In the beginning there was George...

Harsh cuts make a devilish deal for housing

George Osborne’s delivery of the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) may not have been the most charismatic piece of Parliamentary showmanship, writes Mark Cantrell, but it was nevertheless a practised exercise in the dark arts of politics – with some cruel implications for social housing

First published in Northern Housing 

THE Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne (pictured) makes for an unlikely Mephistopheles, but nonetheless the dark arts of his trade have worked a Faustian deal for the housing sector, not to mention wider society, with terrifying implications for the future.

The bitter irony – one among many – is that the sector never sought this pact with the devil’s envoy in the first place. Nevertheless, it remains bound by the deal. It doesn’t have much choice, after all, but to work with the Government, whoever is in government, and play the cards it is dealt, even when they come from a marked deck. And what a hand it was too.

As we know, housing took one of the hardest hits in the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). The Department of Communities & Local Government (CLG) saw its overall budget cut by 51 per cent while its capital expenditure was hacked to the bone, losing 74 per cent over the next four years.

This is a massive hit on affordable housing capability, but the sector has taken a second, even a third, whammy if we factor in the 7.1 per cent a year budget cuts for local authorities, along with the additional £7 billion clawed back from welfare benefits, bringing the total benefit cuts since the Budget to £18 billion. Such was the yield of cuts that the Chancellor has now surely earned himself the nickname ‘Guillotine George’.

“It is a huge blow to see that housing, one of the most basic needs for every single person in the country, is facing some of the biggest cuts,” said Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter. “A succession of governments has failed to address our housing crisis and [the CSR] suggests the Coalition has firmly joined them in denying responsibility for an entire generation’s ability to access decent, secure, affordable housing.”

The housing sector is still reeling from the impact; much like the country as a whole. This was nothing less than economic ‘shock and awe’ and it would be incredible indeed if the Chancellor’s measures did not bring about some serious ‘collateral damage’. There is little clear indication of actual consequences as yet; only dark forebodings of a country on the verge of tearing its already frayed social fabric apart. But it is perhaps telling that councils in London have been busily booking up B&B accommodation the length and breadth of the South.

David Orr, the chief executive of the National Housing Federation (NHF) said: “The fact that the housing budget is being cut by 60 per cent is deeply depressing – and shows that providing affordable housing is no longer a government priority. Cuts on this scale will come as a devastating blow to millions of low income families currently stuck on housing waiting lists. The Chancellor said that those with the broadest shoulders should carry the biggest burden of the cuts. By dramatically slashing the housing budget, Mr Osborne has spectacularly failed his own test of fairness.”

Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) said: “The poorest have become the victims of a political jape.”

If so, nobody is laughing, except a few die-hard Tories who cheered as some of the most savage cuts to welfare spending in a generation were announced to the House of Commons. Certainly, Osborne’s axe – or guillotine if you will – took many lambs to the slaughter and his speech liberally seasoned his many cuts with a decidedly Orwellian flavour.

The narrative for this massive socio-economic restructuring has been carefully crafted for some time and featured prominently in the spending review speech: a story of high drama with a real crisis to give it extra oomph.

As a nation – as a people – we have our backs to the wall. There are tough times ahead, but we are in this together, we shall all contribute fairly – those with the “broadest shoulders” bearing the greater burden – and we shall, of course, overcome and make our way to a better brighter future.

The Chancellor promised as much; the Promised Land of a new tomorrow will make the hardships and the pain worth our while. So, it’s not exactly Churchill at “our finest hour” but it is an invocation of a paler theme.

So much, then, for showmanship and what passes for oratory in this age of typescripts and autocues; as the CSR progressed, it was clear that in Osborne’s perception some of the broadest shoulders are found amongst the poorest. But at least the bankers got their comeuppance – to the tune of a £2.5 billion permanent levy. Small change, it must be said, compared to the total clawed back from the budgets that help some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in society – the very people the Chancellor vowed to protect.

“Right across government the Chancellor has announced eye-watering cuts that will have a desperate impact on communities, business, and hard-pressed families. But he has not had the guts to spell out the detail, and instead tried to talk up a few crumbs of good news,” Barber added. “But the biggest tragedy of all this is that the spending review is likely to fail on its own terms. There will be plenty of pain, but little to gain.”

Baroness Margaret Eaton, Chair of the Local Government Association (LGA), said: “This spending review hits councils and the residents they serve very hard and will inevitably lead to cuts at the frontline. These are some of the biggest cuts in the public sector and we have to be honest about their impact. Town halls will now face extremely tough choices about what services they can keep on running. These cuts will cause real pain and anxiety for millions of people.”

Let them eat toast

Among the crumbs of good news, the Chancellor promised funds to guarantee the delivery of 150,000 new affordable homes over the next four years. That’s 37,500 a year but it didn’t stop the Government from talking it up with all the bold aplomb of Gordon Brown’s three million new homes by 2020.

