Chris Holmes

IN MEMORY OF HIS LIFE AND WORK

Chris Holmes

13TH JULY 1942 - 2ND DECEMBER 2014

Christopher John Holmes

NICOLA BACON & RACHEL O’BRIEN

Foreword

The costs of producing this publication have kindly been covered by Shelter.

Reading this collection, two things shine out. First is the troubling legacy of the failure of successive UK governments to build sufficient affordable housing.

This combined with today’s austerity cuts, have – as David Orr argues in his essay about innovation and the role of housing associations – created a perfect storm; in which the number of people who experience housing need and homelessness have risen.

sleeping, by Deborah Garvie on the use temporary accommodation, and

by Julian Birch describing the failings of the housing safety net. They know he would have bought to bear his huge brain, extensive knowledge and experience without losing site of the human hardships that lie behind these figures. He would be calmly, cleverly, relentlessly and – at times – infuriatingly, set about pushing for solutions.

Second, is the incredible amount that one human being can achieve. The legacy of Chris Holmes is not just that he made a difference throughout his working life. It is that he did so, as Steve Hilditch and Hattie Llewelyn-Davies cover so powerfully, by working with, influencing and inspiring so many others.

Perhaps above all, it is about the value of what Jeremy Swain, calls ‘furious commitment’; to go beyond outrage, to be focused, tactical, creative, practical and prepared to make difficult decisions.

He would urge us to question prevailing truths about what is and is not inevitable or unsolvable. Like Anne Power in her essay on the importance of estates and Nicola Bacon on housing in London, he would deploy past and present failures and successes in marshaling his arguments about a better future.

Anyone who knew and worked with Chris knows how deeply concerned he would be at the statistics outlined

by Jeremy in relation to rough

This collection celebrates Chris; his contribution, character and hard work.

But it is also a call to action at a time when there is little to celebrate in relation to housing and homelessness; a call to deepen, widen and focus people’s furious commitment to meeting the challenges of today.

Contents 1

STEVE HILDITCH

A towering figure

HATTIE LLEWELYN-DAVIES

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NICOLA BACON

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Making London feel like it’s home for Londoners

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The housing safety net

JEREMY SWAIN

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Living in temporary accommodation

The impact of good housing JULES BIRCH

DEBORAH GARVIE

ANNE POWER

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Estates matter

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Passion and outrage are essential but not enough

DAVID ORR

Optimism and action

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STEVE HILDITCH

A towering figure Chris Holmes was a towering figure in the housing world for more than 40 years.

This collection of essays is written in honour of his work and achievements and was launched at an event in London for colleagues and friends that celebrated his huge contribution to the alleviation of bad housing and homelessness.

This essay is a brief history of the work Chris did, the organisations he led, his successes and the life he led at the centre of housing policy debate over more than four decades.

Chris was born into a Methodist family in Yorkshire in 1942. His father, Gordon, was an insurance broker and lay preacher.

His mother, Doris (nee Waite), worked in a bank until she married and was a pillar of the local Methodist community. The family lived near Otley and Chris was educated at Bradford Grammar School and the Leys School, Cambridge. His Yorkshire roots perhaps explain his love both of hill walking and of cricket, and it could be said that a background of lay preaching influenced his later oratorical style. He took a degree in Economics at Clare College Cambridge in 1964 and

a postgraduate management diploma from Bradford University in 1966.

Chris became involved in housing more by accident than design. His first job was in the personnel department of the west London office of John Laing, the construction group. He rented close by in Notting Hill, an area experiencing an extraordinary upsurge in community protest and activism. This was partly in response to the bulldozing of hundreds of homes and the chopping in half of so many streets in north Kensington to build the Westway elevated motorway, and partly in response to appalling slum landlordism (the most notorious landlord, Peter Rachman, owned many properties in the area). Notting Hill in the 1960s was a seedbed for new ideas and there had been a mushrooming of new community organisations, campaigning against injustice and for community facilities, play space and housing and legal rights.

Chris went to live in the house of the Notting Hill Community Workshop, and combined his day job with being a core member of the team that launched

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Notting Hill in the 1960s was a seedbed for new ideas and there had been a mushrooming of new community organisations, campaigning against injustice and for community facilities, play space and housing and legal rights.

the Notting Hill Summer Project in 1967. Its activities included a massive housing survey carried out by volunteer students. He went to manage the Toc H house in Notting Hill Gate and helped organise the Notting Hill Community Press in the basement. Into the 1970s he remained a significant figure in the Notting Hill community movement, helping to establish innovative projects including the first law centre and a range of new ventures exploiting the space underneath the now completed Westway.

In 1969 Chris took his community work skills to Islington, where he worked for the North Islington Community Development Project before becoming Director (1972-74) of the North Islington Housing Rights Project. Again, this period saw a surge in community action in the area, and especially a cluster of innovative housing cooperatives.

Joining Shelter as Deputy Director (1974-76), Chris helped to drive the housing campaign nationally and the organisation’s support and funding for local housing campaigns and housing aid centres around the country; many of which adopted the organising methods and style developed in Notting Hill and Islington. One of his innovations was to develop the idea of publishing a regular housing magazine, editorially independent of Shelter, which became known as Roof; this survived as an influential publication for more than 30 years. In 1975 he joined the board of the National Consumer Council, serving for five years.

Following Shelter, Chris led two other innovative housing organisations, as Director of the Society for Co-operative

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Dwellings (1976-79), and Director of the East London Housing Association (1980-82), before becoming Director of the single homeless charity CHAR (1982-87) where his campaigning zeal came once more to the fore.

