4th December 2006

East Midlands needs an extra 2,000 Housing Association homes a year to deal with rising tide of homelessness

The East Midlands needs an extra 2,000 housing association homes a year for the next decade to turn back the swollen tide of homelessness that has risen in the region by 35 per cent since 2000, with about 10,000 households a year finding themselves without a roof over their head. During the same period housing waiting lists have gone up by 27 per cent and the use of temporary accommodation by 57 per cent.

 

The call for the extra affordable homes is made in a Housing manifesto for the East Midlands, published today by Nottingham Community Housing Association to mark the 40th anniversary of the first showing of Cathy Come Home.
 

‘Given the depth of the housing crisis in the region, our call for an extra 2000 homes is a modest demand,’ said Andrew Malone, Chief Executive of Nottingham Community Housing Association (NCHA). ‘It would bring the annual housing association building total up to 6,500 a year, which Gordon Brown can well afford to fund. A succession of governments has used housing as a cash cow since the early 1980s raising more than £45 billion from the sale of council houses. The present Government is now raking in a further £6 billion a year from stamp duty. It is time more of that money was ploughed back into housing for people living on low and modest incomes.

‘The region has plenty of land for building, housing associations have shown they can deliver and the Government gets more for its money by building in the East Midlands. Costs are lower than in the South East, where the infrastructure is groaning under the weight of overdevelopment.’

Other actions called for in the Manifesto include:

    * Fill up empty homes: Local authorities and housing associations should make greater efforts to reduce the number of percentage of empty homes in the region to the Government recommended level of 1.5 per cent. In some authorities the figure is as high 5 to 6 per cent.

    * An end to the sale of council homes: A total of 156,849 homes, most of them family houses, were sold by East Midlands local authorities under the Right to Buy between 1979 and 2005. That’s half as many again as the total number of homes built and managed by the region’s housing associations who own about 100,000 between them.

    * Bring private housing up to scratch: The East Midlands has a higher percentage of unfit private housing than most other regions. Indeed, the worst housing conditions in the region are found generally in the private sector. The Government should make improvement grants available to low-income homeowners and landlords, reclaiming the money, if necessary, on the sale of the property. It should also encourage and monitor ethical equity release schemes.