Social Housing Squeeze will cost UK economy £2.5 billion over five years - New report on Mobility released

Interview with Mike Ward, Assistant Director of Business Growth

In ‘Counting Costs’, Human City estimates that 495,000 of the UK’s 3.9 million social households are victims of the UK’s Social Housing Squeeze: they want to move home, but are unable to do so. The report identifies the key reasons why people want to move, and calculates the economic and social costs of people not being able to move.

Download the full report: Counting Costs (734 KB)

The total estimated £542 million annual economic cost is broken down by:

• £305 million based on tenants not being able to care for relatives. Recent research suggests the average carer is saving the nation £15,260 each year (Carers UK)
• £81 million to the NHS, for example, through costs of overcrowded and unsuitable housing leading to more GP consultations, associated treatments and hospital visits
• £48 million based on tenants wanting to move into employment, but unable to do so. Factors include the ongoing costs of welfare payments and the lost tax revenues
• £18 million based on tenants wanting to move to take up better work but unable to do so. Factors here include the cost to the economy in terms of lost productivity and potential increased tax revenues through higher earnings.
• £32 million based on educational under-attainment from overcrowding: factors include a lack of quiet space in which to do homework and disputes caused by sharing of bedrooms.
• £58 million to the Criminal Justice System. The Social Exclusion Unit has discovered that the provision of stable, good quality housing can reduce reoffending rates appreciably.

A number of factors have contributed to this Social Housing Squeeze. These include a 66 per cent decline in the availability of new lettings to existing tenants over the past 13 years, combined with a fall in available houses in the same period of 500,000 and an escalation in demand for social housing, with one in 12 households in England now on waiting lists.

As a result of the staggering figures unveiled by Counting the Costs, Circle Anglia is calling for three clear actions from the Government to help get social housing tenants in Britain moving, as part of its ongoing mission to enhance Life Chances. These are:

• All Social Landlords should join a national mutual exchange register: The Government should insist that all social landlords and Local Authorities must join and support a scheme which is dedicated to enabling mutual exchange for all Local Authority and Housing Association tenants. In addition, this should be supported by a funded national helpline.

• Remove barriers that prevent people from moving: For example the complexities around transferring care packages for those with support needs and blockages in the way homes are allocated. The Government should encourage and enable Local Authorities to support cross boundary moves and simplify the process. This would mean that tenants applying for transfers don’t have to compete with external applicants and are automatically considered for mutual exchange.

• Incentivise mobility: By linking health and employment initiatives more directly with mobility, the overall costs associated with the lack of mobility could be reduced.

David Williams, Executive Director Strategy and New Business, Circle Anglia, said: “Social housing residents want to move for a number of reasons, including health, to care for sick family members, to escape overcrowding or to seek work in more prosperous areas. Whatever the reason – one thing is clear – it is near impossible to make the move on the transfer list - and the social and economic costs to the UK are devastating.

“We know from House Exchange - our not for profit mutual exchange service - that while 53 percent of people who sign up with us had been trying to move for more than two years before signing up to mutual exchange, 80 percent move within six months of registering with us. With around half a million people on the social housing transfer list, if their landlords simply signed up to one national mutual exchange service we could create a fluid, free-market of house exchanges that would help so many people. The Coalition has highlighted the problem. We hope it also encourages and enables the right solution.”

Kevin Gulliver, Director of the Human City Institute, said: “In the current environment of austerity we are likely to see a continuing fall in the numbers of newly built social homes as well as an increased demand for social housing. So it’s more important than ever that existing social housing stock is used as efficiently as possible. The creation of a national house exchange system would make a significant contribution to improving the lives of thousands of tenants and has the potential to make a significant economic impact, just at the time when Government is looking to make public sector savings.”

ENDS.

Notes to editors

• To obtain a copy of the executive summary of the report and for further information please contact Katie Russell on 07973 505207 / katie@insightpa.com.

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About Circle Anglia

• Circle Anglia is one of the UK’s leading providers of affordable housing. With a dedicated team of more than 2,200 staff, Circle Anglia manages more than 60,000 homes, including supported and sheltered housing, for around 200,000 people across the UK.

Find out more about Circle Anglia >

• Case-studies of families who have moved, using www.houseexchange.org.uk, are available on request.

About House Exchange and House Exchange Direct

Circle Anglia set up House Exchange in 2004 – the UK’s only not-for-profit national mutual exchange service. The House Exchange website allows any social housing tenant and landlord in the UK to sign up and search for property swaps nationwide that satisfy their housing requirements. Over 150 landlords are signed up to the service which holds information on around 80,000 properties. We estimate that House Exchange facilitates around 500 moves a month. In addition to this service we also manage www.houseexchangedirect.org which allows residents to sign up directly for a small fee.

• Landlords and social housing tenants across the UK can sign up and advertise their property and to look for swaps. It is designed to help people move for whatever reason – whether it’s to move for work, to care for an elderly or sick relative or to overcome issues of overcrowding and under occupation, and to make it easier for tenants to move – whether locally, regionally or nationally.

• The website - www.houseexchange.org.uk - allows users to search by location, bedroom size, property type and features – and direct and three way matches can be found with a few clicks of the mouse. Thousands (80,000) of tenants are already using the service and are looking for properties all across the country. Tenants whose landlords are signed up to the site can use it for free, or individual tenants can pay just £6.49 for a three month subscription that lists the property on offer and provides access to all of properties in the database.

• House Exchange is about to launch a new overcrowding and under occupation tool to help landlords make better use of their homes. The new feature will allow registered landlords to automatically identify how many of their households registered on House Exchange are under-occupied or overcrowded. Landlords are able to access data that shows the regional occupancy levels of households and search for swaps for tenants with occupancy issues to help encourage moves that tackle overcrowding and under occupation.

• As well as showing direct one-to-one moves House Exchange also includes a one-click feature that enables tenants to search for three-way swaps, dramatically increasing the chances of finding a successful match.

26/07/10 12:13