Chris was a long-term member of the Labour Party and was usually active in his local constituency. He was a founder of the Labour Housing Group (LHG) in the early 1980s and was a leading light for many years. In the Influential LHG book Right to a Home, published in 1984, he wrote the chapter on “A Political Strategy”. One paragraph in particular sums up Chris’ whole approach to campaigning for good housing policies: “[The book’s] policy proposals are not programmes to be handed down like tablets of stone: they are catalysts for debate. Campaigns develop most effectively from the bottom upwards, based on the experiences of those who are suffering from exploitation or injustice. [The LHG proposals] will not command support unless they are seen to be relevant in those struggles, and can offer tangible and attractive benefits.

The aim must be to construct a network of alliances across a broad range of social forces, held together within a political movement by a cohesive and convincing body of ideas and beliefs.”

In 1988 Chris returned to his community development roots, working to establish tenant management organisations on large estates as a consultant with Priority Estates Project (PEP). In 1990 he took a big step to join Camden Council, where he was a hugely influential and innovative Director of Housing (1990-95),

putting into practice what he preached.

Although best known as a campaigner, Chris demonstrated in several roles that he also had substantial managerial skills. At Camden he successfully ran one of London’s largest public housing departments through a difficult era when housing need was rising but resources were severely constrained.

He was most proud of successfully ending the use of bed and breakfast for homeless families whilst he was there, having been told it was impossible.

Other boroughs followed his lead.

Re-joining Shelter in 1995, this time as Director (1995-2002), Chris tripled the organisation’s income and led it through one of its most influential periods, becoming a key member of the Minister for Housing and Planning’s Sounding Board (1997-2002) under both Hilary Armstrong and Nick Raynsford. He was a member of the Social Exclusion Unit’s policy action team on housing (1998-2002) and was awarded the CBE in 1998 for services to homelessness and Shelter.

Whilst at Shelter Chris chaired two important housing commissions. The first, in 2000, for the new Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, produced the influential report Homes for a World City, the recommendations of which were incorporated into the Mayor’s London Plan. As the Mayor’s powers were new and untested, Chris and his team started with a blank sheet of paper and helped create an extraordinarily progressive and ambitious set of policies, including the controversial idea that 50 per cent of new homes in London should be ‘affordable’ (either for social rent or as ‘intermediate housing’ mainly for key

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workers). The second commission, which he co-chaired with Lord Best, the director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), brought together two traditionally antagonistic groups, private landlords and tenant organisations, to seek a new consensus on the private rental market.

The focus of Chris’ work was to campaign for the rights of homeless and badly-housed people. Whatever job he had, day and night he was a campaigner, a communicator and a motivator.

On leaving Shelter Chris became a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). In addition to many articles, Chris wrote and contributed to a number of books.

This included an accessible and honest history of the Notting Hill Housing Trust, The Other Notting Hill, published in 2006, tracing it from its community roots to its modern status as one of the country’s largest housing association developers. His tour de force, A New Vision for Housing, also published in 2006, has become a standard text, and is discussed more below.

Chris was recruited to join the Youth Justice Board in 2003 and the Housing Corporation board in 2004. He proposed radical change and innovative approaches in both, and remained capable of stirring controversy, speaking out against excessive pay in the housing association sector when his term on the Board of the Housing Corporation ended in 2008 (when it was replaced by the Tenant Services Authority).

The focus of Chris’ work was to campaign for the rights of homeless and badlyhoused people. Whatever job he had, day and night he was a campaigner, a communicator and a motivator.

Campaigns in which Chris played a major part included the extension of security of tenure in the 1974 Rent

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Act and the transformative Housing (Homeless Persons) Act of 1977, which changed government and public attitudes towards homeless people.

In addition, the Campaign for Bedsit Rights pushed for a comprehensive set of new rights for people living in houses in multiple occupation. The resulting Bill was passed by the House of Commons only to fall when the 1983 general election was called.

In the early 2000s Chris again campaigned for stronger homelessness duties, in particular restoring the rights removed by the Conservatives in the 1990s and requiring authorities to develop a strategic approach. Following Labour’s 2002 Homelessness Act, he grasped the opportunity it created by launching Shelter into an enormous campaign to influence the practice of every local authority in the country as they wrote their new statutory homelessness strategies.

Chris inspired people though his leadership, his dedication, his encouragement of others, his sheer hard work, and his seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of his subject. But he was also a remarkable orator, capturing many audiences with his fluency and passion.

One housing campaigner recently wrote: “We need more leaders like him today to defend and speak out for social housing. Listening to Chris’ passionate and incisive speeches was a highlight of any Conference. I used to joke that everyone should hear him speak at least once a year to be refreshed in the true spirit and values of a once great sector.”

Chris was a restless thinker, always ready with new ideas and new policies

to debate, often controversially, although he never wavered from his core belief in the vital importance of social rented housing allocated on the basis of housing need. He was a leader in championing the housing rights of women and black and minority ethnic groups who faced discrimination in the housing market, and spoke out against the use of stigmatizing language referring to social tenants and homeless people. He wrote hundreds of articles and made thousands of speeches but he was always ready to sit quietly and talk through the detail of a point.

In his 2006 book A New Vision for Housing Chris had the opportunity to reflect in some detail on the history of housing policy, to draw lessons from the mistakes of the past, and to make proposals for the future. It traced the successes and failures of 50 years of housing policy, explaining the reasons behind the gross undersupply of homes and setting out new ideas for creating housing justice and sustainable communities.

