CLG Found To Undervalue Affordable Housing

The way the government measures the value of affordable housing is fundamentally flawed and the sector has double the impact currently assumed, according to independent research.  Allocation of public funding has been calculated based on a Treasury formula that indicates that every pound invested in affordable homes is worth just 50 pence because affordable homes have been thought to displace housing of other tenures.  This means the Treasury has assumed that one out of every two publicly funded homes would have been built anyway by a private developer.  However, independent research commissioned by the G15 group of London’s largest housing associations indicates this assumption is flawed.  Read more on Inside Housing.

Council Plans to Move 761 Poor Families from London

A council is planning the largest single displacement of poor people from London in the wake of the coalition government's controversial welfare reforms, singling out more than 700 families to be moved up to 200 miles away.  Camden council said that it would shortly be contacting 761 households, comprising 2,816 adults and children, because the coalition's benefit cap – which limits total welfare payments to £500 a week for families – will mean that they will be unable to afford their current accommodation or any other home in the south-east.  The Labour-controlled council warns that the majority of these families have three children and, once the cap is imposed this summer, will need to find on average an additional £90 a week for rent to remain in their homes – which means "sadly the only long-term solution for some households will be to move".  The local authority says it has been forced to look as far afield as Bradford, Birmingham and Leicester and warns that 900 schoolchildren – more than one child for each class as an average across the borough's schools – face having their education disrupted by the move.  Read more on the Guardian website.