Owning A Home A Pipe Dream For Young Workers

The housing ladder is disappearing for most young working households on modest incomes. For this group home ownership is projected to be approaching just one-in-ten by 2025. While the biggest decline in young  families owning homes is for those on modest incomes, it has also fallen for young households that are benefit dependent or on higher  incomes. As a result home ownership is increasingly becoming the preserve of older and wealthier households. The analysis finds that those aged 65+ now account for around one-third (32 per cent) of all homeowners, up from less than one-quarter (23 per cent) in 1998 – an increase of 43 per cent. In contrast, those aged 16-34 account for just 10 per cent of homeowners, down from 19 per cent in 1998 – a 49 per cent reduction. Read more on the Resolution Foundation website.

Over 400,000 Households In London Spend More Than Half Their Income On Housing

Around 430,000 households across London – containing 990,000 people – spend more than half of their income on housing costs. Analysis shows that the proportion of ‘housing pinched’ households in London (those spending more than half of their net income on the cost of housing) increased sharply in the years running up to the financial crisis – peaking at around one in seven households in 2008. The analysis shows that people living in London are significantly more likely to be housing pinched than the rest of the UK, and the gap has grown in recent years. 71 per cent of London’s housing pinched population are in working households – far more than the UK average – and the majority (54 per cent) are renters, rather than homeowners. The analysis shows that 24 per cent private renters in the capital spend more than half of their income on housing costs, compared to 12 per cent of mortgagors and 8 per cent of social renters. Read more on the Resolution Foundation website.

Low-Income Families in Private Housing Face Large Benefit Shortfalls

More than 300,000 low-income working families face a housing benefit shortfall, leaving them in some cases hundreds of pounds behind on rent each month. Research by Shelter predicts that 80% of working households claiming support to help meet soaring private-sector rents will be affected by the four-year housing benefit freeze announced in July’s budget. The research estimates typical rents for a two-bed home at the lowest end of the market in each local authority area in 2019-20, and compares this figure with maximum local housing allowance (LHA) rates for each area, which will be frozen from April 2016. The study shows that the monthly gap between private rents and LHA on two-bed homes in the cheapest areas of each authority will be significant in growth areas such as Cambridge (£529), Manchester (£240), Bristol (£236), Luton (£155) and Birmingham (£107). Read more on the Guardian website.

Councils Shun Government Advice on Allocations

A significant proportion of local authorities who responded to a government consultation on housing allocations have indicated they will ignore advice to prioritise applicants who are working.  The government issued revised guidance for local authorities on the allocation of housing which urged authorities to consider how allocation policies can be used to support households that are working or want to work, and suggested preference might be given to people in employment-related training or low-paid jobs. A summary of the 224 responses published alongside the guidance states more than half of local authorities that responded do not currently have an allocations policy that favours people in work. Less than a third of these said they had definite plans to change their policy in light of the guidance, and more than a third said they had no intention of doing so.  Download a copy of the consultation response from the CLG website.

Shapps to Look At Giving Tenants Free Equity Stakes in Social Housing

Housing minister Grant Shapps has agreed to look at plans to give working tenants a free equity share in their property - which could be cashed in when those tenants leave the social rented sector. The call came from Conservative MP for Harlow Robert Halfon in a debate on social housing in Wesminster Hall. He cited the “Breakthrough Britain” report, by the Centre for Social Justice, which called for social tenants who work, or who make a genuine effort to find work, to be rewarded with increasingly larger equity stakes in their home. Read more on 24dash.

Allocations Overhaul to Favour Workers

A London borough is to give priority to working residents in an overhaul of its housing allocations policy. Sir Robin Wales, Labour mayor of Newham in east London, said that he wants to reverse a ‘race to the bottom’ which means residents have to prove they are more vulnerable than their neighbour to move into social housing. Sir Robin announced plans to more easily enable working households to access social housing. These include prioritising employed residents on the waiting list (within existing bands), allocating a number of properties to people actively looking for work and allocating the majority of properties in schemes such as the post-Olympics athletes village development to working residents. Sir Robin said: ‘Social housing should not be housing of last resort. Read more on the CIH website.

Council to Give Greater Priority to Employed People

Working households are to be given greater priority at a London authority after the new leader declared he was launching a reform of housing. Ravi Govindia, leader of Wandsworth Council, said he wanted to create a greater mix in the borough’s estates and that council housing should be ‘aspirational’ not ‘a last resort’. Wandsworth Council said that less than one in three council homes are going to people in employment. Under the plans, unemployed households would be offered homes in the private rented market and other housing providers while the authority’s housing stock would be offered to working households. The council said this could be achieved with the proposed change in legislation for providing housing for homeless applicants. If enacted, councils will no longer have to provide homeless applicants, who it argues are often unemployed, who refuse a suitable offer of private rented housing with temporary accommodation and then social housing. Read more on Inside Housing.