Council Boards Up Area ‘To Keep Homeless People Away’

Westminster council has boarded up an area in the London borough to keep away rough sleepers, with campaigners warning that local authorities and police are pushing homeless people “out of sight and out of mind”. Large white hoarding has appeared outside McDonald’s in Victoria Street, which homeless people and campaigners say is part of a wider effort to remove rough sleepers from the borough with the largest street population in England. Rough sleeping in London reached an all-time high of 8,855 people for the 2018-19 calendar year, an 18% annual increase. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/19/westminster-council-boards-up-area-to-keep-homeless-people-away

ALMO Set For Return To Council

CityWest Homes – the arms-length housing organisation serving Westminster City Council – is set for a return to council control and restoration of its “public service ethos”. A formal decision on the ALMOs future will be taken by the council’s Cabinet next month – subject to consultation – after a report confirmed a need for ‘culture change’. Set up as an ALMO in 2002, CityWest Homes provides housing services for over 12,000 social housing tenants and 9,000 leaseholders for the council. Following concerns about the ALMOs performance highlighted by residents and ward councillors, the council commissioned an independent review into the issues. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/almo-set-for-return-to-council-control-and-culture-change/

Malthouse Openly Admitted Making Homeless People's Lives 'Uncomfortable'

The new Tory Housing Minister openly admitted he made life "uncomfortable" for the homeless as part of a zero-tolerance crackdown. He can expect scrutiny over his previous approach to homelessness when he was deputy leader of Westminster City Council, which he left in 2006. Under his watch, the council was accused by one London Assembly member of adopting a "ruthless" policy towards homeless people that included "hosing them out of doorways". Asked in 2008 if he was behind such a "hosing" policy, Mr Malthouse replied: "We certainly instituted a policy of making life - it sounds counterintuitive and cruel - more uncomfortable; that is absolutely right." Read more on the Daily Mirror website.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/new-tory-housing-minister-kit-12885129

Kit Malthouse Appointed Minister Of State For Housing

Kit Malthouse MP has been appointed Minister of State for Housing, following the promotion of Dominic Raab MP to Secretary of State for Exiting the EU. Mr Malthouse was previously Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Family Support, Housing and Child Maintenance at the DWP. He is a chartered accountant and, before entering Parliament, was a member of the London Assembly, serving as Deputy Mayor for Policing and Deputy Mayor for Business and Enterprise. Prior to this, he was a councillor on Westminster Council and was also on the board of the authority’s arm’s-length management organisation (ALMO), Citywest Homes. Read more on the NLA website.

https://landlords.org.uk/news-campaigns/news/kit-malthouse-appointed-minister-state-housing

Westminster Investigating ALMO For Ex-Council Buy-Back Practices

Westminster Council’s trading standards team is investigating its own ALMO for the second time in six months. The authority previously fined City West Homes £15,000 and listed it on the Greater London Authority’s database of rogue landlords and agents after another investigation last year. City West Residential, a letting and estate agent set up by the ALMO in 2009, was found to have breached consumer rights laws by failing to display its new tenancy fees accurately on its website. Westminster City Council would not confirm the nature of the second investigation, but Inside Housing understands it relates to the way City West Homes uses its estate agent to buy back ex-authority homes sold through Right to Buy. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mAauyakvVuMJ:https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/westminster-investigating-almo-for-ex-council-buy-back-practices-55759+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&safe=vss

Council Lists Own ALMO On Rogue Landlord Database

Westminster City Council has fined its ALMO £15,000 and listed it on Sadiq Khan’s Rogue Landlord and Agents Checker for consumer rights breaches. It comes after the council’s trading standards department investigated City West Residential, a letting agent subsidiary of City West Homes, which manages the borough’s 21,000-unit housing stock. The company was found to have breached Section 83 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 for failing to display its letting fees accurately on its website. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wQRhkN7GM2cJ:https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/westminster-council-lists-own-almo-on-rogue-landlord-database-54718+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&safe=vss

ALMO’s Letting Agency Being Investigated By Its Own Council

A lettings and estate agency owned by a London ALMO is being investigated by its own council’s trading standards department. CityWest Residential is a subsidiary of CityWest Homes, which manages 21,000 units on behalf of Westminster City Council. The authority confirmed it was taking action against the company for breaches of the Consumer Rights Act, but said it could not comment further. CityWest Homes was the first ALMO to launch a lettings agency in 2009. CityWest Residential now handles lettings and sales for private landlords across the borough, including those previously owned by the council. A proportion of the agency’s profits are channelled back into Westminster City Council to help pay for more affordable housing. Read more on Inside Housing.