“I believe that we have secured a package that will help deliver the homes this country needs over the Spending Review period,” said Housing Minister Grant Shapps in a letter conveying the settlement for housing. “Despite the fiscal constraints, the Government is still investing nearly £6.5 billion of taxpayers’ money in housing, with £4.5 billion to fund new affordable homes.”

The Minister’s standing among housing professionals may be left somewhat ‘toasted’ by his Chancellor’s choice of cuts, be that as it may, he is left talking up a settlement that the sector knows is little more than a starvation diet.

“The proposed figure of up to 150,000 affordable homes over four years represent less than a third of what this country urgently requires to bring the housing system from its knees, notwithstanding the half a million ‘lost’ homes referenced by the Chancellor himself,” Shelter’s Campbell Robb added.

“The combined worry of cuts to housing benefit and the slashing of the affordable house building subsidy, coupled with the absence of a long term strategy, will be devastating for the housing aspirations of thousands of young people consigned to increasing costs and bringing up their families in an insecure private rented sector.

“Despite the range of housing policies announced we have heard nothing on some of the most fundamental issues, such as tackling this country’s exorbitant house prices or improving our ever growing private rented sector. The Government must urgently set out its long-term vision to solve our entire housing crisis or accept responsibility for the impact these policies will have on entire generations for years to come.”

The numbers of new homes promised are somewhat curious, it must be said. Think back to the NHF’s annual conference and exhibition in Birmingham and recall what the organisation’s chair Matthew Taylor told delegates: “Let’s not forget that last year only 113,000 new homes were built across England – the lowest figure since 1923,” he said. “When the Minister [Grant Shapps] says he will be judged by providing more homes not fewer he sets himself a pretty low benchmark as his starting point.”

When combined with some of the devilish detail in the spending review, such as the decision that 100 per cent of all future Right to Buy receipts shall be surrendered to the Exchequer, these curious figures are difficult to interpret as anything other than a calculated insult to the housing sector’s concerns.

Priced out and stay out

There’s no secret given away to say that the Government wants to embark on a massive and historic transformation – politically, economically and socially – of British society. That’s precisely what the ‘localism’ and ‘Big Society’ rhetoric has been about.

Social engineering of this depth is normally regarded as the Left’s forte, but for once the Conservatives, assisted by their LibDem Lieutenants, have picked up the gauntlet (or should that be cudgel) to beat the drum of change. The Chancellor’s package is a part of this; not just a ‘business plan’ to tackle the budget deficit, but an architectural blueprint intended to create this Brave New Britain. So the CSR is not just for the next four years – it is intended to set the tone for generations to come.

The fear is it will do exactly that – and not in a positive way – while at the same time proving every bit the [alleged] failure that tends to be the hallmark of the Left’s tinkering exercises. Taken together with the drop in the delivery of new affordable homes, Osborne’s cuts and reform package has raised the very real prospect of tenants becoming not just squeezed out because of an under-supply of homes but actively ‘priced out’ of social housing too – and where then will they go? The possible answers to that question are already haunting housing professionals.

“Traditionally people who need a home could turn to private landlords or housing associations like ours as a safety net, but this isn’t going to be the case,” said Debbie Griffiths, chief executive of South Staffordshire Housing Association (SSHA). “We will not be able to meet demand and we are already seeing a dip in the availability of private rented properties as landlords face tough times and cash in their assets. So where will these people go – on the streets?”

Given that a disproportionate number of social housing tenants rely on benefits to make ends meet, the massive cuts, combined with the proposal to end lifelong tenancies for new tenants, the Government has crafted for them – and their landlords – a difficult situation to say the least. It’s a gritty problem, especially for local authorities and registered social landlords in the capital, but the implications of the cuts and reforms have implications further afield than London.

“London Councils has already warned that up to 82,000 households could become homeless in the capital as a result of the Government’s cuts to housing benefit next year,” said Sir Steve Bullock, the Mayor of Lewisham, and London Councils’ executive member for housing. “It looks like London will now see a 52 per cent reduction in the number of new social homes that are built, with an estimated 4,990 new homes completed in the capital each year compared to a previous estimate of 10,356.

“This reduction will only deepen this crisis, leading to more people becoming homeless or having to leave their job and, quite possibly, the capital. Cutting social housing funding without any alternative significant new supply either from private landlords or funded through institutional private investments is reckless and irresponsible. The Government has now put in place the ingredients for a swiftly escalating housing crisis across the capital – one that will touch the majority of Londoners and place council budgets under severe pressure.”

There is a widespread fear that the imposition of such stringent benefit cuts will lead to increased rent arrears, evictions and homelessness. Furthermore, the prospect of ‘social cleansing’ – bitterly denied by the Government – will lead to those on low incomes being driven out of affluent areas, leading to “ghettoes” of poverty and social exclusion.

