A new report published claims that social housing landlords across England are reaping the benefits of improved access to financial services as a result of new investment by housing associations.
The report, Community Access to Money: Social Housing Landlords Reaping the Benefits, launched at the National Housing Federation's Financial Inclusion conference, in London, illustrates how financial inclusion work has directly contributed to cutting rent arrears and reducing evictions and tenant turnover, and helped produce settled and sustainable communities.
The publication was written by Bob Paterson, Bill Randall and Karl Dayson of Community Finance Solutions, Salford University, and was supported by the Housing Corporation, National Housing Federation, and Friends Provident Foundation. It finds that 60% of people who are financially excluded live in social housing and when they have access to advice, information, sources of affordable credit, savings accounts and other services, they are less likely to get into arrears and can pay their rents.
In addition to showing the benefits to tenants, the report highlights the business case for landlords, showing how investment in financial literacy makes sense. It can mean that landlords spend less costly efforts in dealing with arrears, fewer people have to move, and costs incurred in letting homes are lower.
The report also includes case studies, illustrating innovative work being carried out by a variety of housing and other social landlords to tackle financial inclusion.
It is the first part of a toolkit to help landlords deliver financial inclusion for their residents. The detailed practical toolkit to help front-line staff implement initiatives will be published in the spring.
Housing Corporation Director of Policy and Communications, Matt Leach, said:
"The Housing Corporation is delighted to support this publication. It highlights not only the range of activities that are already undertaken by associations, but it also sets out clearly the strong business case for housing associations taking up the challenge in providing more and better services in this area. As it clearly shows, targeted financial services can make a real difference to tenants and resident lives."
David Orr, National Housing Federation Chief Executive, said:
"Housing associations can cut rent arrears, avoid evictions, reduce tenant turnover and save money on management and legal costs by adopting financial inclusion strategies as this report shows.
"I would urge those associations yet to engage with this issue, to follow the example of those featured in this report. It makes business sense for them to do it and, of course, it can have huge benefits for their customers."
Please email j.e.powell@salford.ac.uk for further details about the publication.
The 2005 English House Condition Headline Report was published, with the message that social housing conditions in England have substantially improved since 1996, with the number of non-decent homes reducing by over 3 million.
The report, published by the Department for Communities and Local Government, shows that the social sector is improving at such a rate that in 2005 there was little difference with the private sector (29% and 27% non-decent respectively). The difference between the two sectors was reduced from 10 percentage points in 1996 to just 2 percentage points in 2005.
Conditions remain worst in the private rented sector with 41% of homes non-decent.
Other key findings include:
The housing conditions of vulnerable households (those in receipt of means tested or disability related benefits) living in the private sector have improved considerably since 1996.
Vulnerable owneroccupiers tend to live in better conditions than their counterparts in the private rented sector.
The energy efficiency of homes has improved from an average SAP rating of 40.3 in 1996 to 46.2 in 2005. Social sector homes are on average much more energy efficient than those in the private sector and are improving at a faster rate.
In the most deprived districts, 1.4 million vulnerable households live in the private sector and of these 37% live in non-decent homes. This compares to 32% of the 1.8 million vulnerable private sector households living in other districts.
