How the destruction of social housing has exacerbated the homelessness crisis

Granby, Liverpool.

Much has been said about the rise in homelessness in Britain, with the number almost doubling since 2010.

Politicians and experts of every hue have weighed in citing factors from ‘lifestyle choices’ and substance abuse, to austerity and welfare cuts, mental health crises, relationship breakdown and joblessness.

But one factor which has not been disputed by anyone is that there is quite simply a lack of affordable places to live.

‘There’s not enough affordable, adequate housing of any sort,’ said Professor Nicholas Pleace, director of the Centre for Housing Policy at the University of York.

‘If there’s not enough housing, prices go up to a point where some people literally cannot afford the rent or mortgage.’

According to research published by the National Housing Federation, England has a housing backlog of four million homes and needs to build 340,000 homes per year until 2031. Crucially, however, their report found that it was not enough to build homes, at least 145,000 would have to be affordable, with 90,000 available for social rent.

Hammer blows

A shortage of affordable housing is not a new problem.

Major social housing building programmes took place between the 1920s-70s, with numbers eventually overtaking the private rented sector.

It reached its peak in 1979 when social housing provided homes for 5.5m households or 31% of all households in England. But by 2011 it was once again overtaken by private renting, and in 2016-17 had fallen to four million (17% of all households).

The decline in social housing resulted from a series of hammer blows. This included the Right to Buy programme introduced in 1980, which was to lead to 1.9m social renting households buying their homes and taking them out of circulation.

By the 1990s, rules banning councils from borrowing cash effectively put an end to council house building once and for all and it was left to housing associations which, as independent landlords, were allowed to borrow private finance.

A tale of two cities

It was in Liverpool that the first true ‘council’ houses were built when the Liverpool Corporation constructed St Martin’s Cottages in Ashfield Street, Vauxhall, in 1869.

That year, a Royal Commission was held which led to the Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890, which encouraged the London authority to improve the housing in their areas. It also gave them the power to acquire land and to build tenements and houses. As a result, London County Council opened the Boundary Estate in 1900  in Tower Hamlets.

The Housing of the Working Classes Act 1900 extended these powers to all local councils, which then began building tenements and houses.

John Boughton, editor of the Municipal Dreams blog and author of Municipal Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Council Housing, said: ‘Liverpool had an unusually large house-building programme before 1914. Liverpool was a Tory council until 1955, so the commitment of right-wing politicians to council housing was relatively unusual.’

Between the world wars, he said that Liverpool was unusual in that it developed significant multi-storey tenement estates and, by contrast, pioneering what was, in effect, the first new town – Speke.

Purchased by Liverpool Corporation for £200,000, what had originally been farmland was earmarked for one of a few new satellite towns, where many city residents were moved when traditional inner city areas were demolished in so-called ‘slum clearances’.

One such inner city was Dingle where David Hannah grew up.

He said: ‘Living in a council estate in the Dingle in the 70s meant one tap and a big sink in the kitchen.

‘No immersion heater and my mam boiling water in a big tin bucket on the stove. We had an outside toilet at the bottom of the yard and a tin bath that hung on the whitewashed wall. There was still debris from the war that we used to play in.’

‘I remember walking into the house in Speke that we moved to from the Dingle and being confused and elated at finding both an outside toilet as well as one inside too.

‘A bathroom and hot running water by means of a back boiler behind the coal fire in the living room was also very welcome and pure joy to my two older sisters. I considered Speke to be posh for some time compared to how it was in the Dingle.’

As traditional industries closed though, life in Speke became tougher when the 2000 Index of Multiple Deprivation was published Speke was revealed to be the second most deprived ward in England and Wales.

Homeless

After many years of stability living as a council tenant, in the early 90s following a family dispute he found himself homeless.

‘I ended up sofa surfing, squatting in derelict flats and sleeping rough when circumstances dictated.

‘I managed to get a room in a hostel and straight away went to the council to put my name down for a place of my own.’

It was during this wait that he became aware of just how much more difficult it had now become to get a council property. Having moved to a hostel in the nearby town of Widnes, he was told he would be at the bottom of the list for a new property because he had not been born there.

He said: ‘While being in that situation and asking questions about why it was such a lengthy process trying to get rented accommodation from the Council or a housing association, I was told straight away there were simply not enough places to go around.

‘Council houses were being bought cheaply by long term tenants under the relaxation of rules by Thatcher and a lot of properties that would once go back to the local authority after the tenant died, were now being sold on by their relatives.’

He moved into his current social landlord in 2000 and says there is ‘no comparison’ in terms of how people expect to live now to when he first moved into a council property.

‘However’, he adds, ‘over the past couple of years I am conscious of a general decline in the repair services, which I expect can be mostly blamed on austerity.’

The problem of perception

The changes which have been wrought on social housing have not just been in terms of numbers and funding, but also reputation.

Modern perceptions of social housing are in stark contrast to the early days of places like Speke, which was nestled amid thriving industries such as Triumph, Dunlop and Bryant and May and had many working families.

David said: ‘The family next door owned their house, as did about another four people in our road. The idea of home ownership back then was quite foreign to me as I’d never known the likes where I came from in the Dingle.

‘I definitely think that since Margaret Thatcher made people think that they were failures unless they owned their own homes I’ve seen a growing stigmatisation that goes with living on a council estate.’

The negative perception of social housing is backed up by the University’s research. It found that a large majority of the UK population would prefer to be homeowners than to be renters.

It also found there was some support for the expansion of social housing. But on the other hand, it found that some people who are not tenants have worries about social housing estates and tenants, which it said could be associated with social problems.

Matt Turtle is co-founder of the museum of homelessness, an organisation which aims to raise awareness through education, art and exhibitions about the subject.

He said: ‘The idea of social housing being second rate isn’t just a perception, it’s been hard-wired into the social housing system and that has fed the complacency.

‘Official figures show that 400 residential buildings have the same kind of cladding as Grenfell Tower.

‘In terms of new building, again and again, around the UK we see quantities of social housing quotas in new developments either being eroded in the planning process or completely absent from developments altogether.’

He added: ‘Historically a lot of subtle factors are at play but ultimately all of it amounted to social housing being seen as a last resort, not as a fundamental human right.’

A New Era?

The decline of social housing has been decades in the making, and turning it around will be no easy feat, but there are signs that the government is now at least listening say some experts.

In the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower disaster, Sajid Javid announced a Green Paper on housing and said: ‘We need to return to the time, not so very long ago, when social housing was valued, treasured.’

And last year the Prime Minister lifted the cap on council borrowing, allowing them to – in theory – borrow enough capital to once again rival the private sector as a source of new home building.

‘Some political will exists,’ said Turtle.

However, ‘the gap between what is being offered and the need is still way too big and not enough is being done,’ he added.

‘Housing associations have recently stated they need £40m more then what has been offered by the government for the building of social housing late last year.

‘There’s a general sense that housing policy is failing to deliver anything like enough affordable housing, there are all kinds of debates about what is best, whether it’s more social housing or more owner occupation, but it’s probably the case that we need a mix of private, public and voluntary sector housing development.’