While tenancies and rent levels will remain the same for existing social housing tenants, new tenants will face restrictions on their security of tenure. They will also be offered so-called intermediate rents “around 80 per cent of the market level”. The money raised from these higher rents is supposed to contribute to the funds needed to deliver even more homes, and also open the door to the potential for extra funding from institutional investors. But, it’s fair to say, it’s a long-shot and has in itself profound social implications.

“The cuts announced in the CSR will have a devastating impact on council tenants,” said a spokesperson for Defend Council Housing (DCH). “Combined with cuts to Housing Benefit and the attack on secure tenancies, they break the Prime Minister’s pre-election promise. They are not ‘fair’: this is an assault on tenants’ rights that will drive up arrears, evictions, poverty and homelessness.”

Tom Murtha, chief executive of Midland Heart said: “The spending review was supposed to aid the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society, but the reduction of social housing expenditure by 51 per cent coupled with changes in welfare benefits, is going to push those in need into greater poverty.

“Demand for affordable housing already outstrips supply and the new changes will see poorer people no longer able to find suitable affordable housing. Those new tenants who will be looking at 80 per cent intermediate market rent rates could be pushed into long-term poverty and will never be able to step onto the property ladder. The reality will be a greater risk of people being forced into poor quality over-crowded homes or made homeless.”

Also facing up to the reality of this new world at the local level is Mike Creamer, chief executive of Contour Housing Group, who said: “Limiting the security of tenure through intermediate tenancies will not improve the supply of affordable rented homes for those on the lowest incomes in the short term. Far worse, in the long term, insecure tenure will drive out the economically active from neighbourhoods, leaving residual communities on permanent benefit – a return to the early 1980s.

"The prospect of more new homes at near market rents should also not be misunderstood. Something is needed for the millions of younger people who can’t afford to buy, but who are not poor enough to qualify for traditional social rented homes. However, Government will not want housing benefit to be paid on these higher rents. It is unlikely therefore that these ‘150,000 new homes’ will be made available to those in greatest need.”

Nor may they end up going to those in low wage employment, if the Government does indeed prove loath to subsidise people with Housing Benefit. A further sore point as regards the feared ‘London clearance’ is that many of those at risk from the changes are working, but on a low wage. The NHF points out that the average price of a social home is £85 a week, but if raised to 80 per cent of the market rent, that figure could rise to £250 a week. So if low-wage earners renting privately in London cannot afford their rents without subsidy, will an 80 per cent rate become any more affordable in real terms? It certainly doesn’t bode well for the brave new world Osborne ushered in with his rhetorical invocations of ‘reform, fairness and growth’.

“Halving the social housing budget will cause a major crisis in housing, and simply putting up rents and removing security of tenure won’t be enough to prevent it,” said Charles Seaford, head of the Centre for Well-Being at thinktank the New Economics Foundation (NEF). “If the Government cuts housing benefit without making changes to the rental market, we run the risk of ghettoising our cities, driving out poorer renters from wealthy areas, especially in London and the South East. The Chancellor promised 150,000 new homes, but there are 1.7 million households with 4.5 million people on the waiting lists.”

The fears raised by industry figures, and interested observers, paint a grim picture of the future. Certainly, it no longer seems outrageous to ask if Britain is on the verge of witnessing the rise of its own equivalent of the shanty town.

One might say that we lack the climate for such scrap-built, hand-assembled structures, but some have expressed the worry that we will see the return of so-called cardboard cities, so is it really much of a leap from cardboard boxes to scrap-wood and corrugated iron shacks? Perhaps that is a step too far. After all, there is a far more likely, and one might say very British, outcome – one is an increase in the incidence of squats. The other is the return of the good old-fashioned slum landlord who came to be epitomised by Peter Rachman in the 1950s and 60s. Is this to be the legacy that the Government leaves to future generations?

They think it’s all over

Over the last decade or so, the social housing sector has worked hard to tackle a host of social problems, from social exclusion and deprivation, worklessness, to more generally empowering communities. It has striven to build a rapport with tenants and residents, to be a force for the community rather than just a provider of ‘bricks and mortar’ that otherwise stands aloof from the neighbourhoods where its works. The social landlord has been very much a part of the community, but all of that is surely threatened by the extent of these cuts.

Herein lies the Faustian twist to the Chancellor’s Machiavellian deal for social housing – if the consequences of the cuts and reforms play out as feared, forcing housing providers into making ever-tougher choices that can only impact adversely on families and communities, then will this positive social compact actually be able to survive?

