Localism Bill 'Risks Stigmatising Tenants'

The government’s proposals for social housing risk stigmatising tenants and weakening communities, the Chartered Institute of Housing has warned. The CIH expressed its concerns in its response to the government’s consultation on social housing reform, Local decisions: a fairer future for social housing, which closed on 17 January. It agreed with the proposed flexible tenancies, but suggested that two years is too short for a fixed-term tenancy, and would create ‘instability in households and communities and lead to additional administrative and management costs which may have no benefit for the customer’. It also called for clarification over the term ‘affordable rent’ and challenged the suggestion that restricting access to housing registers will improve access to social housing or create more options for people to meet their housing needs. While it welcomed proposals on homelessness reform as an immediate solution to current problems in terms of use of temporary accommodation, it said there is unlikely to be sufficient affordable and suitable private sector housing in many areas to provide accommodation for people owed the main homelessness duty. Read more on the CIH website.