.  New research warns of overcrowding, new social ghettos, soaring levels of debt and mental illness – with minorities bearing the brunt.  The analysis finds minority groups – including the disabled, women and certain ethnic groups – are being hit disproportionately hard by the policies. Around two thirds of the 575 households affected by the benefits cap are ethnic minorities. It warns the cap will force people into cramped, overcrowded conditions. Read more on the Manchester Evening News website.

Bedroom Tax Plunges Thousands into Debt Hell

Thousands of Greater Manchester residents are sinking into debt just two months after the bedroom tax began.  Housing bosses say many of their tenants who had their housing payments cut on April 1 are already in arrears.

One housing association says up to 70 per cent of its affected residents are now behind on their rent.  Housing campaigners have described the situation as a ‘ticking timebomb’ – and warn the region’s courts could soon be flooded with eviction cases.  Town hall bosses elsewhere in the country have vowed not to evict their tenants because of the bedroom tax.  Housing associations and councils in Greater Manchester say they will do everything in their power to help residents balance their finances and get out of debt. But privately, many local housing bosses believe the no-eviction approach is unrealistic.

Read more on the Manchester Evening News website.