It all sounds grim, sometimes bordering on the dystopian, but the Chancellor, along with his Government peers, is adamant that there is no alternative but to grab the budget deficit by the throat and squeeze it down to size. At £109 billion it is said to be the largest in Europe, accruing £43 billion a year in interest payments alone, and so urgently needs addressing if future generations are not to be left shackled by debt. The trouble is he risks millions of vulnerable people paying a price that leaves them in penury. In the cold calculations of political high office it is, perhaps, a small price to pay to secure the national interest, but for those tasked to pick up the pieces it’s a step into purgatory.

For the Chancellor, beginning his speech, it was the day when Britain “steps back from the brink” of bankruptcy. “It is a hard road, but it leads to a better future,” he said. “Tackling this deficit is unavoidable. The decisions about how we do it are not. There are choices. And today we make them.”

Nothing is written in stone, however, not even the Chancellor’s road map to tomorrow. Rumblings of discontent, even the dreaded spectre of poll tax style civil unrest, may scupper Osborne’s Machiavellian deal. It isn’t over yet – but those choices may yet come to haunt the country in ways nobody expected. Our children may have little call to thank us for their inheritance.

This article first appeared in Northern Housing magazine, circa October 2010. It was subsequently republished on the Housing Excellence website, 3 November 2010.

Interview: Eileen Short, Defend Council Housing

Fighting for the fourth estate of housing

The national Chair of Defend Council Housing (DCH) talks to Mark Cantrell about the organisation’s struggle to protect tenants’ rights and why she believes council housing is worth fighting for

From the September 2010 edition of Northern Housing magazine

Eileen Short

DEFEND Council Housing (DCH) has earned itself the NHF’s irate thunder on many occasions for its insistence that stock transfer is but a euphemism for privatisation, yet it has never shied away from a confrontation nor turned coy in its fighting talk.

“We will fight against any attacks on secure tenancies – not just DCH but the whole tenant movement,” DCH Chair Eileen Short said. “David Cameron may think he’s going to roll back our rights and our tenancies, but we are absolutely determined that he’s not going to do that. The tenants’ movement is going to fight for what is right and what is fair.”

The aims of its inception were to campaign locally against stock transfer and nationally to create a focal point for some hard and protracted lobbying of the Government. Over the years, it has established a coalition to be reckoned with – with tenants taking a leading active role, as individuals and through local and national tenant organisations, allied with trade unionists and a growing body of local and national politicians.

While it may not have won the war, DCH has notched up some significant victories. On the ground, it has defeated moves to transfer homes out of council ownership (although, it has suffered defeats too), with Birmingham – as the largest council landlord in the country – undoubtedly a flagship win. For several years running, it has won the backing of delegates at the Labour Party Conference for the so-called ‘Fourth Option’ of direct investment in council housing.

Perhaps its most significant victory is to demonstrate that tenants are more than capable of taking a decisive stand in determining the fate of their homes and communities, rather than being sidelined as passive by-standers.

“In 2000, the pundits were predicting the end of council housing. While we haven’t won the whole thing we have defied privatisation and we take pride in putting council housing back on the policy table,” said Short, a Tower Hamlets council tenant.

Part of the issue revolves around the principle of democratic accountability. “We have in that sense a unique position in that we get to elect our landlord,” Short said. “That means there is a way of exerting a check on rent rises, or abuses, or privatisation. Council housing is decent, secure and affordable – or should be – because it is publically owned and accountable. And that is the very thing that we are prepared to defend. Again and again, when tenants are fighting against privatisation, they are saying it’s not because council housing is perfect, but because the rights we have protect us against the worst of what the private sector can do.”

Like many a campaign, it arose in outrage and anger when it was formed in 1997, but there was also disappointment and dismay: as Short explained, many tenants had taken the newly formed Labour Government’s catchphrase ‘things can only get better’ at its word – and had expected an end to the neglect of council housing. And so it did, but not the way they had anticipated. Rather, councils were somewhat cold shouldered as the stock transfer programme accelerated.

Historic under-investment in council housing, epitomised by the £19 billion backlog of repairs that heralded the birth of the Decent Homes programme, was only adding fuel to the fire.

“[Funding] is important because it’s the under-investment in council housing that has driven privatisation,” Short said.

“The only way that landlords and housing associations – who are the would-be landlords looking to take over – can push through a stock transfer is to say to tenants their homes are under-funded, neglected and in disrepair, and that the only way they can get these repairs done is if they accept a change of landlord. That’s what we call blackmail. We pay enough in our rents to keep our homes up to a good standard but because of the Robbery [the HRA’s negative subsidy] and the under-investment, our homes fell into disrepair.”

For all the principles of the campaign, there’s the personal too. After all, it is arguing over the fate of people’s homes – and hence their families, their communities and more.

