Housing crisis needs action

Poverty Some houses on a beach
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ViewsOctober 21st, 2013

When I was leader of Swansea City and County Council in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the council had more properties than it could let. Some flats were demolished in order to stop them being vandalised whilst other council flats were turned into community buildings due to the lack of demand. Accommodation near to the hospital was being advertised by the Council on the hospital noticeboards in an attempt to find tenants. Anyone who asked me about accommodation I would refer to the district housing office who could then find them suitable accommodation almost immediately. Housing Associations were also increasing their stock and were able to keep up with housing demand.

Fast forward to today in Swansea and the situation is entirely different.

At the time of writing this, the three major housing associations are no longer accepting people on to their waiting lists for accommodation in Swansea.  The Council waiting list is groaning under the weight of applicants.

Here are four cases I have recently dealt with which illustrate the scale of the problem.

Case 1 is a single mother sharing a bedroom with her baby and her younger sister. This I hope dispels the myth that all you have to do is get pregnant and the council will house you. The Council is awaiting suitable accommodation to become available but there is a shortage of houses becoming available and she may have to wait some time.

Case 2 is the mother who has had to leave the marital home due to violence. This would be seen as an obvious case for priority housing. However as she needs a four bedroom house, and the council has relatively few a long wait is again possible.

Case 3 is a married man who has left the marital home due to the breakdown of the marriage. He has filled in an application form for housing but the chances of being offered accommodation are low. Whilst previously demand for one bedroom flats was low, following the introduction of the “bedroom tax” demand has massively increased. He has to move around friends’ houses “sofa surfing” until he can find adequate accommodation.

Case 4 is a single mother living in privately-rented accommodation that she cannot afford. This is an applicant who should have a high priority because of the risk of homelessness. She was housed before she became homeless – the one success in this list.

Of course none of the above are sleeping on the street or on park benches, but against any reasonable criteria the people in my case studies, and many more like them, desperately need housing.

To those who wish to blame the Council for not housing three of the above, the question I would ask them is where they should house them?  We have the number of Council houses reducing because of sales, no new houses being built, increasing life expectancy and the difficulty of getting a mortgage increasing demand – all leading to a shortage of council houses becoming available.

The Welsh Government is taking action via the Welsh Housing Finance Grant Scheme including providing around £130 million of Welsh Government funding over the next 30 years that will contribute directly to the building of over 1,000 new affordable homes across  Wales. Twenty Housing Associations are taking part in the scheme, with coverage across all 22 local authority areas in Wales – construction work on the first projects is due to start this year.

What is desperately needed is for houses to be built by Councils, including bungalows for older people, to release larger properties and for family houses to be built to meet the needs of young families. For this to be achieved two changes are needed:

  • firstly to allow councils to borrow against their stock value to build houses and
  • secondly to suspend the right to buy for new properties.

Failure to carry out the above is just going to lead to a housing crisis and that will continue to get worse. At the moment the private rented sector is filling the housing gap but if it cannot do so in the future and not enough new rental housing is built we may end up with people literally living on the street.

Mike Hedges is Assembly Member for Swansea East.

One Response

  1. Eric says:

    Demolishing flats now seems a pretty stupid move then. Is this an apology?

    Short term decisions costing again.

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