Releasing Untapped Potential For More Housing

A new report from Savills says housing associations (HAs) have the financial capacity to more than double their output and bring forward 44,000 extra new homes by 2029 through additional asset-backed borrowing. Some form of subsidy is critical to deliver these homes across a range of tenures and to achieve affordability. In the absence of grant, HAs would need to secure land at zero or low value to deliver shared ownership or affordable rent housing. Almost half of the additional financial capacity to become a new class of home builder rests with large scale voluntary transfer (LSVT) associations, particularly larger ones. Download the report from the Savills website.

Housing Associations 'Should Consider Funding New Loan System'

That is one of the recommendations by influential right-wing thinktank the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in a new report. The report, entitled Future Finance: A new approach to financial capability, recommends a series of measures to provide financial services for people on low-incomes. The CSJ report says low-income households often have to rely on services designed for people with larger or more regular incomes and sometimes find it difficult to manage direct debits. Download a copy of the report from the CSJ website.

‘Quids In’: Social Housing Research Project

This research project was set up to identify the benefits of financial capability training by comparing attitude and behaviour changes between two groups of tenants at the same housing association. One group received financial capability training whilst the control group did not. The research has significant potential to influence the take-up of financial capability interventions among social housing landlords. The research makes a strong case for social landlords to become involved in financial skills training and the lessons from the project can help CAB work with their local housing associations to identify an approach that suits their needs and the needs of their tenants.  The results from this research demonstrated significant behaviour changes for the intervention group, for example:

    *78% had changed how they managed money since the training compared to 36% of the comparison

    *Tenant learners had six times higher odds of achieving financial benefits than the comparison group and on average were £10 a week better off

    *20% of tenant learners had changed their saving behaviour almost twice as many as the comparison group

Download a copy of the findings and a copy of the training resources used from the Citizens Advice Bureau website.