Industry News
Over half of social housing residents have turned to credit or buy-now- pay-later services for essentials
O
ver half of social housing residents say they have used credit or a buy-now- pay-later service to cover an essential
household cost such as a food shop or a bill in the last 12 months. Tis is a key finding from the latest survey
output from the Resident Voice Index (RVI) initiative. Te survey of over 5,200 social housing residents on the impact of the cost of living crisis also revealed that nearly seven in 10 respondents worry all or most of the time about meeting normal monthly living expenses. With tenants facing such difficult choices
as a result of the cost of living crisis, it flags up the pressure that landlords will face in trying to minimise the expected growth in rent arrears, as well as their planning for next year’s rent increase. “Te survey makes it clear that households are
having to make tough choices,” said Doug Sarney, Project Lead for the Resident Voice Index and Director at MRI Soſtware. “Alongside over half of respondents reporting that they have had to use credit or deferred payment schemes to meet essential household costs, a further 20 per cent considered doing so. We are seeing a ticking time bomb for households on the edge of coping.” Te Resident Voice Index is an independent
project that anonymously gathers the views of social housing residents in the UK. Developed by MRI Soſtware, a provider of soſtware to the social housing sector and wider property market, the short RVI surveys are designed to provide policymakers
and housing providers with insights from residents about their neighbourhoods and communities. Te goal of the project is to ensure the voice of
the resident is heard to improve the experiences of social housing residents. Other key results of the survey include:
• Almost nine in 10 of those under age 35 say they are using or considering using buy-now-pay-later or credit to pay for essential household costs;
• 82 per cent of those under 35 report being worried all the time or most of the time about meeting normal monthly living expenses;
• Only 4 per cent of all respondents say they rarely worry about money;
• Over half (56 per cent) of all respondents didn’t know that help or support would be available to them if they faced a financial struggle; and
• Almost six in 10 (58 per cent) respondents do not feel that they have the power to influence their future financial situation.
One of the most significant indicators of the
challenges being faced was the use of the word ‘food’ in the free-text input from the latest Resident Voice Index survey. Analysis of these answers reveals numerous examples of parents skipping meals to feed children, increased use of food banks and people eating only cold food to avoid using domestic energy. A core theme that emerged from the results is that residents feel there is nothing more to
One of the most significant indicators of the challenges being faced was the use of the word ‘food’ in the free-text input from the latest Resident Voice Index survey
cut. Many respondents indicate that they are already living on tight budgets. “Tis is not just an instance of forgoing holidays,
trips out with the family or self-proclaimed luxuries,” Sarney notes. “Instead, for a proportion of those who answered, it is applying increased pressure to already bare-bones living. For those of pension age or who are unable to work – for example, because of disability or raising children – earning more money is simply not an option.” Sarney concluded: “We anticipated the survey
results to be hard hitting. However, we were not prepared for the high levels of desperation, extreme worry and hopelessness in the responses. References to catastrophic mental health slides and suicide were common in the free-text input of respondents. Our hope by sharing these accounts is to inspire anyone with the ability to enact change to do so.”
Tenants feel at greater risk from fires in their homes than owner occupiers do
Most people feel safe in their home and do not fear that a fire will break out but twice as many private and social housing tenants fear a fire starting in their home than homeowners. In the latest set of results from the English
Housing Survey for 2020/21, some 87 per cent of households said they felt safe from fire in their home while eight per cent said that they neither agreed nor disagreed that they felt safe at home. But
one in 20 households (five per cent) said they felt unsafe in their home because they fear that a fire may break out. Tenants were more likely than owner occupiers
to agree that they did not feel safe at home because a fire may break out. In 2020-21, eight per cent of social renters and eight per cent of private renters agreed with the statement, compared to just four per cent of owner occupiers. Respondents living in flats were more likely than
respondents in houses and bungalows to feel unsafe in their homes due to fear of a fire breaking out. In 2020-21, 16 per cent of those in flats felt unsafe, compared to four per cent of those in houses and bungalows. Not surprisingly respondents living in high rise
blocks of flats reported the highest proportion of feeling unsafe at 26 per cent, compared to 10 per cent of those in low rise purpose-built flats. Figures for other types of dwellings were much lower. For example, two per cent of those in detached houses and five per cent of those in bungalows agreed they
6 | HMMAugust/September 2022 |
www.housingmmonline.co.uk
did not feel safe at home because they feared a fire breaking out. In 2020-21, there were no statistically significant
differences in the proportion of respondents who felt unsafe because they feared a fire breaking out by age, aside from a difference between those aged 35-44 (seven per cent) and those aged 65 and over (three per cent). Tis is a different pattern than observed in 2019-20, and is likely due to the smaller sample in 2020-21 Tose from an ethnic minority background were
more likely than those from a White background to report feeling unsafe at home due to fear that a fire might break out, five per cent of White heads of households, compared to 13 per cent of ethnic mi- nority HRPs. Tis is unchanged from 2019-20 and is likely due to the fact that those from an ethnic minority background are more likely to live in flats. It is likely that all these findings are related. For
example, those from an ethnic minority background are more likely to be renters and renters are more likely to live in flats.
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