How have the cuts affected housing?

The Guardian has today released a detail account of how the cuts have affected housing...

Total cuts: £5.8bn

The social housing budget will be cut by £4bn in 2011-14, and the emergency budget which was announced last June saw a £1.8bn cut in housing benefit.

Redundancies: 200,000

Sunderland housing provider Gentoo have axed 275 of it's 1,800 staff. This adds to the 1,400 housing job losses after the collapse of Leeds-based housing maintenance firm, Connaught, and 100 of the 600-strong workforce at Knowsley Housing Trust.

Services

Funding has been cut by 50% which will result in fewer affordable homes and half a million more people added to England's 4.5 million strong waiting list. The restructure of benefits could leave tenants unable to pay their rent and subsequently forcing them from their homes. The government's suggestion of plugging the funding gap by charing new tenants up to 80% of market rates means average weekly rents rising from £85 to £250.

To see which organisations are still recruiting, please visit http://www.housingjobs.org.uk/

Source: Guardian, 2011

Mayor opens £6.6million Somerset housing development

Celebrations held by Jephson Homes Housing Association on Friday 18th March saw residents of a new £6.6million housing development in Wincanton join the Mayor of Wincanton in a ribbon cutting ceremony.

 

The Mayor of Wincanton, Richard D’Arcy, and officers from South Somerset District Council attended the event, along with representatives of the development partners.

Residents have now begun moving into the 12 houses and 25 flats that have been completed by Jephson in the first phase of work at New Barns Farm, providing Wincanton with new affordable housing. The second phase which will see a further 25 houses and seven flats being created, should be finished by June 2011.

Mary Robinson, who has moved into one of the new houses along with her husband Martin and their six children, has said their new home has been a real godsend, as it has enabled her to stay living in Wincanton, where she has lived all of her life.

Mary, who attended the celebration event, said: “We moved in three weeks ago and the house is excellent, with solar panels and central heating. It is a four-bedroom house with much more room for our children – it’s given us all a whole new lease of life.”

Jephson secured a grant of £1.4million from the HCA which allowed them to provide affordable housing on the first two phases of the site and will look to provide 80 homes for rent, 14 for intermediate rent and 10 for sale through the HomeBuy shared ownership scheme.

Roger Glennie, Director for Jephson’s South & West Region, said: “"The new homes at Coulson Park have been designed with environmental issues in mind; they are all built to Level 3 of the Code for Sustainable Homes and all of the properties benefit from solar panels to heat hot water, which should result in lower bills for residents.  The apartment buildings also have photovoltaic panels on the roofs and the electricity they generate will provide power for lighting the communal hallways, again reducing the costs for residents."

There are plans for a new primary school to be built next to the site, along with a new village centre consisting of shops and offices. The site, which is the largest new development in Wincanton, is within a 10-minute walk of the town centre, with access to shopping local services and community facilities.

Source: 24dash

'House prices in spring bounce as they rise for third month in a row'

Research has indicated that new sellers have increased their asking price for the third consecutive month during March as activity in the housing market has shown signs of being on the increase.

The average costs of a home in England and Wales rose by 0.8% of £231,790 for the four weeks up to March 12th, which followed an increase of 3.1% in February, according to property website Rightmove.

Rightmove has suggested the rise reflects an increase in activity from potential buyers, as well a shortage of supply of properties coming onto the market, as many homeowners decide not to sell for the time being.

Search activity on the group’s website hit record levels during three of the four weeks in February, as well as estate agents reporting that higher levels of enquiries and viewings were slowly converting into offers and sales.

The amount of homes put up for sale during the month also increased, although levels are still 26% below those seen before the recession.

Rightmove said the low level of new listings pointed to an absence of both forced sellers and traditional mass market ones, as people were either unable or unwilling to trade up at the moment.

The average time a property is on the market for fell from 98 days to 89 days during the month, whilst the number of unsold properties per estate agency branch increased by just one, which is a far smaller increase than is usual for this time of year.