His policy emphasis was on four key areas. First, the need to build 300,000 new homes a year. Chris recognised and accepted that the majority of people wished to buy their own homes, so the majority of new homes should feed that aspiration, but at least 90,000 of them should be for people who are unable to afford to buy.

Second, the importance of creating vibrant, socially mixed and inclusive communities. Echoing Nye Bevan’s vision (when he was minister responsible for housing) he believed all neighbourhoods should contain a mixture of people from

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all backgrounds, a spread of incomes and a balance of tenure types.

Third, the need to address the gross and increasing inequalities in housing wealth created by an unfair housing system, enabling tenants also to build up capital assets. And finally – because he knew we could not rely on housing opportunities to trickle down to the poorest – Chris argued that the homelessness crisis should be directly addressed starting with bringing to an end the use of temporary accommodation.

One paragraph sums up Chris’ vision for housing: “The aim for the future should be to have a range of tenures, of equal status and esteem, providing for different housing needs and aspiration, with people able to have as much choice as possible over where they live.” It is this clear and simple vision that has inspired a generation of housing campaigners and will inspire many more in the future.

Chris married twice, having two children (Kelda and John) with Ann Holmes and two (Sara and Cub) with Hattie Llewelyn Davies. He had one grandchild, Katherine Rose. His love of family, and their love for him, gave him the strength and inspiration to fight for a better world. He had a battle against alcohol dependency and faced serious illness in the latter stages of his life, including vascular dementia.

Despite his debilitating illnesses, he never grumbled, maintained a great interest in politics and social issues, and, typical of the man, thought he had a privileged life.

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Steve Hilditch knew Chris for forty years and worked with him on several occasions, including the Mayor’s Housing Commission, the Housing Minister’s Sounding Board, and the campaign for the 2002 homelessness Act. Steve was at various times Head of Housing Policy at Shelter, Assistant Director of Housing for a London borough, Chair of Labour Housing Group, and a housing consultant. He edits #redbrickblog.

This chapter draws on Steve Hilditch’s obituary of Chris on Red Brick blog, https://redbrickblog. wordpress.com/2014/12/08/obituary-chrisholmes-mbe/ , Malcolm Dean’s obituary in the Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/ society/2014/dec/10/chris-holmes , a letter to the Guardian by John O’Malley, http://www. theguardian.com/global/2014/dec/26/chris-holmesobituary-letter, and private correspondence with Hattie Llewelyn-Davies and others.

HATTIE LLEWELYN-DAVIES

The impact of good housing In the mid 1970s Chris Holmes was working in Islington and helped to support Anne Power, Tricia Zipfel and Lucy De Groot to set up the Holloway Tenant Cooperative (HTC). Over time this experience changed his view of housing and the impact it could have on people’s lives. In July 2015, Hattie Llewellyn-Davies interviewed Marie Doogan, current Chair and long term tenant of the cooperative.

Marie was born in the Gorbals in Glasgow. She has three older brothers and is still close to them all. She describes them as hard workers who rent their homes. She is the only one who has been given the opportunity to become a home owner, which was only possible because she was housed by Holloway Tenant Cooperative in 1975.

“I always wanted to be a home owner so I could have real security for my family and myself. No one can throw me out which is very important when you look at the way everything is going now with fixed term tenancies and less and less security.

I think the government will begin to force

people to move on soon because their home is too big or their income is too high, regardless of what they want or need.”

Marie had to leave home when she was 17 and was pregnant; to have stayed would have disgraced her family and she did not tell them about her child until her daughter was six months old. She came to London with her boyfriend, who later became her husband. They thought they could find work in London. Marie had visited her aunt in Hornsey when she was younger and though this would be a nice place to live.

“When I brought my daughter back from hospital we had an attic bedsit room in a private rented house in Holloway. I was offered the chance to buy the keys of a larger flat. I pawned my charm bracelet to buy those keys to give us the chance of a better life. In order to earn enough money to live I took on home-work until my daughter could go to nursery. We loved the flat and were really happy. I took the landlord to the rent tribunal and get the rent reduced. But when all the other tenants wanted my help to reduce their rent the landlord got very angry.”

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“We all came from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and once a month we would all bring a dish of food and share a meal together and talk about our lives.”

Once her daughter started at nursery Marie took a job at a bingo hall. She met a woman there who lived in something she called the coop. Marie thought she meant that she lived over the Co-op food stores but the friend advised her to get involved and get some decent housing for herself and her family.

Her friend was a member of Holloway Tenant Cooperative and she introduced her to her fellow tenant members.

“I had to go to the meetings every week and was told that the more I did for the coop the quicker I would be offered a home. I paid my £1 share and I was interviewed at my flat to assess our housing needs. I chose to run the regular jumble sales to raise money for things we needed and to sit on the housing needs assessment panels. We all came from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and once a month we would all bring a dish of food and share a meal together and talk about our lives.”

Six months after starting her involvement, Marie was housed with her husband and daughter in a two bed flat. It was on the ground floor in a Victorian street property in North Islington. “The rent was £7 a week, it was brilliant I was in heaven.”

She went on to join the coop committee, and learnt more about housing and how to run it. A few years later her relationship with her husband ended. They were all sad at this happening, but Marie felt that having her own secure home made all the difference to her and her daughter coping.

Ten years later Marie went to work full time for the coop, which had always encouraged tenants to work for them to build their skills. Marie

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ran the team who were responsible for the repairs to the properties.

