We invited readers that represent residents' associations to comment on Housing Minister Caroline Flint's reported suggestion that social housing tenants should be required to sign 'commitment contracts' pledging to seek employment.
We promised that, if we receive enough responses, we will publish them in this edition of the Housing Monthly Diary. We not only received sufficient response, but far too many contributions to publish them all. So, with apologies to all who wrote to us, here are some of the comments we received:
Your (Caroline Flint) speech to the Fabian Society and your interview with The Guardian newspaper quite wrongly linked social housing to worklessness, as if there was some negative power that social housing commanded to suddenly deprive people of the will to work.
It is true that the poorest and the most vulnerable in society are the only people - in the main - who are able to access the dwindling supply of social housing. Social housing was never intended to be a welfare safety net but your government and previous governments have turned it into one. You have overseen a process of privatisation through Right to Buy that has skimmed off the best and biggest properties, and encouraged tenants with financial resources to exit the sector, leaving behind the worst and the smallest properties and the poorest and most vulnerable tenants. At the same time your government has championed home ownership while restricting access to social housing to those who are most vulnerable in society.
Your government believes in a free market so you will not be surprised that market forces apply to housing choices, and that the poorest people end up in the cheapest housing. If there was no social housing, they would end up in the worst private rented stock. Such is the power of the market. You should ask yourself why these people are poor; why are they workless? And the answer will be close to hand. Because your government has helped to deregulate the economy to drive forward globalisation; and this has created an increasing gap between rich and poor, and has casualised the labour market, sentencing those on lower incomes to low skill, low paid, often temporary jobs, forcing them into 'portmanteau' jobs - where they must take several part-time jobs just to make do.
The economic fall-out from globalisation is not the fault of social housing, nor is it only social housing tenants who are poor. So how do we explain your belief that social housing tenants have a special need for careers advice?
I read with horror the Minister's comments about social housing linked to work as a condition. This is totally unacceptable and really illustrates how this Government are prepared to go to any lengths to force people into employment.
They have attacked the disabled and now tenants, but what about the private sector. The underlying problem to employment is housing, education and health and to ensure communities are sustainable.
The Government should make sure that people are educated, healthy and have the opportunity to rent their own property, rather than force people into buying property at inflated prices and committing their working life to pay back. There is insufficient social housing in this country, homelessness is too high, and there is insufficient legislation to control private landlords exploiting young people that cannot obtain social housing.
What is Caroline Flint going to do, evict families who are unable to find work. Leave famiIies homeless. I cannot see how this (sign commitment contracts) would be of benefit to children.
I have lived in Public housing all my life and never met anyone who would rather not work if they could find a job. Caroline Flint should ask herself:
Why is public housing needed? Because there will always be people on low incomes whether working or not who cannot afford to buy and upkeep a property.
Why are homes being repossessed? Because people have been forced into buying something they were unable to afford.
People always took pride in looking after their rented Council housing and paying their rent on time.
Wouldn't the answer be to build more Public rented houses( not high rise flats which are bad for families and those with mobility problems).
Take away the derogatory term Social Housing and rename it Public housing.
Let us all remember including the GOVERNMENT that lots of people work long hours for a very small wage and affordable public housing is essential.
I was really concerned with a suggestion that 'Conditionality' could be placed on tenancies, tying social housing tenancies to a (voluntary at least in the current pilots) contract to seek work. I understand the problems with more than 50% of 'social tenants' currently being without work, (especially amongst the under 25s age group) but a stick this big (loss of social housing rights) is draconian and it could well lose the next election for the Government. There's a lot of extremely worried very irate tenants our here now Minister. This will help stigmatise us even further.
Some of the most vulnerable people in our society have been placed into social housing as a result of this Government's policies over the past 10 years. In most cases with minimal if any support. Surely they can't all be expected to sign contracts to help them take personal responsibility for their lives. Caroline stated "Nobody is beyond reach" and I agree that everybody must be helped to improve their life prospects, but wonder how realistic this really is. I also agree with her statement that ALL services to tenants must be improved.
Another debate is necessary around the suitability of some RSLs to deliver improved or extended services. Some are superb, others are very poor. I would like to debate the exact role of housing associations and seek more accountability to tenants, not forgetting the private rented sector - which is almost unregulated.
I welcome the need for debate around the need to offer an "Options Package" to tenants, to improve choice and life chances. The admission in her (Caroline Flint) speech that past and current housing policies had failed; "Housing in Britain doesn't need moderate reform. It needs urgent attention and swift action", must trigger such a national debate. It is most important that ALL tenants' views are represented properly in that debate.
Mixed income estates are part of the sustainable communities agenda, but unless sufficient infrastructure funding is made available, these plans will fall well short of the transformation I want to see across the country.
Health inequalities usually mirror housing inequalities and forcing stressed tenants who may be ill or disabled to worry about the possible return of the workhouse, or workfare as some advocate, can only make matters worse still.
You can't blame the vulnerable themselves for successive Governments' housing policy failures.
I support the need for a National debate around all these issues, but am vehemently opposed to most of what I heard being suggested by our new Housing Minister last Tuesday morning in Westminster.
"Something for something" must not turn out to mean a choice between "Work or Homelessness".
