Long Wait For Housing In Sandwell As Thousands Of Homes Sit Empty

 Sandwell Council had 3,187 empty residential properties as of September 6, according to council tax records. This includes all privately owned, privately rented and social housing across the borough, and includes everything empty for just one day up to those empty for over 10 years. Meanwhile 10,004 people were waiting for a residential property on the council’s housing list as of September 6, with 3,574 of these current tenants and 6,430 non-current tenants. The average wait for a two-bed council house in West Bromwich is seven years. Read more on the Express & Star website.

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/property/2021/09/21/long-wait-for-council-housing-in-sandwell-as-thousands-of-homes-sit-empty/

Affordable Housing: Construction – Parliamentary Written Answer

 Stuart Anderson: [166569] To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to build more affordable homes and reduce social housing provider waiting lists.

Christopher Pincher: The new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme will leverage up to £38 billion of private finance and provide up to 180,000 new homes across the country, should economic conditions allow. Approximately 50% of the homes delivered will be for affordable home ownership. We will also deliver more than double the homes for social rent compared to the current programme, with around 32,000 social rent homes due to be delivered. Furthermore, [the] Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme will deliver approximately 250,000 new affordable homes.

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2021-03-10/166569

Just One Social Home Delivered For Every 175 Households On Waiting Lists

More than one million households sat on social housing waiting lists at the end of March this year while fewer than 7,000 social homes were built by the year end, newly released government figures show. Figures released by the MHCLG show that 1.15 million households sat on social housing waiting lists at the end 2020/21, while figures released last week show that 6,566 new social homes were delivered at 2020/21 year end. This means just one social home was delivered for every 175 families on council housing waiting lists across the country. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/just-one-social-home-delivered-for-every-175-households-on-waiting-lists-69035#:~:text=Just%20one%20social%20home%20delivered%20for%20every%20175%20households%20on%20waiting%20lists,-News17.12.20&text=More%20than%20one%20million%20households,newly%20released%20government%20figures%20show 

Waiting List For Council Homes In England ‘Will Double To 2 Million’

The waiting list for council housing in England will almost double to two million people next year, amid alarming figures suggesting that hundreds of thousands are already facing the threat of eviction as a result of the Covid-19 fallout. With evidence that renters on low incomes are using up their limited savings, cutting back on essentials and borrowing money to stay afloat, a new analysis warns that the waiting list for council houses in England will exceed its peak following the 2008 financial crisis as more and more people are unable to afford their homes. Read more on the Observer website.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/14/waiting-list-for-council-homes-in-england-will-double-to-2-million 

Social Housing Waiting Lists 500,000 Short Of True Total

The number of households in England in need of social housing is 1.6 million – 500,000 more than the 1.16 million households recorded on official waiting lists, according to analysis by the National Housing Federation which found that nearly eight million people in England are experiencing some form of housing need and for 3.8 million of these people, social rented housing would be the most appropriate tenure. The NHF said that some households have been on the waiting list for nearly two decades and warned that the number of people in need of social housing is set to rise rapidly as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/social-housing-waiting-lists-fall-500000-short-of-true-total-analysis-shows-67902#:~:text=Social%20housing%20waiting%20lists%20fall%20500%2C000%20short%20of%20true%20total%2C%20analysis%20shows,-News15%2F09&text=The%20number%20of%20households%20in,National%20Housing%20Federation%20(NHF) 

Scandal Of Birmingham's 4,575 Empty Private Homes - As 13,000 On Housing Waiting List

Birmingham tops a government list for having the most empty homes in England. Around 13,000 people are on the housing waiting list - as enforcement officers battle to reclaim private homes left to rot across the city. The city has 4,575 long-term empty homes - a 6.8 percent on the year before. The statistics were taken from government-published empty homes data. Across England, the number of long-term vacant properties rose 4.5 per cent to 225,845 in the 12 months to October 2019. Read more on the Birmingham Live website.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/scandal-birminghams-4575-empty-private-17994809

Rural Social Housing Crisis ‘Left Behind’