“I used to chase up the tenants who did not look after their homes properly, I knew what difference having a good home meant to me and I was driven mad by the ones that did not show the same respect for their homes. I was the same with our repairs contractors. It was my rent paying their bills so I wanted to make sure we got the best quality job for the best price at all times.“ After about six years of working for the Holloway Tenant Cooperative, Marie met her second husband and had two more children, a daughter and then a son. With two young children she cut back on her involvement with the coop. Her eldest daughter was given her own flat, and Marie and her new family moved to a three bed house in a converted stable block around a shared communal garden. She had a problem with the communal garden and applied to have some works done to them.

“I was told that the works could not be done because the budget was short.

I talked to everyone, it was obvious that things had gone wrong, so I worked out with my children and their father that I had better get involved again. I decided this time to chair the Committee, which I did from 1995 on.

“Then we had the bad times. The Housing Corporation said that they knew from their monitoring report that things weren’t right. They found evidence that before I got back involved the staff had hidden a decision about funding problems from the membership and the regulator. We

took legal advice and told the senior member of staff he was suspended. I had asked Anne Power to come and help us through this when her proper job allowed this [Anne had moved on from the coop to LSE by this time]. I was glad she was around. The member of staff was furious, but for me it was a choice between him or the coop, which had changed my life and that of my fellow tenants completely over the years. So I had to do it. I employed consultants to help me sort out the mess; the lead consultant was Julian Ashby, which is funny since he now chairs the regulation committee that still oversees what we do 20 years later. He was good with us. I knew what we had to do but I didn’t have any qualifications to do the job. I was just me. He brought the skills to help me get what we needed.

“I learnt a lot dealing with people like Julian and the other professionals.

I became more confident and independent. This was by far the most challenging period of my life and I learnt so much. I had to do it for the rest of the coop members.”

The next period was hard work, Marie felt that too much was being spent on staff and not enough on tenants, with help and support she restructured the coop, reduced the rent arrears and reinvested in the stock. After much heart searching the Holloway Tenants Cooperative chose to join the safety of a larger group. They wanted more professional support and guidance and greater financial stability.

They joined the Circle 33 Housing Group as the first group member, allowing them almost total independence but with a safety net behind them.

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“It’s funny isn’t it? All those years ago, we turned to them to help us with our repairs problems and at the moment they are facing the same problems themselves. You can never stop being vigilant about these things.

“If you sit back and do nothing then nothing gets done, so I keep doing it for them and for me.”

“Everything went on pretty well, we got the outstanding major works done and caught up our arrears and so on. Circle got a good deal in terms of the value of our stock, which they now owned and more units to manage. Each property was inspected and we had a programme of new kitchens, bathrooms and central heating. It was like the first decent homes programme well before the government thought of it. Our committee continued to run the coop and I had a place on the Circle Group Board. We kept our identity. It went very well for all of us.”

In 2005 Marie took the up the right to buy her home. About a third of the 550 Holloway Tenant Cooperative homes are now in private ownership, but most are still occupied by the original tenants, who mostly maintain their links with the coop.

“I have done HTC for 40 odd years. I have made an impact, I got the tenants their rights. I stood up for them and fought for them. Tenants deserve the best, if we had not given them the best, the regulator would have stepped in and that would have been awful. I worried about whether I was doing the right thing. There were lots of challenges for me and I had to do things I knew nothing about and negotiate deals that were fair for everyone. Not many people form my background have been allowed to do things like this and I have gained from it.

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“I now run my own childminding business with an outstanding rating from Ofsted.

This would not have been possible without the skills I learnt through HTC. I am still Chair. We have a sense of community, we know each other. Although over the years we have become closer to Circle, lots of the tenants still come round to my house or find me in the area when I am doing the school run and ask me to help them sort out problems. If you sit back and do nothing then nothing gets done, so I keep doing it for them and for me.

It wasn’t planned I just listened to the lady in the bingo hall and it changed my life. It gave me a sense of belonging.“

Hattie Llewelyn-Davies has worked with people in housing need all her adult life. She is an independent consultant working in the social housing sector. She chairs a large Housing association and NHS Acute Trust.

“My children have also gained enormously. My youngest daughter has got a degree. They have seen me to do voluntary work all my life and they now give back too. They have gained skills and knowledge about a wide range of issues. They have seen me help other people. My younger daughter has a major volunteer role in our local community now. They have had a secure home for all of their lives. My granddaughter is 17 now, which is the same age as I was when I came to London, pregnant and scared. I am proud that our lives are so different and that is largely down to HTC. “What we have done is to create a real community here, we have extended families, like mine, who all still live in the area. It’s a really mixed community. When I walk down the road, I know the people and I can look for them for support.

A lot of my friends live in the stock.

“It all began with needing a home for me and my family; I got one and it changed everything. Being part of HTC brought me far more than a home, it gave me friends, experience, confidence, independence, skill and my business.

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homeless families to Milton Keynes, Northampton, Peterborough and Bedford.

JULES BIRCH

The housing safety net As I sat down to write this piece about the housing safety net, two news stories seemed to sum up how things stand.

The first was part of a series in the Financial Times in July on the impact of austerity. Danielle Prescott, a 25-year-old teaching assistant from east London with two children aged seven and four, became homeless when her relationship with her partner broke down. She was asked to leave her mother-in-law’s house where they had all been living and, after several months sleeping on friends’ and relatives’ sofas, her local council placed her in bed and breakfast accommodation in a room less than two metres wide where her two children slept head to toe. She was there for seven and a half weeks, beyond the six-week legal limit. Three weeks before the birth of her third child the council moved her after Shelter intervened.

