Proposal #16: A full, wide ranging housing plan

By Rosie Hucklesby / @rosiehucklesby

In the current recession, the housing market has taken a severe blow. It’s predicted that up to 65,000 homes have faced repossession and somewhere between 2 million and 5 million people are awaiting social housing in England. 220,000 borrowers were more than three months behind with mortgage payments by the end of December last year, up 72 per cent, and many homeowners are finding that they can no longer afford to meet mortgage payments through no fault of their own. People are increasingly turning to the rental market out of need, rather than choice. Some are lucky, and can find quality homes for themselves. However, exploitation and unprecedented rent increases are rife in the market, particularly in the unregulated area of the ‘buy to let’ speculative market which is crippling many families and individuals.

The idea of an open housing market is a falsehood – except for an increasingly tiny minority. For too long now, housing has been promoted as an investment opportunity. Home-owners are now customers, even letting agents, and housing as commodity has become a means by which to guarantee a pension or a supplementary income.

When the Tory Government released social housing stock onto the open market, they had assumed that this would further empower consumer choice – but it has had the very opposite effect. Many on low and middle incomes are increasingly unable to find homes they can afford within their own communities. Coupled with unemployment, this breeds fear, resentment and discontent. Social housing has become something to compete for, rather than fulfilling a need.

We must also readdress our own attitudes towards housing – which is everyone’s basic right to shelter and stability – as well as looking to strengthening of communities. If we are serious about our progressivism, we must address the crisis with both short and long term solutions. The solution to the housing crisis is clearly not a simple matter of increasing stock – that is only a short term answer.

The Empty Homes Agency reports that in 2008, 697,055 empty homes existed in England alone – 83,785 of these are owned by local authority, housing associations and other public bodies, in particular in the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, London and the South East.

The immediate solution to this problem is not simply to release empty homes onto the open market for development – this is out of reach for those on lower incomes. However, available stock could be increased by encouraging local authorities to improve existing empty buildings to make them habitable, and also by demolishing redundant buildings and rebuilding. This would also have a postitive knock-on effect for the local economy.

The longer-term aspirations of housing policy should be to strengthen community spirit with a sense of place, identity and the ability to develop and grow. In addition to this, the culture of the housing market also needs to change. Home ownership should not be a means by which to make a profitable investment but a means to providing social justice via the strength of community.

The core of housing policy in the 21st century is a key lesson of the recession – the need for stability. The housing market is a captive one, because it is based on need more than aspiration.

All bubbles burst and markets are no exception – but society cannot afford to let future generations be compromised by chasing after profit in an area that is essential and not just desirable.