The group said the muted rise in the number of unsold properties on estate agents' books suggested that the pace at which sales were being agreed had picked up to nearly cancel out the spring bounce in sellers.

Miles Shipside, director of Rightmove, said: "The spring bounce in buyer interest and slight pick-up in supply of fresh stock suggest that renewed activity in some sectors of the property market is managing to outweigh the impact of economic uncertainty and lack of mortgage funding."

Mr Shipdale added that the large deposits that lenders are demanding from buyers has led to greater market liquidity for more expensive properties, while people selling properties that appeal to first-time buyers, such as terraced homes, are continuing to struggle.

London was the only area where asking prices didn’t increase, seeing a drop of 1.5%.

The South West saw the biggest jump, with asking prices rising by 3.3%, followed by the East Midlands at 2.8% and East Anglia at 2.2%.

Hopefully the increase in the housing market will see an increase in Housing Jobs!

Source: 24dash

Shapps and NHF chief fire warning to councils over Supporting People cuts

The National Housing Federation (NHF), housing minister Grant Shapps and Women's Aid have come together to highlight the damage disproportionate cuts to Supporting People-funded services would have on some of the country’s most vulnerable groups.

The Telegraph has today publishes a joint letter, written by NHF chief David Orr, Mr Shapps and Woman’s Aid chief executive Nicola Harwin, warns that women who are fleeing domestic violence, homeless people and people with mental health problems could be “forced to fend for themselves” as a result of the cuts.

Below is the letter in full:

SIR – Thousands of pensioners, women fleeing domestic violence, homeless people and people with mental health problems could be forced to fend for themselves because of unintended cuts being made to a government–funded programme called Supporting People.

Although the Government has given relative protection to this £6.5billion programme – reducing the grant it gives councils to fund these services by 12 per cent over four years – some local authorities have announced that they will make cuts of up to 50 per cent this year.

Cuts of this level hurt vulnerable people but make no financial sense. Without early identification, vulnerable individuals will quickly reach crisis point, making greater demands on health and homelessness services and the criminal justice system.

Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, said: "Most sensible local authorities will come to the conclusion that £1 spent on Supporting People will probably save them £5 or £6 further down the line."

Local authorities need to cut costs. But this shouldn't mean targeting disproportionate spending reductions on programmes that support the most vulnerable.

Grant Shapps MP (Con) Housing Minister
David Orr, Chief Executive, National Housing Federation
Nicola Harwin, Chief Executive, Women's Aid Federation

Source: 24dash

Charity issues homelessness warning over Government's cuts

Providence Row, a homelessness charity, is urging the Government to use the Budget on March 23 to slow down its cuts.

The organisation believes that the cuts could result in hefty spending in the future.

Lisa Harrison, acting chief executive of the London-based charity, said: "Over the next few years many vulnerable people will be hit by a triple threat of rising rents, lower housing benefit and the loss of benefits under the universal credit system if they do not go into work - all leading to a very real threat of homelessness.

"The people we see want to work but are often simply not able; they have other barriers to overcome first such as physical or mental health problems.

"The Government has pledged to protect the most vulnerable in society and slowing down the introduction of these cuts could achieve that.

"Too deep too soon might well mean an increase in homelessness, paired with a reduction in funding for those that help the most vulnerable in our society."

Providence Row has said that a rise in homelessness would cost the taxpayer and the state more as the Government tries to reduce the deficit. The charity highlighted homeless people’s limited access to local GPs which often resulted in minor illnesses becoming major ones, and therefore expensive treatments in A&E.

Another expense is emergency accommodation, with it costing more than £400 per week to house one person in a hostel. The charity warns that this figure is set to rise due to a lack of affordable private rentals for people to move into.

Providence Row currently sees up to 100 people per day but is anticipating greater numbers if all proposed cuts go ahead. For more information about the charity go to www.providencerow.org.uk.