The second was a story from Luton about Janet and Rhys Paddison, a disabled couple in their 20s with a four-yearold daughter who became homeless when their private landlord decided to sell their rented home. They looked for

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alternatives but could not find a landlord who would accommodate Janet’s assistance dog or her housing benefit supplements. For the last week they had been living in temporary accommodation found by their local authority: a single room in a Travelodge at Toddington Services on the M1. As neither of them could drive because of their disability, they felt stranded with no cooking or washing facilities. The assistance dog was in kennels and they were worried their daughter would be unable to take up her school place in September.

Homelessness is the obvious link between the two stories but the connection goes deeper than that. In the first, Newham Council blamed a shortage of temporary accommodation caused by central London boroughs such as Westminster placing hundreds of their own homeless families in temporary accommodation in the borough. In the second, Luton Council blamed competition for temporary accommodation from London local authorities for its failure to find somewhere more suitable. It has been forced to look at moving its own

The two stories are symptomatic of something that has gone badly wrong with the housing safety net. They may raise questions about the actions of the local authorities involved but something else is happening too and the effects are spreading beyond London. The legal duty of local authorities to homeless families may be the immediate focus but that is only one part of a safety net that also includes housing benefit and the availability (or otherwise) of social housing. More informally, that safety net relies on implementation by local authorities and social landlords and it operates in conditions determined by the state of the housing market as a whole.

The two stories are symptomatic of something that has gone badly wrong with the housing safety net.

These stories got me thinking back to my time working for Shelter’s magazine Roof at the time when Chris became Director. In the 1970s Chris had played a part in the campaign that led to the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977, which for the first time gave local authorities a legal duty to offer a permanent home to homeless families.

By the time he returned as Director in 1995 (when I first met him) that legislation was under threat from proposals by the Conservative government to water down councils’ duties by allowing them to discharge these using accommodation in the private rented sector. The campaign against the plan did not prevent the 1996 Housing Act but it was enough to make the issue a priority for the Labour government elected a year later. Through the Homelessness Act 2002 and its Code of Guidance and work with local

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authorities, the rights of homeless people were restored and councils were required to draw up homelessness strategies. A year later, in response to a surge in the number of families with children placed in bed and breakfast accommodation, the six-week legal limit was introduced.

By 2010, with the election of a Conservative-led coalition government committed to austerity in the wake of the financial crisis, the housing safety net was under threat on several different fronts.

Flash forward to 2015 and these stories indicate a safety net that is under severe strain. The Localism Act 2011 allowed local authorities to discharge their homelessness duty into the private rented sector but homeless acceptances continue to rise. The latest official statistics show increases in the number of families in temporary accommodation and in placements outside their home area. The number of families with children in bed and breakfasts for more than six weeks is at its highest level since 2003; this despite extra funding and strongly worded warnings from ministers to local authorities.

This is about more than just the homelessness legislation, important though that remains. As Cathy Come Home showed, there were holes in the safety net even in the heyday of the post-war welfare state. The 1977 Act may have fixed that for homeless families but problems for single people remained. Public spending cuts and the right to buy were just around the corner, ending the era of mass council housing and gradually increasing the proportion of a dwindling number of social tenancies going to homeless families. The 1979-1997 Conservative government cut investment in social housing and deregulated the private rented sector while introducing housing benefit to ‘take the strain’ of higher rents.

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For a time it did, though the Single Room Rate led to rent shortfalls for young people under-25 and disastrous cuts in benefits for 16 to18 year olds triggered an explosion of youth homelessness.

But the rest of housing policy – limited investment in social housing and the rise of private renting – meant that the housing benefit bill continued to climb, trebling in real terms under the Conservatives and doubling again under Labour between 1997 and 2010.

Both governments restricted capital investment in housing at the cost of transferring an increased housing benefit bill to future taxpayers. At the same time, new supply of homes of all kinds failed to match demand, making house prices and rents ever more unaffordable.

By 2010, with the election of a Conservative-led coalition government committed to austerity in the wake of the financial crisis, the housing safety net was under threat on several different fronts.

Rather than address the shortage of social housing, the government introduced a series of reforms to ration it more effectively (or fairly from its point of view).

The Localism Act allowed councils to introduce local restrictions on waiting lists at the same time as they could discharge their homelessness duty into the private rented sector. Social landlords were permitted to use fixed-term rather than secure tenancies and encouraged to charge higher ‘affordable’ rents at up to 80 per cent of market levels for new tenancies. As the authors of the Crisis Homelessness Monitor 2015 comment: “The localism agenda is undermining the national ‘housing settlement’ which has

hitherto played an important role in ameliorating the impact of income poverty on disadvantaged households.

All three key elements of that settlement – housing benefit, social housing and the statutory homelessness safety net – were coming under pressure.”

The rising housing benefit bill was presented as being ‘out of control’ rather than as the result of the recession and deliberate policy choices by government.

A series of cuts meant that rising numbers of tenants faced a shortfall between their housing benefit and their rent. Examples included bedroom caps and a freeze in local housing allowance rates in the private rented sector, the extension of the shared room (now shared accommodation) rate to the under-35s, an overall benefit cap of £26,000 (which amounted to a cap on housing benefit in expensive areas) and the under-occupation penalty or bedroom tax for social tenants. These rising shortfalls had to be met from other benefits that were also frozen, cut or (increasingly) sanctioned.

At the same time local discretionary funds replaced national entitlements in other areas. Council Tax Benefit was replaced by localised council tax support that was available in some areas but not others.

The Social Fund was localised. Funding for Supporting People remained with local authorities but the ringfence was removed in England and the inevitable result was severe cuts in programmes supporting vulnerable and homeless people in many areas. Discretionary housing payments became a key part of the welfare system, especially for families hit by the bedroom tax and benefit cap. Funding was increased but not by enough to help

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everyone and local discretion led to cases where disabled people were wrongly denied help because their disability benefits were counted as income.