Council Leader Calls For Affordable Housing Tariff

The Government should give local authorities the power to impose tariffs on developers to provide cash for more affordable housing, according to the leader of Westminster City Council. Cllr Nickie Aiken urged Whitehall to allow councils to institute ‘a locally-set charge paid on net increases in floor space’. This would allow the council to charge developers to help ease the burden they place on local infrastructure, he said. It would also help raise funds for affordable housing. Cllr Aiken compared the scheme to the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and section 106 planning obligations which contribute towards the creation of sustainable communities and mitigate the negative aspects of developments. Read more on the LocalGov website.

10-Year Wait For A Council House

At least 104,000 people in Britain have been on waiting lists for council-owned or ALMO homes, and at least 35,000 have been on the same waiting lists for 10 years. The research was compiled by the Liberal Democrats from 158 councils. It comes after one of Britain’s richest boroughs – where some face waiting 25 years for a four-bed social home – announced new plans to move homeless families out of the capital. Westminster City Council, which has had 779 people on waiting lists for a decade, admitted it must make ‘difficult choices’ to cut spiralling spending on temporary accommodation. Read more on 24housing.

Westminster Denies Sending Homeless Residents To The Midlands

Conservative-led Westminster City Council have categorically denied accusations they are sending residents in need of temporary accommodation to the Midlands. Westminster’s Labour group has accused the council of planning to send residents who have lost homes to cities in the Midlands in order to ‘end any responsibility for Westminster to find them a permanent home.’ The council’s plans argued, according to the Labour group’s interpretation, Coventry, Birmingham and Leicester ‘offer the best opportunities’ for Westminster’s homeless to be rehoused. The council’s rehousing plans show ‘no recognition of the strength of local connections’, the Labour group warned. Read more on the Local Gov website.

Plan To Move Homeless People Out Of London

Westminster Council is moving homeless people out of London to combat the high cost of temporary housing. Homeless people will be shifted from the borough and relocated to places elsewhere in the UK - likely the home counties - from January 30. The council has argued it will enable people to “put down local roots”, despite many of them having been born in London. It said it will help them find a job and access education and healthcare once they have been relocated. Read more on the Evening Standard website.

'Tackle High Rents Or Face Discretionary Housing Payments Disaster'

Labour councillors have issued a stark warning to Westminster Council Leader, Cllr Philipa Roe, and Cabinet Member for Finance, Cllr Tim Mitchell, who this year are dipping into council reserves due to Conservative government cuts and failure tackle the problem of unaffordable rents in Westminster. This year Westminster Council has seen a massive 46% cut in the government money allocated to support residents unable to meet their rent due to the government’s welfare reforms.  Last year the council was allocated £4.8m in Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP), now the council will receive only £2.6m. This follows years of Westminster Council underspending their DHP allocation and handing money to government. As a result, Westminster Tories have had to raid council reserves for an extra £1.1m to meet the projected shortfall in DHP. Read more on 24dash.

Senior Tory Says Right-To-Buy Could Wipe Out ‘Swathes’ Of Social Housing

The leader of a flagship London Tory council has warned that David Cameron’s right-to-buy scheme could strip the capital of “huge swathes of social housing”. Westminster leader Philippa Roe admitted that the re-jigged initiative risks leaving boroughs unable to provide homes for people who need them. The Prime Minister wants to allow 1.3 million housing association tenants to purchase their property and has promised that each home sold will be replaced. But Ms Roe said associations were likely to use money from the sale of London homes to build a greater number of properties outside the capital, where development is cheaper. She said: “What we will see is a reduction in the number of social housing units in London and more units built outside. But the crisis in housing is inside London. So it is absolutely vital that the proceeds of right-to-buy from London are kept in London.” Read more on the Evening Standard website.