“I’ve got daughters,” Short added. “I live in the middle of London. There’s no way – and I have worked part-time for 20 years and more – that I could afford to live in London if it wasn’t for council housing. The same will be true for my daughters. That does give you the determination that this fight must be fought, because if we can’t keep and improve council housing, then for lots of working class people and their families we’ll be rolling back to the days when private slum landlords can dictate when and where you can live.”

Given the current furore over Housing Benefit cuts and the feared impact this will have on low-income families living and working in London, Short is making a timely and painfully poignant point. Both she and the DCH campaigners are adamant that council housing is the only realistic game in town when it comes to providing the necessary numbers of affordable housing to meet local need.

“If you want to create communities and give people control over how they build sustainable communities, then council housing has to be at the heart of it,” Short said. “That’s because it’s cheaper to build and manage and maintain than the alternatives. There has to be a mass council house building programme in order to return it to a tenure of choice.”

This article first ran in Northern Housing magazine, circa September 2010. It was subsequently republished on the Housing Excellence website, 27 October 2010.

Has David Cameron invoked two-nation Toryism?

What the Dickens? 

Plans to cap and cut Housing Benefit have sent more than just the housing sector reeling. The implications of what the NHF has already called “an onslaught on the vulnerable” are still sinking in, but it is feared the measures will ‘ghettoise’ deprivation and harden social inequalities, writes Mark Cantrell 

 First published in a 2010 edition of Northern Housing

Charles Dickens

"TWO nations," they said of the divide between London’s rich and poor. For the speakers, poles apart politically, the words encapsulated the inequalities inherent in the city – but also throughout Britain – and the words retain a tragic resonance with modern society that is expected to strike an ever-deeper chord in the wake of stringent benefit cuts.

The first speaker was Benjamin Disraeli, the man regarded as the ‘founding father’ of the modern Conservative Party and the One Nation Tory strand of its philosophy – of which, in some respects, David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ and ‘compassionate Conservatism’ is considered the latest iteration. The second, however, was that notorious rabble-rouser Vladimir Illich Ullianov, better known as Lenin, the founding father of Bolshevism, who found much fuel for his ruthless cause in the social conditions he observed.

While Disraeli uttered the words as a lament on the condition of life, Lenin hissed them through the clenched teeth of anger. And so, one might say, the die was cast for the generations that followed.
History has absorbed both men, of course, along with the Dickensian conditions they both observed, but alas the stark inequalities they perceived have persisted in one form or another to make their ‘two nation’ curse as pertinent today as it was in their respective heydays.

Since their time, however, a host of individuals, political creeds, and social movements, both moderate and extreme, have sought to close the gap. Broadly speaking, especially in the post-war welfare state era, the gap indeed narrowed. Though in recent decades the gap between the affluent and – to use modern parlance – the deprived and socially excluded has widened again, still efforts have continued to address the problem.

Bridge over a troublesome divide

The housing world, of course, has found itself at the forefront of such efforts, sat amidst a myriad of partnerships to overcome this lingering tendency towards ‘two nations’, but the onset of recession and Government measures to reduce the country’s spending deficit, has created a situation that many fear may lead to a drastic reversal of fortune in the efforts to overcome deprivation and poverty.

Many factors account for this, but one of the single biggest blows is the proposal for the reform of Housing Benefit and Local Housing Allowance (LHA) contained in Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s Emergency Budget in June. He outlined his key points to reduce the country’s housing benefits bill by £1.8 billion over the course of this Parliament. In the wake of this, the housing sector – and many in wider society –has become concerned at the grim prospect of a 21st Century version of those Dickensian-style conditions emerging to blight modern Britain for generations to come.

Poverty is a complicated beast, of course, its causes legion, but high housing costs are an intrinsic factor and the worry is that the Government’s approach to reducing the housing benefit bill will in fact only exacerbate the symptoms while not tackling the underlying problems that have generated the undeniably breath-taking level of rental subsidy.

Welfare measures formed a significant part of Osborne’s Budget package, especially Housing Benefit, where he said that “costs are completely out of control” having risen from £14 billion 10 years ago to £21 billion today, while welfare spending as a whole he said had risen 45 per cent in the same period from £132 billion to £192 billion.

To place it under control, the Chancellor announced that from April 2011, the amount of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) that people receive is to be capped to between £250 for a one-bedroom flat and £400 for a family-sized home. From the same time, there will be increased deductions for non-dependents. From October this year, the LHA people receive will be calculated to match the bottom 30 per cent of the local private sector rental market rather than the bottom half of the market as it is currently. Increases of the benefit are to be linked to the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), which does not include housing costs, from April 2013, rather than the Retail Prices Index (RPI) as it is now.

Down the line, from April 2013, a time limit will be applied to the payment of Housing Benefit or LHA to those on Job Seekers’ Allowance (JSA), so that it will be cut by 10 per cent after a claimant has spent a year on the dole, leaving them to make up the shortfall on their rents. From the same period, the payment of housing benefits to working age tenants will be limited to the size of property they are judged to need.

