Our latest newsletter contained an article detailing the housing and homelessness issues that we believe that the new Gordon Brown-led government needs to address urgently. Here is our agenda for Brown:
Temporary accommodation
• Provide permanent homes for the 87,000 homeless families in England and Wales living in temporary accommodation. These are families who have been accepted for rehousing by their local authority but who have to endure living for months, if not years in often unsafe and insecure temporary accommodation.
Overcrowding
• Complete reform of the 1935 statutory definition of overcrowding. The 1935 definition, which still applies today, assumes that families can use living rooms and in some cases kitchens as bedrooms. The 2004 Housing Act committed the government to redefining this outdated standard but the government has yet to bring forward concrete proposals.
• Provide homes for the estimated 500,000 families living in overcrowded accommodation – under the likely new definition of overcrowding, the ‘bedroom standard’, 500,000 families with approximately 1 million children would be judged to be living in overcrowded accommodation and so eligible for rehousing.
Quality of accommodation
• Look at extending the successful Decent Homes programme from the social housing to the private rented sector accommodation where many of the most vulnerable people in society live.
Housing supply
• Build more homes for the 1.7million families on council house waiting lists.
• Ensure that new housing is the right size – developers in recent years have concentrated on building one and two bedroom housing when the greatest housing need is among families. We desperately need more three, four and five bedroom houses.
• Ensure that community facilities are provided alongside any new housing developments to build sustainable communities – housing on its own is not the answer, people need transport, jobs, services, school and community buildings if the area is to become a community rather than a dormitory.
Gypsies and Travellers
• Ensure that local authorities fulfil their duties under the 2004 Housing Act to provide sufficient sites to meet demand from Gypsies and Travellers in the local area
Housing benefit
• Reform the housing benefits system which still discriminates against young people under 26 years old.
Legal Aid
• Review the proposed reforms to legal aid to ensure that solicitors are able to take on complex housing cases.