Sourced from: 24dash

Housing Association embracing social media!

Digital Media Communications Agency, The Mill Group, has helped a housing association’s tenants to carry out everyday household repairs.

The company have created a series of 13 short online films which demonstrate to tenants, how to carry out simple repairs. It has been predicted that York Housing Association, can save up to £1,000 a month through the use of the ‘Fix It’ campaign, as it will hopefully see a major decrease in the amount of telephone calls and repairs callouts. This ‘online repairs clinic’ was created for York Housing Association, which found its call centre was taking too many calls on non-essential repairs.

“Housing associations can’t afford to keep going out to fix a blocked sink, or other small jobs that are the tenant’s responsibility to do themselves. They can go out do the repair and lose money, or do it and charge it back, costing the tenant,” said David Fawcett, Mill Group’s marketing director.

“Offering an easy way to help the tenant to do it themselves makes it ‘win-win’ for everyone, just what we wanted to achieve with the Fix It! series. This unique service is now in over 500,000 homes, which will grow to over a million over the next few months.

“We will develop it as time goes on to include extra types of repairs. More and more housing associations are realising there is some serious money to be saved through this kind of initiative, even small organisations can save £500 – £1,000 a month.”

Kate Spencer, York Housing Association operations director, said the association’s main goal with the films was to help tenants, but they had also cut costs by offering ‘Fix It’, as there had previously been occasions when they had carried out repairs that the tenants should really have done themselves.

She said: “If a tenant calls to say their electricity isn’t working we now point them to the repairs clinic on the website, which shows them just what to do. We see it as a valuable enhancement of the service we provide to tenants, but it also saves us money as we are freed up from getting involved in things that are not our responsibility.”

The films cover a variety of topics including safety tips, simple plumbing advice, dealing with pests and coping with power failure.

We love seeing companies embracing social media, especially Housing Associations! Why not have a look at our other social media platforms? We’re on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn J

Sourced from: Housing Excellence

NEWS UPDATE: Ujima fraud suspects plead not guilty | Ministers push for green home tax breaks

Kenneth Kerr, Alan Boswell and Gregory Simon Causer attended court yesterday morning in relation with suspected fraud of £3.5million at failed housing association Ujima. All three men have pleaded not guilty to the accusations involving the housing association which collapsed in 2008.

The three will stand trial on 23^rd January 2012. A further case management hearing was also set this morning for 23^rd June 2011.

Rose Avwunu, 53, is being accused of two counts of money laundering and will appear at Isleworth Crown Court on 4^th July 2011. Her co-defendant in the case, which relates to an alleged £208,000 fraud at Ujima, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison after being convicted of seven counts of money laundering.

Police are still trying to trace Ms Avwunu’s husband George, who absconded from bail shortly after being arrested in connection with the fraud.

Green Home Tax Breaks

Greg Barker, Minister of State, has reported that The Department of Energy and Climate Change is lobbying for tax incentives to encourage green building and retrofit projects.

The Minister stated that incentives for retrofitting were ‘absolutely a priority’ for DECC in the run up to the Budget, but that no decisions had been made on this. ‘The chancellor has got to make those decisions,’ he said yesterday, whilst speaking at the Ecobuild conference.

It has been reported that George Osborne is considering a stamp duty rebate for householders who join the government’s green deal programme, which provides private sector loans to finance energy efficiency improvements in domestic properties.

Mr Barker also said he was ‘actively involved’ in talks with the Treasury about simplifying the carbon reduction commitment, which caps the amount of carbon organisations, including local authorities and larger housing associations, can emit using a system of permits.

He stated that the CRC was ‘a straight unapologetic tax take’, but said that the system which he inherited from Labour was far too complex for the industry.

The Energy Bill contains provisions for councils to force private landlords to use the green deal to improve their stock, however there is no legislation for owner occupiers.

Source: Inside Housing, 2011

For more information on the housing industry, please visit http://www.housingjobs.org.uk/