All told, these measures are expected to claw back £1.8 billion in savings for the Treasury by 2014/15. Understandably, although nobody can deny the Housing Benefit bill is staggering, these measures have caused – at the very least – some disquiet for its potential social impact, which social landlords will be expected to address at a time when they themselves are facing financial restrictions.

Housing Minister Grant Shapps, at Harrogate, tried to alleviate some of the sector’s worries, by pointing out the lead time on many of these reforms – by then the economy is expected to have picked up, he said, thereby creating employment opportunities. This, he claims, will soak up the feared social consequences of the changes, but for many people contemplating the measure, it is, if it can be put that way, forward planning on something of a hope and prayer.

No more mister nice-guy?

The Prime Minister, David Cameron has said that “we are all in this together” when it comes to efforts to cut the nation’s budget deficit, and he has promised that the most vulnerable in our society will be protected. However, there is concern that the impact of the reforms reveals Cameron’s rhetoric as distinctly hollow.

“This cut in housing benefit will make a real difference to some of our poorest and most vulnerable families, and will affect nearly one million households,” said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber. “The Chancellor promised ‘not to hide any hard choices from the British people or bury them in the small print of the Budget documents’, but this is another reminder that we are definitely not all in this together. While the rich have been let off, families are being left to pick up the cost of the recession.”

Liz Phelps, housing policy officer for Citizens Advice said: “There can be no doubt that the combined effects of these cuts will lead to a sharp increase in rent arrears and homelessness, with the potential to spark a housing crisis in places such as London, where the cuts will have the biggest impact. Among those worst affected will be some of the most vulnerable households and people doing low paid but vital work in the capital. Only seven per cent of rents in central London will be affordable within the new housing benefit limits.

“We already see many people on very low incomes who are renting in the private sector – often through necessity rather than choice – and who struggle to make up a shortfall between their housing benefit and their rent, getting into arrears as a result. Added to this, many private landlords are already unwilling to let to anyone on housing benefit, and these cuts will make them even more reluctant to do so. People on housing benefit will find themselves between a rock and a hard place – unable to afford their rent, but unable to move because they can’t find another landlord prepared to take them on, so much more likely to become homeless.

“Worryingly, the Government’s impact assessment skates over some potentially major effects of the changes. Rent arrears and evictions are likely to rise sharply once the changes come into force, yet there is little consideration of the impact on local councils, whose homelessness services will be under enormous increased pressure, with reduced scope to find housing solutions in the private rented sector because of the cuts – and all this at a time when local authorities themselves will be facing budget cuts.”

More than 750,000 people are at risk of losing their homes in London and the South East because of the housing benefit capping, the National Housing Federation (NHF) has said. The organisation warned that not all of them will be able to find alternative accommodation in the region that meets the restrictions placed on the levels of Housing Benefit or LHA they require to meet their rents. Many will therefore be ‘forced’ to leave the capital or indeed the region, while up to 200,000 people will be put at risk of homelessness.

“The housing benefit caps could see poorer people effectively forced out of wealthier areas and ghettoised into poorer neighbourhoods,” said David Orr, the NHF’s chief executive. “Some people affected by housing benefit caps may successfully find a home in cheaper areas, but many will end up in expensive bed and breakfast accommodation, while thousands will simply become homeless. Unless ministers urgently reconsider these punitive housing benefit cuts, we may see more people sleeping rough than at any stage during the last 30 years.”

There’s no place like home

The organisation added to its fearful homage to this grim future, by stating the caps and cuts will see more people go into arrears – resulting in eviction. This may lead them to be seen as ‘intentionally homeless’ and therefore lose any entitlement to emergency accommodation from a local authority. The new rules may also make vulnerable people easy prey for loan sharks, further fuelling a cycle of poverty, fear and debt.

“Quite frankly, the proposals are disturbing and unfair,” Orr added. “Forcing people already on the breadline to take a huge cut in their disposable income will push low income groups out of prosperous areas like London and the South East – and further away from jobs, therefore increasing unemployment and the concentration of social problems in deprived, marginalised areas.”

For some commentators in the media, the prospect of these measures ‘evicting the poor’ out of London is a positive and welcome outcome. A cursory glance through the public comment boards of a broad spectrum of the nation’s daily newspapers soon shows the existence of a tendency that suggests that if people can’t afford to live in the capital out of their own pocket, then they shouldn’t be living there at all. The accusations of ‘social cleansing’ have already been lobbed at the Government for its proposed reforms.

It’s one point of view, of course, among many, but it harks back to the ‘two nations’ and the notoriety of London’s divide: the city has long had the wealthy and the impoverished living effectively side by side. At the risk of bad satire, no city lives by fatcat financiers and high flying professionals alone; somebody has to do the hard work that keeps the civic wheels turning – many of which cannot adequately support the cost of living in the nation’s high-flying capital.

