Housing Associations Play Vital Role In Tackling Worklessness

Housing associations' contribution to employment and skills has been recognised in a new report from the Centre for Cities. ‘Delivering change, What Housing Associations can tell us about employment and skills’ highlights how low skills and high unemployment clusters in social housing in cities and outlines a number of ways housing associations are contributing to tackling worklessness and growing skills. Bolstered by a number of housing-led case studies the report finds that housing associations’ role as major employers means they can offer a variety of ‘real’ jobs and work experience in-house or via their supply chains. Read more on the NHF website.

UK Housing Crisis Will Not Be Solved Without All Solutions on the Table

The housing crisis in high-demand UK cities will only be solved for the long-term through a multi-pronged approach to freeing up land supply – including increasing the density of existing communities, and encouraging cities to work more collaboratively with their neighbouring authorities, a new Centre for Cities report has argued. Critically, it also highlights the importance for land both within and outside of cities to be re-evaluated on its merits, including certain green belt sites connected to local amenities and infrastructure – an essential component of tackling the crisis which has largely been designated ‘off limits’ in public debate ahead of the 2015 Election. Download the report from the Centre for Cities website.

What Does The Benefit Cap Mean For Cities?

First, the impact of the benefit cap will vary significantly between cities. Because it is being set nationally at £26,000 the vast majority of these households will be located in just a few cities, with around half estimated to live in London.

Second, the benefit cap is unlikely to encourage large numbers of people back to work. Many UK cities face the challenge of stubbornly high unemployment.  Research suggests that while these kinds of welfare sanctions may be successful in getting people off benefits, this may be because they drop out of the system altogether, rather than moving into sustainable employment.

Third, the benefit cap does nothing to change the fundamental factors driving up the cost of welfare across the country. For example, housing benefit payments represent the second largest proportion of welfare spending in the UK. They tend to be largest in those cities where house prices and rental rates have increased sharply over the past twenty years. This means that more people in these cities require financial support to find a home, and that the cost of this support is also increasing. Simply capping the total amount of benefits that working-age people can receive will not tackle this issue. Read more on the Centre for Cities website.

Report Calls for Rethink on Empty Homes in the North

Influential think -tank Centre for Cities concludes that national policies to increase housebuilding are working against bringing vacant properties into use in the north. It’s new report Cities Outlook says bringing empty homes into use is likely to be more beneficial than building new houses in areas with lower house prices.  But national housing policies are such as New Homes Bonus, designed to increase housing supply, may be unhelpful in areas with lower house prices by encouraging house building when improving the exisiting housing would be better.  Download the report from the Centre for Cities website.