That was the situation on the cusp of the 2015 general election. Policies announced since by the Conservative government promise to exacerbate things still further.

Meanwhile, the cuts in housing benefit were having an impact on landlords as well as tenants. The Homelessness Monitor 2015 found that: “The same welfare reform factors that are ‘pushing’ benefit-reliant households out of rental accommodation, especially in London, make it ever harder for local authorities to rehouse them, with not only private landlords but also some social landlords reportedly increasingly risk averse in accommodation homeless and potentially homeless households.” Research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) found some housing associations reasserting their traditional role of housing the poor while others were choosing to house a wider range of tenants and using affordability tests for affordable rent tenancies. This was creating tensions with those local authorities that saw little prospect of private landlord involvement and were dependent on housing associations to house the poorest so they could fulfill their statutory duties.

The manifesto pledge to extend the right to buy to housing association tenants could threaten the supply of social housing. The government plans to finance discounts by forcing local authorities to sell off the most valuable third of their stock as it becomes vacant, while claiming that homes sold will be replaced on a one-for-one basis. Critics argue that replacement has not been achieved under the existing right to buy and that forced sales will strip social housing from the most expensive parts of the country, and especially London.

This combination of reductions in national entitlements, rent shortfalls and inadequate local discretionary help stretched the housing safety net to the limit and created holes through which people would inevitable fall. Many of the housing benefit changes were only introduced in April 2013 and the full effects were mitigated by discretionary housing payments, raising fears about what will happen once they are scaled back.

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Alongside deep cuts in tax credits and Universal Credit, measures in the Summer Budget mean that the majority of housing benefit claimants will soon face a shortfall against their rent. These include a reduction in the benefit cap from £26,000 to £23,000 in London and £20,000 outside the capital. The existing cap mainly affects larger families and households in the private rented sector in London. However, the lower cap could affect families with more than two children throughout the country in social as well as private tenancies unless they can find enough paid work to be exempt.

Meanwhile, working age benefits including the local housing allowance will be frozen until 2020. That will mean an inevitable increase in rent shortfalls and in reluctance by private landlords to house tenants on benefit. And, as part of the youth obligation to earn or learn, under-21s will no longer have automatic entitlement

to housing benefit. The detail has yet to be announced but this could threaten a repeat of the surge in youth homelessness seen in the late 1980s and early 1990s among young people who have no parental home or cannot return to it.

In addition, the budget for discretionary housing payments was set at £800 million (£160 million a year) until 2020. However, this was less than the £165 million budget for 2014/15 and the extra cuts mean more tenants will be seeking help.

Set against these changes, some financial pressure on social tenants will ease as rents fall by 1 per cent a year rather than the previous formula of inflation plus 1 per cent. However, that could have an impact on future supply as falling rental income hits social landlords’ ability to borrow to build new homes (the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that 14,000 fewer affordable homes will be built over the next five years as a result).

Meanwhile the Treasury has signalled that it will ‘refocus’ the affordable housing programme to support home ownership rather than affordable renting.

The combined effect of all these measures will be to increase the gaps in the housing safety net still further and they could also be widened by the response from landlords. One large housing association has already broken ranks with the rest of the sector by saying that it will only develop homes for sale, shared ownership and market rental in future rather than affordable rental. It will also review the tenure of existing homes as they fall vacant.

One final factor to consider is the likely impact of rising interest rates on mortgage arrears and repossessions. Rates have been at a record low since 2009 and even relatively modest increases could put many low-income households at risk of mortgage arrears and repossession.

The repossessions crisis of 1989-92 was a reminder that it was not just tenants that needed a housing safety net.

All in all, the safety net looks under more pressure than ever before. Stories like those I highlighted at the beginning of this essay could become the rule rather than the exception. I’ll leave the last word on the safety net to Danielle Prescott, the young mother who was stuck in bed and breakfast beyond the legal limit.

Here’s her description: “I feel like I’m on a sieve that’s got giant holes and I’m falling through it with nothing to cling on to.”

Jules Birch is a freelance writer specialising in housing and soclal policy. He worked for Roof magazine until 2010 and now edits Welsh Housing Quarterly and blogs for Inside Housing and at www.julesbirch.com .

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triumphant Conservative government determined to reduce spending and roll back the state, a Labour opposition weakened by defeat and disunity and, of course, an inexorable rise in the numbers of people sleeping rough on the streets.

JEREMY SWAIN

Passion and outrage are essential but not enough The speaker is in full flow and has the audience at the homelessness conference in his grip. He is a powerful speaker and his controlled anger is palpable as he jabs the air with his forefinger. It is a familiar litany of observations about how the poor are under attack and the homeless are in the firing line, their lives blighted by a series of brutal government policies and incomprehensible funding decisions taken by local authorities. Welfare benefit cuts are castigated, unimaginative local commissioning of homelessness services ridiculed and the inadequacy of the housing safety net laid bare. The congregation of homelessness sector representatives have heard this type of denunciation before. It is well articulated and impassioned, ending with a call to action to resist at all costs the stripping back of services to the homeless and vulnerable. We cannot forever go on papering over the cracks he concludes and, in truth, who could disagree with the substance of his speech? The applause is loud and sustained.

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Yet as I file out of the auditorium with my uplifted colleagues my mood is pensively downbeat. It is an unexpected feeling, which I explore on the train journey home.

What is certain is that there is no shortage of passion within the homelessness sector. The recent Conservative election victory has not blunted the outrage provoked by what many colleagues regard as a calculated onslaught on society’s poorest who are expected to bear a disproportionate share of the burden of austerity. There is a fervent commitment to protect services and defend the homeless.

