Housing Manifesto
The way out of the housing crisis is decent, affordable, rented accommodation, suitable for people on low incomes and young professionals, close to where people need to work or study. This can be provided through a mixture of:
1. Diverting money currently paid to private landlords to house families in temporary accommodation
Many Londoners have nowhere to call home – there are over 63,000 families in London living in temporary accommodation. Still more have no chance of getting on to the housing ladder, requiring an average of £80,000 a year income before they can become first time buyers.
What we need is for councils to pay Housing Associations to house families permanently. For the same cost over a ten year period, the Housing Association can borrow and buy a property. After ten years the loan is paid off and the property can be rented cheaply creating a parallel market in affordable rented accommodation. This would supply high-spec, affordable, rented accommodation fit for young professionals and low income families alike. Local authorities are paying millions of pounds a year to private landlords to house homeless families.
2. Building on publicly-owned brown field sites by acquiring land at low cost
The major cost of urban development is land, often costing far more than the construction costs. In London there are at least 7,000 hectares of unused brown field sites owned by public sector organisations such as Network Rail, Transport for London and the NHS. Acquiring this land cheaply could enable private sector investors, such as pension funds, to invest in low-cost affordable rented accommodation that would still give them a good return on their money.
3. Bringing unoccupied homes into use through compulsory purchase
There are 83,000 empty homes in London. Local authorities have the power to take these dwellings into use. When Lambeth Council was under Liberal Democrat control, it worked with registered social landlords and used Compulsory Purchase Orders to bring empty properties back into occupation.
Islington’s Empty Property Strategy reduced the number of private sector empty properties between 2003 – 2006 by 16%. The new three year strategy builds on this success and concentrates on bringing back into use private sector empty properties since at any one time over 70% of Islington empty properties are in this sector.
4. Providing help and assistance to people whose homes are too big for them
Many people, particularly older people, are living in accommodation that is too big for them. Council tax that takes no account of ability to pay and increasing heating costs are making the situation where one or two people are living in a three or four bedroom homes unaffordable. With the right help and assistance, many would willingly move to smaller homes. The Mayor of London and local authorities should provide the help and assistance to free-up under-occupied properties to ease the shortfall in larger homes.