Simply put, poverty isn’t just about those who are out of work. There is the working poor too, and among those it is feared will be forced to leave London, for the outskirts, or even further afield, are many who will not simply be leaving behind a home and a community – the situation will be forcing them to leave behind a job.

Research conducted by the NHF indicates some 308,000 low-paid workers will be affected by the ‘new deal’ on housing benefit.

“These cuts will have a huge impact on thousands of households in London, the majority being pensioners, those with disabilities, people caring for a relative or hardworking people on low incomes,” said Campbell Robb, Shelter’s chief executive.

“The increased rental costs people will now have to find each month will force many Londoners to leave the homes and communities they work in, and often grew up in, and move further out in search of cheaper rents. Long term this could see clusters of poverty and inequality, creating an even bigger gap between rich and poor.”

London is expected to be hit hardest by the change to Housing Benefit and Local Housing Allowance, but the issue affects more than just people living in the capital. Indeed, in some respects, this focus represents the typically London-centric view of the UK that could be considered a further aspect of the ‘two nations’ divide.

Get outa town

An analysis carried out by the NHF shows that while London and the South East will be the hardest hit, it is not the only city or region that will feel the pain of the cuts. All told, according to the organisation, nearly one million people are at risk of being driven into debt, falling into arrears or losing their home.

In London, 159,370 people could lose out, while across the South East a further 123,000 may lose, but in the North West some 130,900 people could be affected by the cuts. In the Midlands, 18,780 people can expect to be affected in Birmingham, and 5,840 people in Nottingham. In Leeds, the NHF says 15,610 people may lose out, 10,210 in Manchester, 12,620 in Liverpool and 8,630 in Bristol. People forced to move out of their area will, of course, only add to the pressures faced by the neighbourhoods, towns and cities where they end up moving in search of a home they can afford – and indeed new employment.

In terms of the people who are set to lose out – to the tune of an average £624 a year from their housing support – are 431,000 women, 299,800 single parents, 205,500 unemployed people, 178,000 black and Asian people, and 75,000 older people.

The Government, of course, hasn’t set out to cause such mayhem – if indeed such mayhem eventually does come to pass – but that will be of little consolation to those affected, or to those left to pick up the pieces. Ministers will – and do – point to the staggering size of the budget deficit, the high Housing Benefit bill, and the lack of money that has forced such austerity measures on the country.
They may say ‘no pain no gain’, but the critics of the move suggest that it will create a great deal of pain, for no gain at all – indeed, they warn it will cost the Government and society a great deal more than it saves.

Ironically, housing professionals, among others, have accepted the need – and argued for – reform of the housing benefit system to help overcome so-called benefits dependency, where taking on work can leave claimants facing greater financial hardships than if they simply remained on benefits, but in light of the current changes to the system, it may well turn into a case of ‘be careful what you wish for’. Certainly, the sector has not been arguing for this “onslaught on the vulnerable” as the NHF has referred to it.

“Ministers have said consistently since taking office that they will do their utmost to protect the vulnerable – and yet the introduction of the housing benefit caps will clearly lead to an onslaught on some of the most vulnerable groups in society,” said the NHF’s Orr. “The changes could see hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people fall into debt, forced out of their homes and neighbourhoods and crammed into over-crowded ghettoes.”

Two nations, indeed, and what the Dickens will we do about it then?

This article first appeared in Northern Housing magazine, circa April or May 2010. It was subsequently republished on the Housing Excellence website, 10 August 2010

Some jobs are just the filthiest

Mucking out the mundane macabre

There is cleaning – and then there is cleaning. When it comes to the worst cases of grot, a strong constitution and specialist expertise is a must. One might hope they are never needed, but the specialists are ready, willing and able just in case. Welcome to the world of extreme cleaning

 By Mark Cantrell 

First published in Northern Housing

TO mess up an old Yorkshire aphorism, ‘where there’s muck there’s folk as bold as brass’. Bold as in strong of stomach, nor easily shocked, because the men and women in the extreme cleaning business come face to face with the grimmest and grimiest of jobs every day.

The companies are a specialised breed; the very nature of the work demands rather more than rubber gloves and mop and bucket. It may involve specialist equipment, expertise in safely handling and disposing of contaminated materials and wastes, as well as a host of other specialised knowledge and experience. Theirs is not a trade for the faint of heart.

For social landlords, the most common tasks that need the extreme cleaners are graffiti removal, cleaning and disinfecting bin lockers and chutes, jet spraying, external cleaning, removal of pigeon guano, fumigation, bulk waste removal and so on. Then there are instances such as drain and sewer leaks, or fire and flood recovery, that will require specialised assistance. These might sound somewhat mundane, to the practitioners at least, if not the rest of us, but far from it; if it is not the extent of grime, then it is the scale that make the case for the professional ‘grime-busters’.

