The new social housing report could allay a U.K crisis
A recent call for the government to prioritise council house-building over the next twenty years is a sign of urgency in the UK’s shambolic housing crisis.
With a record 278,000 people living homeless in the U.K, something needs to be implemented to address what should be a human right for everyone. Everyone should have the right to housing and a roof over their head. This is why new plans requested, based on Shelter’s social housing commission report following the Grenfell disaster, that 3.1 million new homes need to be built. This includes 1.27 million allocated to social tenants, which could substantially help many, including the disabled and low-income families. A further 1.17 million homes will house the younger generation who are yet to afford a mortgage. The rest, around 690,000, will be delegated to an older generation who can rent privately without living in fear of insecurity during retirement.
No one can argue that the country isn’t facing a existential housing catastrophe. Around 67% of an earners’ monthly wage goes towards their rent to pay rogue landlords. 1 in 3 young people are estimated to never own their own property in their lifetime. How is this even acceptable to a government who once pledged to help the “just about managing”? With Brexit the only disaster getting attention, the government are ignorant to a housing system in plight.
This is why a refreshing call for the government to sustain a 20-year scheme to eradicate an unjust system would be highly beneficial. With Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy scheme of the 1980’s introducing a stigma to social housing tenants, it has continued to wade through in today’s political setting. Approximately 40% of London’s social homes has been sold off to private landlords, contributing to inflating rent payments and non-guaranteed living arrangements. Social homes, contrary to what Thatcher once espoused, provide a secure and stable home for millions of people nationwide. It is only logical to equate the worsening homelessness crisis with the lack of social housing available. Therefore a commitment to building is essential to help the homeless and the 2 million tenants who live in conditions so costly but untenable due to landlords who are unperturbed.
The issue of an inadequate housing scheme is not helped by a housing minister who is diverging in his comments to the press. The Secretary for Housing, Communities and Local Government, James Brokenshire, has rolled back on statements he has made in the past that are contradictory to his original tone. He once remarked that the rise in homelessness was ‘a combination of concerning elements in terms of addiction, family breakdown issues’. Brokenshire was nebulous in a recent interview where he suggested his own party were responsible for their failure to tackle homelessness and poor living conditions. He questioned if the Conservatives “need to ask (themselves) some very hard questions”. If the Conservative party are incapable of acknowledging their own to part to play in this mess, then the frustrated electorate will certainly look elsewhere in a pursuit to alleviate the housing distress.
A number of officials and lobbying groups have come forward to express their support in a the new scheme being proposed. Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, has credited the cost of the build because “it will more than pay for itself in the long run”. This relates to a Capital Economics analysis that proves the cost of building new homes is little to the resounding benefits it would give to British housing. Meanwhile, even Conservative Commissioner, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, has lauded the scheme for providing a “vital political opportunity to reverse this decay”.
Only time will tell whether the government will focus their energy more on grappling with domestic crises rather than the intolerable Brexit saga. The lower classes of the U.K deserve an affordable and stable home situation. With social housing providing this in the past, a return to a pre-Thatcher vision where many relied on social housing must be put into motion.
