People who live in council houses should be made to feel proud of their homes, Theresa May has said.
image: Open Government Licence v3.0
BBC News writes:
The PM announced £2bn to build new homes in England, in an attempt to remove the ‘stigma’ of social housing. Under the plan, housing associations, councils and other organisations will be able to bid for the money to spend on new projects, starting from 2022. Labour said the announcement fell ‘far short’ of what was needed for the social housing sector…
Mrs May told a National Housing Federation summit in London: ‘Some residents feel marginalised and overlooked, and are ashamed to share the fact that their home belongs to a housing association or local authority. On the outside, many people in society – including too many politicians – continue to look down on social housing and, by extension, the people who call it their home.’
She will encourage housing associations to change how tenants and society view social housing. ‘We should never see social housing as something that need simply be ‘good enough’, nor think that the people who live in it should be grateful for their safety net and expect no better,’ she said. ‘I want to see social housing that is so good people are proud to call it their home… our friends and neighbours who live in social housing are not second-rate citizens.’
In mixed developments, she said it should be impossible to tell the difference between full-price and affordable housing, which should not be ‘tucked away out of sight and out of mind’.
David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said the prime minister’s announcement was ‘extremely welcome’. ‘This represents a total step change. For years, the way that money was allocated meant housing associations couldn’t be sure of long-term funding to build much-needed affordable housing,’ he said. He said that by changing the way the funding was allocated, ministers had given ‘long-term confidence and confirmed that we are trusted partners in solving the housing crisis, building new homes and communities’.
Polly Neate, chief executive of housing charity Shelter, said it was welcome that the government was ‘starting to get serious’ about correcting the ‘historic failure’ to build social homes. ‘This must be the start and not the end,’ she said.
… The English housing survey for 2016/17 reported that 3.9 million households – about nine million people – lived in the social rented sector, which was 17% of households in the country. While it’s estimated that housing associations now build around 17% of homes, many people are on waiting lists for social housing. Over the last 20 years, the number of households in England on local authorities’ waiting lists has increased from 1,021,664 to 1,155,285 in 2017. According to government figures, the number peaked in 2012 at 1,851,426.
