28 COMMENT
councils and housing associations were in line to raise rents by double digit percentages from pril .
RENT CAP LOOMS
mid mounting calls from charities, campaigning groups and representative bodies for the overnment to freee or restrict the annual increase in rent and service charges for social housing tenants, the ousing ecretary announced a uick consultation over limiting net year’s rent increase to , or per cent.
hile any limit on the rent increase will be welcome to tenants, it does create diffi culties for social landlords who will have to look at savings to cut the gap between their income and ependiture particularly as the consultation also seeks views on whether to set a further limit on rents in .
two in three private renters per cent said the current economic climate meant that, if they were evicted, they would struggle to afford the costs of moving.
LENGTHY WAITING LISTS
year ago it was reported there were . million households on local authority waiting lists, an increase of four per cent from . million in . The ational ousing ederation estimated the fi gures omitted around another , people hoping to be housed in the sector, while the ocal overnment ssociation thought the waiting list fi gure would rise to more that million over the course of . e await the publication of the waiting
list fi gures for this year, but it is fair to predict the total will be higher than . million. The past months has seen both house prices and rents surge, with infl ation at a year high and record energy costs adding to the pressures on household budgets. ith housing benefi t froen at levels, helter has been calling on the overnment to reverse this decision and to allow benefi t levels to refl ect real housing costs. t is diffi cult to see this happening given the billions of pounds such a decision would add to the welfare benefi ts budget.
There are ust over million homes owned and managed by social landlords. ast year some , homes were relet, a decrease of per cent or , lets from the previous year. This continues a downward trend since when , homes were relet across the sector. ith fewer social homes for rent becoming available each year, more families are being referred to private landlords, whose rents are nearly always much higher and where there is less security of tenure.
The overnment’s main body for
WWW.HBDONLINE.CO.UK
delivering new housing mainly through providing loans, grants or land is an agency called omes England, and in reporting on its performance for last year, it revealed that it failed to hit any of its new housing targets.
MISSED TARGETS
verall it aimed to support the completion of , homes, but only , properties were delivered per cent below target. ithin the overall target fi gure, it aimed to support the completion of , affordable homes but only helped deliver ,, a shortfall of . per cent. ffordable rent schemes saw the largest reduction in the number of starts on new homes, with ust , started a massive per cent reduction on the previous year.
The agency supported , housing starts on site in the months up to arch , but of these the number of social rent homes started in the past months was ust , a per cent decrease on the previous year’s fi gure. ffordable rents are normally set at about per cent of the local market rents, whereas social rents are typically set much lower at between and per cent of market rents. ousing benefi t payments will normally cover the whole of a social rent, but will rarely cover the full amount of an affordable rent. ince , social housing landlords in England have been able to increase rents by the onsumer rice nde infl ation rate plus one per cent each year. ast year, all maor English housing associations raised rents by the maimum allowed.
ut is currently running at very high levels. t rose by . per cent in the months to uly , up from . in une, with the ank of England warning it could hit per cent by the end of the year. f the upward trend continued,
ocial housing landlords, whether they are housing associations or councils, have also been lobbying inisters for greater freedoms and powers to build more homes. ouncils in particular want to use all of their ight to uy receipts to replace homes sold to sitting tenants. ince , councils have sold , homes under the ight to uy scheme and started building , homes. ssuming all starts are completed this represents a loss of around , social rented homes.
ousing associations rely more on private loans and their own resources to build new homes for rent, but they are facing a sueee caused by new building safety reuirements, a huge bill for retrofi tting energy effi ciency works and pressures from their lenders and credit agencies. ithout more assistance from the overnment, it is diffi cult to see how social landlords will be able to contribute newly built homes in the numbers reuired to make any meaningful impact on the homeless and waiting list fi gures. hile solving the affordable housing conundrum has not been at the top of the new ’s intray, helter’s chief eecutive olly eate has warned Too many people are losing the battle to keep a roof over their heads. The housing emergency was already tipping thousands of people into homelessness before the cost of living crisis took hold. ur frontline services hear from families every day who’ve got nothing left to cut back on. igh housing costs are a maor part of the cost of living crisis, but they are being ignored. To pull struggling renters back from the brink of homelessness, the new rime inister must unfreee housing benefi t so people can afford their rent. ut to end homelessness for good, building decent social homes with rents pegged to local incomes is the only answer.
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