The rhetoric is of the broadly oppositional, unspecific and authentic. Phrases that littered the conference included “we must stand shoulder to shoulder”, “draw a line in the sand to prevent the commissioning of services on the cheap” and “fight tooth and nail against any more benefit cuts”.

I’m old. The language of determined opposition takes me back to the 1980s and 1990s. There are perturbing similarities with our own times; a

As a young outreach worker in my 20s walking the streets of central London, the relentless growth in the rough sleeping population was monstrously debilitating.

For each person for whom we were able to find a hostel bed, a far greater number came on to the street for the first time.

Benefit restrictions imposed on young people had a direct and rapid impact on the numbers under the age of 25 sleeping rough, which, when it struck, was a new and disheartening phenomenon.

The sense of passionate rightness was being blended with a grim determination to reduce rough sleeping not just around the edges but comprehensively.

And then there was Lincolns Inn Fields, a park in central London inhabited by a vast population of rough sleepers, incongruously encircled by barristers’ chambers. Every night we visited this cardboard city of the homeless, trying to find a way out for the inhabitants, some of whom had lived there for months, even years. Living in Lincolns Inn Fields was a dangerous and unpleasant experience.

Assaults on rough sleepers by members of the public were a regular occurrence, as were fights between those sleeping out. The common view was that the rat population probably exceeded the number of humans living there.

Apart from my sense of despair, I was aware too of another competing feeling.

It was one of moral superiority and rightness in the face of the deteriorating situation for the homeless in London. We were the foot soldiers, out at night doing what we could to pick up the pieces in

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response to government wickedness and incompetence. A peculiar sustenance could be acquired from glory in defeat.

Oddly we, like the other services working with the homeless, operated largely in an organisational bubble. Occasionally we would meet another outreach team on the streets and there would be a courteous exchange, a nod to indicate camaraderie, and then we would walk on and away.

Visible rough sleeping creates a potent picture. Images of bodies huddled on the street leave an indelible impression suggesting that all is not well in a country and with society. Eventually the imperative for a Conservative government to seek help to quell the increase in rough sleeping, hounded for its failures by a homelessness sector that, in time, sought to collectively and pragmatically campaign to address the remorseless rise in numbers, led to change. The result was a progressive and effective programme, the Rough Sleepers Initiative, which funded outreach work and the building of some 3,800 units of accommodation, mostly self-contained, for rough sleepers. Numbers sleeping rough peaked and then gradually fell.

Homelessness organisations were embracing pragmatism in other ways.

The sense of passionate rightness was being blended with a grim determination to reduce rough sleeping not just around the edges but comprehensively. The unremitting cull of people sleeping rough, with many found dead in circumstances that we studiously avoided passing on to families and friends when attending their funerals, imbued us with cold-eyed resolution.

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Above all we wanted to dismantle the cardboard cities, the squalid encampments where rough sleepers lived in appalling conditions. At Lincolns Inn Fields a dilemma arose for the outreach teams. The council had decided to call time on the park as a place for rough sleepers to congregate. It proposed the introduction of a by-law to ban rough sleeping and there was a deal to be struck. The council was prepared to offer permanent accommodation for each person sleeping in the park to enable them to escape rough sleeping for good, in return for support from the outreach teams to rehouse Lincoln Inn’s Fields inhabitants.

There was an additional element to the offer that we couldn’t ignore. The initiator of this approach was the Director of Housing at Camden, Chris Holmes. Chris had formerly been the Director of CHAR, the campaigning organisation for the homeless. This made it difficult to view our engagement as a case of ‘supping with the devil’. As one of my colleagues delicately articulated it at the time, “he’s not one to shaft the homeless”. There was some opposition to the forced closure and an article was published about how the homeless ‘community’ at Lincoln’s Inn Fields was going to be transplanted elsewhere against their will. This had the unintended impact of hardening our support for the proposed by-law. We had spent too many nights at Lincolns’ Inn Fields witnessing the mayhem and hearing stories of assaults and robbery. What we saw was not a mutually supportive community but a disparate and wretched group of people forced together through circumstance, in need of a better life.

Over the next three months individual needs were assessed and offers of accommodation made. I accompanied numerous rough sleepers to view bedsits and flats. Their astonishment at the chance to have a place of their own will forever remain with me. In time, other ‘cardboard cities’ were tackled at the South Bank, Waterloo (the notorious Bullring) and elsewhere with the same broad offer of accommodation or, where required, access to support for an alcohol, drug or mental health problem. Each closure included an element of compulsion in that there was not, ultimately, an option to remain sleeping rough at the site. By the end of the century, the cardboard city was no longer part of the London landscape.

In 2015 rough sleeping is a very different phenomenon. Today outreach workers spend more time seeking out rough sleepers in isolated areas including parks, derelict buildings, riverbank and multi-storey car parks. A ‘hotspot’, the term used for a congregation of rough sleepers, can comprise three individuals.

Despite the continuous increase in rough sleeping numbers over the last ten years, cardboard cities with the permanence of yesteryear have not returned. But there are new challenges. Remarkably, the latest annual figures for London show that of the 7,581 rough sleepers met over the year by outreach workers operating in the capital, 57 per cent are non-UK nationals including 36 per cent from Central and Eastern Europe; men and women who have come to London as economic migrants seeking work. With limited rights to claim welfare benefits that would enable them to access accommodation, the options available

to non-UK nationals are restricted and the levels of destitution amongst rough sleepers now being witnessed are as extreme as those seen in the 1980s.

