Displaying items by tag: social housing

Over fifty charities and housing bodies have urged Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer, and Sir Ed Davey to prioritise ending homelessness by committing to building 90,000 social homes annually. With rough sleeping up 27% as of autumn 2023, these groups also demand housing benefits aligned with rising private rents. Signatories like Shelter and Crisis call for cross-party collaboration and long-term service funding. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn condemned the absence of homelessness in party manifestos, questioning how 250,000 people can be homeless in a wealthy nation. Government data shows over 100,000 households in temporary accommodation, two-thirds being families with children. Liberal Democrat spokesperson Helen Morgan called the situation a national scandal, promising to end rough sleeping, increase social housing, and abolish no-fault evictions.

After a coroner ruled the death of toddler Awaab Ishak was caused by exposure to mould at his home, housing secretary Michael Gove said that tens of thousands of homes are ‘not in the state they should be in’. The government has now stripped the housing association involved, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH), of £1m in expected funding. Mr Gove said, ‘We are not giving money to organisations that are operating incompetently.’ Two-year-old Awaab died from a respiratory condition caused by the social housing he was living in. His family repeatedly raised concerns about mould with RBH, but no action was taken. Mr Gove said the Government ‘should have moved faster’ to improve things for social housing tenants in the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire. Legislation in 2023 would give additional powers to housing authorities and ensure the voices of tenants were ‘heard more clearly’.

Behailu Kebede, in whose flat the Grenfell Tower fire broke out, was scapegoated by the media and wrongly blamed for failing to raise the alarm. Pray that all such false reporting is revealed and innocent individuals are exonerated. Leslie Thomas QC claimed the failures of management of Grenfell stemmed from the way social housing was stigmatised; attitudes and stereotyping allowed cost-cutting and the use of deadly materials to become normalised. Michael Mansfield QC called for the inquiry to make urgent recommendations to ensure that tower blocks are safe, claiming the fire was foreseeable and criticising the Government’s failure to implement the coroner’s recommendations after the Lakanal house fire in 2009. He called for the imposition of a regulator on the construction industry to overturn its ‘non-compliance mindset’, and attacked Government-backed red tape for regarding safety as a ‘hindrance to profit-making.’