“For the housing world, we mainly provide the clean and clear kind of work, where a social housing tenant has left the place in a mess,” said Steve Broughton of London-based Cleansafe Services. “So that unit of social housing has to be turned round, all the stuff removed, and it has to be cleaned ready for the next tenant.”

That sounds simple enough, but in cases of ‘gross filth’, as it is known, the reality can beggar belief. These are typified by homes that are found to be filled with rubbish and left in a filthy state, piled high with hoarded junk, or otherwise left in a state that makes the phrase ‘unfit for human habitation’ seem like a gross understatement. Once again, it is a job for the extreme cleaners who see in such Augean jobs a satisfying challenge, whereas we lesser mortals would recoil in horror and disgust.

“You can never tell what is behind someone’s front door when you are going to these properties. You can be absolutely amazed that you have to crawl over a pile of rubbish just to get in some of the rooms. We do a lot of extreme clearances, much more than many people realise are out there,” said a spokesman for Kent’s Clearway Environmental Services.

It’s not just the mess. Piles of rotting refuse left in a property can attract pest infestations and otherwise pose hazards to human health. Beyond clearing out the rubbish, and tackling any pests, there is also the safe handling of the waste and the disinfection of the property to consider too.

“A typical gross filth clean up will usually involve a building or residence that a reasonable person would find uninhabitable or unsafe. This can be due to any combination of biohazards: excessive rubbish, expired food, odour, faecal matter whether it is animal or human, bodily fluids, mould, mildew, animal or insect infestation,” according to Lodge Environmental Services, based in Goole.

“The task of cleaning an area of gross filth can be challenging for an individual untrained in decontamination and odour removal. In addition, those tasked with such a job must be trained in locating and safely eliminating hazardous materials.”

Drug dens, and the paraphernalia of addiction, and ‘prostitution dens’ are another aspect of the extreme cleaners’ work, where the detritus of the activity is not only unpleasant but poses hazards to human health.

Dirty needles, used condoms, bodily fluids, all pose infection risks to the unprotected, or unguarded, which require professional cleaning and disposal. There are much worse scenarios that an extreme cleaner must face however. If much of their work can be said to be mundane, then there is much more that escalates into the macabre. Cleansafe and Clearway, Lodge, for example, all provide clean up services to crime scenes, sites of trauma – such as accidents or suicides – and also are called upon to deal with the tragic and unpleasant legacy of so-called undiscovered death. Macabre, certainly, but also poignant, tragic and traumatic. Sensitivity and people skills therefore become another essential component of the trade.

“We have worked on murders and suicides, we’ve had cases of undiscovered death, but probably the worst are where people have jumped in front of freight trains,” said Cleansafe’s Broughton.

“As people, all the staff are highly trained, very professional and they are fully aware of the items they might come across in their line of work, but at any stage, they are free to receive any counselling if they require it.”

In cases of death and trauma, where it has happened in a residential setting, the men and women tasked with the clean up may also find themselves having to deal directly with family members or neighbours. In such cases, it’s not just the professional competency that is required of the extreme cleaner, but a ‘bedside manner’ of sensitivity and respect.

“In some instances, you are almost doing a service for the family, so [for the staff] there’s a certain satisfaction in helping people there. We’re not trained social workers, but by the same token the company does carry out its own internal training programmes with respect to these kinds of work – it is just treating people with respect. There’s no magical answer. You are respectful. You do the job to the best of your ability and you do it discretely. Do that and the family is delighted most of the time.”

Clearly, any company called upon for such harrowing jobs are not your run of the mill contractors.

For most of us, ‘undiscovered death’ is a headline in the local media. By the time they are found, of course, the body is not only severely unpleasant, but also a significant biohazard in itself. The aftermath of undiscovered death is tucked away safely beyond the perceptions of the general public, but the extreme cleaners are tasked to clean up after the deceased.

The phrase ‘advanced state of decomposition’ neatly sidesteps the hideous reality of noxious odours, maggots, and bodily fluids. The legacy of the Grim Reaper’s time-keeping is not, as extreme cleaners know, a pretty sight. Nevertheless, it’s a job that must be done. The more macabre cases may be somewhat rare – though not rare enough, alas – but even the more mundane demands of the extreme cleaner offer peculiar insights into the often hidden complexities of human life that is perhaps all too often lost to our modern sanitised sensibilities.

For the social housing world, however, there is not the luxury of hiding from the potential occurrences of such grim realities. Life can be a messy affair. And then some.

This article was first published in Northern Housing magazine, circa March 2010. It was subsequently re-published on the Housing Excellence website, 15 April 2010.