High Court Stops Council from Blocking Access to Social Housing for the Homeless

A family lost their privately rented home in Westminster because the benefit cap meant they could no longer afford their rent. Westminster Council agreed it had to accommodate them. But first it placed them in Enfield and then it applied a new rule blocking them from bidding for social housing in Westminster for 12 months. This happened despite the law requiring that homeless people are to be given a “reasonable preference” in the allocation of social housing in the area to which they apply. Westminster’s thinking was that it would use the 12 months to find homes for homeless applicants in the private rented sector – in order to bring its own duties to an end. The High Court has decided that Westminster’s new rule unlawfully blocked homeless people by denying them the preference the law requires them to have. The judge declared the new provisions (brought into Westminster’s Housing Allocation Scheme last year) to be unlawful. Read more on the Garden Court Chambers website.

London Council Plans to Build Houses for Its Tenants outside Capital

A London borough is planning to build hundreds of council houses outside the capital for the first time to meet a critical housing shortage. Westminster council said it could no longer build enough affordable homes in the city to keep up with demands so it had decided to look at buying land in the commuter belt. The scheme, now out for consultation, has to overcome planning and logistical obstacles and may be opposed by councils where the homes would be built. Read more on The Times website.

Tory Council Spends £90m Buying Back the SAME Flats It Sold Off Under Right to Buy

Westminster City Council was notorious for a huge Right to Buy scandal in the 1980s, when Tory leader Dame Shirley Porter was found to have sold off council homes to likely Tory voters. The cost to the taxpayer at the time was roughly £27 million. Now, to tackle its crisis in affordable housing, the council has set up a charitable company called Westminster Community Homes. The company has spent £90.74 million buying back 295 ex-council homes, at an average cost of £307,593. A Mirror investigation has found that the prices being paid to buy back the homes are up to 22 times more than they were sold for. Read more on the Daily Mirror website.

Westminster Supreme Court Housing Decision Will Affect All Local Authorities

All local authorities will have to publish fresh guidance on housing, following a Supreme Court judgement. The UK’s highest court allowed an appeal by a mother-of-five who was made homeless by Westminster Council after she refused accommodation fifty miles away in Milton Keynes. Titina Nzolameso argued that Westminster had failed to adequately seek suitable accommodation for her and her children in, or closer to, the borough. Her initial legal challenge was rejected, and her children were taken into care, while she was forced into sleeping on friends’ sofas, but, by majority decision, judges have allowed the appeal, and quashed Westminster’s decision that the accommodation she had been offered was suitable. Read more on the Brent & Kilburn Times website.

Westminster City Council Spends Over £20 Million On 45 Flats Sold Under Right To Buy.

The average cost of the 45 former Council flats bought back by the Council is £419,000 with a further average cost of £36,000 in refurbishing the flats, giving a total cost of £20,445,000 – an average of £454,000 per flat. Labour Councillors say that many of the 45 flats sold by the Council would have been originally sold to their former Council tenant owners for less than £100,000 when taking in to account the discounts available under the Right to Buy. This latest news comes days after Westminster City Council revealed that it had bought 25 properties in Gray’s, Essex for over £3.6 million as temporary accommodation for homeless families.  Read more on the labourwestminster website.

Homeless Mother Wins Landmark Supreme Court Battle

A homeless mother of five has won a Supreme Court battle, which will affect councils looking to place families outside their areas. The UK’s most senior court has announced a unanimous ruling in favour of a mother of five in her fight against Westminster Council. The full judgement of the court will be handed down after Easter, with other cases involving out of area placements set to be stayed pending the full judgement. The woman was appealing after losing her case in the Court of Appeal in October. Eric Pickles, the secretary of state for communities, intervened on Westminster’s side when the case reached the Supreme Court, with homeless charity Shelter backing the appellant. Read more on Inside Housing.

Local Authorities’ Spending Cut by Over 20% under Coalition

England’s local authorities have collectively seen their spending cut by 20.4% under the Tory-led coalition, a new report has revealed.  And the Institute for Fiscal Studies' (IFS) figures show that, taking into account population growth, spending per person has been cut by 23.4%.  But the government’s cuts have not been even across the country. Westminster City Council has suffered a cut of 46.3%, while North East Lincolnshire Council has experienced a more manageable cut of 6.2%. And according to the IFS, further cuts planned for 2015–16 will generally be focused on the same local authorities that have lost over the last five years.  Download the report from the IFS website.