Over half (58%) of rural local authorities’ waiting lists for social housing have grown between 2018 and 2019, according to analysis of the government’s own housing figures. According to a new report by CPRE (Campaign to Protect Rural England), the backlog in unmet demand for social housing is continuing to grow year on year, with hundreds fewer genuinely affordable houses delivered last year compared to the year before. According to reports, in 2018/19, a little over 1,000 social homes were delivered across 91 rural local authorities in England. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/rural-social-housing-crisis-left-behind-report-reveals/

1.15 Million Households ‘Stuck’ On Social Housing Waiting Lists

Some 1.15 million households are stuck on social housing waiting lists, while there was a net loss of over 17,000 social homes in the last year, new research reveals. That 1.15 million figure is confirmed in Government figures for 2019 and represents an increase of by 4% in the last year. Against this, there are over 17,000 fewer social homes than last year, as 23,740 were sold or demolished and just 6,287 delivered. Even more social rent homes have been lost through conversion to less affordable forms of renting. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/some-1-15-million-households-stuck-on-social-housing-waiting-lists/

Years-Long Waiting Lists For Social Housing In Lambeth

A severe housing shortage in Lambeth means people are waiting for a council home for years, with one resident joining the list in 1975. According to a Freedom of Information request, someone joined the list 44 years ago and has yet to be given social housing. Lambeth Council said the oldest applications “include people who are adequately housed and therefore have no priority for social housing, and who are not actively seeking rehousing but remain on the list at their own request.”  Nearly 30,000 people are waiting for a council home in the borough.  Read more on the Wandsworth Guardian website.

https://www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk/news/18061394.years-long-waiting-lists-social-housing-lambeth/

Council Taken To Court Over Allocation Scheme That ‘Removes Homeless Families From Housing Register’

A London council’s allocations scheme which is accused of “removing a very significant proportion of homeless people” from its social housing register is to be challenged in the High Court. Lambeth Council is being challenged over the lawfulness of its ‘Temp to Settled’ policy, which offers to assign a higher level of priority to homeless households on the social housing register if they withdraw their homeless application and move into private rented accommodation. However, those who have accepted this offer and moved outside the borough have then found themselves removed from the list due to the loss of a local connection. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/council-taken-to-court-over-allocation-scheme-that-removes-homeless-families-from-housing-register-64157?utm_source=Housing60&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article_link&utm_campaign=H60

Call For Unoccupied Homes To House People On Waiting Lists

GMB call for local authorities to be given powers to use vacant dwellings left empty for prolonged periods to house people on housing waiting lists. Overall there is no alternative but for councils to increase the supply of council homes for rent at genuinely affordable rents, but using the already existing housing stock to house people is something that shouldn’t be overlooked, says GMB London In 2018 London had a total of 22,481 long-term vacant dwellings, 2,244 more than the year before. At the same time, in 2018 there were 232,409 households on Local Authority housing waiting lists. Read more on the GMB website.

https://www.gmblondon.org.uk/news/gmb-call-for-unoccupied-homes-to-house-people-on-waiting-lists

Shelter Wants All-Parties Commitment To 90,000 Social Rent Homes A Year

Shelter wants an all-parties election manifesto commitment to delivering at least 90,000 social rent homes a year over the next parliament, as the charity releases new stats showing as many as nine in ten private renters now face years on waiting lists. The charity’s analysis of the latest government data shows there were nearly 500,000 privately renting households on council waiting lists last year, but fewer than 43,000 private renters moved into a social rent home during that same period. And the true scale of need among private renters is probably far greater than these figures suggest, with many cutting back on food or skipping meals completely. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/shelter-wants-all-parties-commitment-to-90000-social-rent-homes-a-year/

Council To Buy Back More Than 300 Council Houses

Nottingham City Council has announced plans to buy back more than 300 council houses to tackle the growing demand for social housing in the city. The four-year scheme will involve more than 300 purchases and also include newly-built homes, as well as houses and flats that have previously been bought through the Right To Buy scheme. This scheme will be used to help lighten the load on Nottingham's growing social housing waiting list and homelessness problems. The purchases will be paid for using Right To Buy replacement receipts and council borrowing. Read more on the Nottingham Post website.

https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/nottingham-city-council-buy-back-3063534

May's Flagship Policy To Solve Housing Crisis Will Deliver No New Homes In Half Of England

