The Chancellor George Osbourne announced yesterday the cuts in Social Housing.
Whilst existing tenants are not affected, new tenants will be severely hit. No lifetime tenancy and paying rent of up to 80% of the going rate. Because the funding to Social Landlords has been cut, he has now given these same landlords the power to raise their rents so that they can raise their own funds to build more homes.
Is this the governments way of slowly but surely distancing itself from Social Housing? What is its goal – to hand over all Social Housing to the private sector?
The private rental sector is expensive and poorly regulated at the moment and I didn’t hear any mention of the government helping in that area – which they must do because more people are going to be pushed into this area of Social Housing.
[ad#Google 200×200 right]Homelessness is on the increase anyway. How many more people have to be homeless before the Government realise that by making such severe cuts in Social Housing is not the answer. Cuts – yes. 60% is far to damaging to a sector which has a shortage of nearly 400,000 homes anyway.
Those of us renting from social landlords now had better stay put. I pity those on the waiting lists.
The average age of a first time home buyer is 37. Because the cost of renting will be so high, parents should expect their offspring to stay at home for a lot longer.
The future for Social Housing is somewhat bleak in my opinion.
What are your thoughts?