Theresa May’s policy for a revival in council housebuilding will not deliver a single new home in more than half of the local authorities in England. The prime minister announced a major change that will see the government scrap restrictions on how much councils can borrow to fund housing. However, ministers have admitted that less than half of councils have the type of account that will allow them to increase their borrowing. Only 160 of the 326 councils in England with responsibility for housing have housing revenue accounts (HRAs). Councils set to miss out on the potential funding boost include several with some of the longest housing waiting lists in the country. Read more on the Independent website.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-housing-policy-local-councils-rents-revenue-borrowing-half-england-a8617201.html

England Has More Than 200,000 Empty Homes

Ask most people about England’s epidemic of empty homes and they are likely to think of lavish vacant mansions in London owned by absent foreign billionaires. In fact, the majority of empty properties are in post-industrial areas, where poverty rates are high and house prices languish well below their pre-crash levels. With new house building not providing enough affordable homes for more than 1 million people on waiting lists in England, social enterprises and councils are trying to bring empty homes, which number well over 200,000 and are worth almost £50bn, back into occupancy. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/25/england-has-more-than-200000-empty-homes-how-to-revive-them

More Than A Million On Social Housing Waiting Lists

The official figures highlighted by housing charity, Shelter, also show 290,000 homes became available in 2017, leaving a shortfall nationally of about 800,000. But fewer than 14,000 of these were newly-built homes. Most became available after tenants were evicted, died, or simply moved on inside or outside the social housing sector. In some local areas, the number of available homes is dwarfed by the number of households on waiting lists. The gap is being caused by the lack of new social homes being built and the fact that many existing ones are sold off through right to buy without the proceeds having been used to build new ones. Read more on the BBC website.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-44413766

How One Council Has Cut Its Housing Waiting List By 95%

If you found a way to cut the waiting list for your service by 95% while boosting customer satisfaction and shrinking costs, you might expect others to follow your lead. Those outcomes were achieved by a remarkable turnaround of the housing allocations system in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, where the local borough council has put a focus back on individual needs and has thrown out a standardised process described by one housing officer as having felt like being “on a treadmill never getting anywhere”. Great Yarmouth continues to use its revised approach, and professes great faith in it, but almost all other housing authorities persevere with versions of the “choice-based” lettings system it has abandoned. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2018/apr/10/great-yarmouth-norfolk-council-cut-housing-waiting-list

Vulnerable People 'Trapped In Homelessness' Due To Law

Vulnerable people are unable to access social housing, potentially trapping them "in a cycle of homelessness", due to a change in the law. Under the Localism Act 2011 councils were granted greater powers to restrict access to social housing. Since then 700,000 households have disappeared from waiting lists across England. The HCLG said: "Social housing is a priority for us." Until the act became law in 2012, councils were required to consider all housing applications, with few powers to remove households from the list. Now a local connection - often more than five years in a borough - is required by 35% of councils to access the social housing register. Read more on the BBC website.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42919703

Progress On Council Housing But ‘More To Be Done’

The government is standing by statistics that pitch progress on council housing – but maintains there’s more to be done. On paper, the stats show more people have got onto the housing ladder, waiting lists for councils houses have reduced and the amount of council housing not meeting minimum standards has decreased. The stats show;

·         A decrease of 0.7% on local authority housing in 2016/17 with 13,416 people having bought homes as a result of Right to Buy.

·         20,000 fewer people are now on Local Authority waiting lists, a decrease of 2% since 1 April 2016.

·         Over 95% of all Local Authority stock meets the decent homes standard. This is up from 84% in 2010.

Read more on 24housing.

http://www.24housing.co.uk/news/progress-on-council-housing-but-more-to-be-done/

Spending Social Housing Is At A Record Low

Spending on social housing is at a record low, while the amount forked out in housing benefit to private landlords continues to rise, a new study shows.  The amount spent on building homes for a growing population has more than halved from £11.4 billion in 2009 to £5.3bn in 2015, according to a new NHF report. More than a million households are on housing waiting lists and the problem will get worse unless the government is prepared “to make a break from the past”. The sum spent on housing benefit has risen over the last 20 years from £16.6bn to £25.1bn. The yearly amount going to private landlords has almost doubled over the last decade to £9.1 billion in 2015-16. Read more on the Morning Star website.