In the face of the steady rise in rough sleeping numbers we remain resolute but disconcertedly hidebound. Again, echoes of the challenges of 30 years ago resonate. There appears to be no difficulty in people expressing outrage about the situation of rough sleepers.

Twenty-first century communication in the form of Twitter and Facebook can lead to the dramatic multiplication of indignation as witnessed during 2015 in response to some businesses and landlords placing ‘spikes’ outside their buildings to dissuade rough sleepers bedding down. Some outreach workers on the frontline expressed disappointment that distress about spikes did not transfer to a similar collective concern and call for action on behalf of actual people sleeping in shop doorways.

But the numbers sleeping rough continue to rise and my gloom stems from a belief that there will be no respite whilst solutions are piecemeal, responses lack focus and, above all, if we lack ambition driven by an icy determination to end rough sleeping, once and for all. We seem incapable of making the substantial step that was achieved in previous years which brought to an end the cardboard cities.

Let me return to Chris Holmes, Director of Housing at Camden and later Chief Executive of Shelter. I was privileged to have known Chris in his days at CHAR, Camden Council and Shelter.

Indisputably Chris was passionate about ending homelessness and his working

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We will need solutions that are currently far from obvious and will certainly be contentious, imperfect and unpopular.

life exemplifies a furious commitment to achieving this goal. Most importantly, so do his accomplishments, the ending of the use of bed and breakfast accommodation for homeless families whilst at Camden and the extension of a statutory right to housing for more people through the Homelessness Act during his spell at Shelter.

But the special alchemy that defined Chris was based on a pragmatic approach to securing outcomes as well as the need for the fervent call to arms. Here was a man who sought to understand the different motivations of apparently competing interests in order to close a deal. In the case of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, he recognised that it was unreasonable for a public space to be blighted by a sprawling cardboard city of the homeless, and that the third world conditions experienced by those living there were also unacceptable. He believed its inhabitants deserved the chance of something better. To achieve this Chris was prepared to face unpopularity, including from within his own ‘tribal’ group; the left of centre activists who comprise the great bulk of people working in the field of homelessness and housing.

Are we brave and imaginative enough to collectively find a solution to a similar 21st century rough sleeping phenomenon?

In parks in central and outer London mass rough sleeping could conceivably emerge again. Today we are witnessing significant numbers of central and eastern Europeans sleeping rough in tents and encampments, taking this step so they can undertake below minimum wage work, primarily car wash, building site and gardening jobs. Chillingly, in the

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last two months we have lost two rough sleepers on our streets, both Polish, men who suffered ignominious deaths many miles away from their families.

We have to do better than this.

Expressing outrage is easy and directing it at the full range of potential wrongdoers – government, rogue employers, landowners and local authorities – can be especially cathartic, if ultimately futile.

We must seek a new approach, which means working with a range of partners including local authorities, the police, landowners, the immigration authorities, local businesses and employers. We have to understand the motivations and aspirations of those who have come to this country to secure work and a better life and address the reasonable concerns of local communities who experience public spaces becoming, for them, out of bounds.

It will require compromise, imagination, negotiation, persistence, planned coordination and hard-nosed delivery. We will need solutions that are currently far from obvious and will certainly be contentious, imperfect and unpopular. We must be driven by an uncompromising belief that homelessness, especially in the most extreme forms that we are now witnessing, is an obscenity.

Jeremy Swain has worked in homelessness since 1980 and is now Chief Executive of Thames Reach, which provides a range of services to over 7,000 people every year. Jeremy is deputy chair of the London Housing Foundation, a member of the London Mayor’s Rough Sleeping Group and a board member of Homeless Link, the national body for homelessness organisations working directly with homeless people in England.

The story of our achievements over the last 30 years and the examples of the exceptional people that delivered remarkable outcomes for the homeless is that passion and outrage are, by themselves, not enough.

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Act 2002 put new duties on local authorities to prevent homelessness before it happened and, if unavoidable, rehouse people in a settled home.

DEBORAH GARVIE

Living in temporary accommodation “You have 12sqm and have to spend all your time in this space. It was horrible, especially at weekends. We didn’t want to open the door because the house was full of strangers. We didn’t want to go out because we were stuck in a town we didn’t know at all.

There was just nowhere to go.”1 These are the words of Alex, a working, single mother of a four year old daughter.

Like every one of us who is a parent, she has hopes and dreams for her child’s future. Her words could have been spoken in the 1960s, when Chris Holmes first became involved in combating the slum landlords of Notting Hill; the mid1970s, when he first worked for Shelter; or the early 1990s when he was Director of Housing at Camden. But Alex was speaking only two years ago, in 2013.

People who have been homeless as children never forget the experience2.

It is a shadow that follows them throughout life, a reminder that nothing

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can be taken for granted, not even an ultimate place of privacy and stability.

Tragically, homelessness still exists in many neighbourhoods. Shortly after the 1977 Homeless Persons Act came into force, there were just under 5,000 households living in temporary accommodation. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the number grew rapidly, peaking at 63,000, before falling to 44,000 in 1996. But there was a further dramatic rise and by 2004, there were over 101,000 homeless households living in temporary accommodation.

In the early 2000s, there was a greater government focus on tackling homelessness and temporary accommodation; this was in response to campaigns by Shelter (where Chris was then Director) and others. In 2001, the government announced a target for all local authorities to end the use of bed and breakfasts for homeless families

by April 2004. The Homelessness

From 2004, the number of households in temporary accommodation began to drop until, in September 2011, 18 months after the Coalition Government came to power, it was back down to just over 48,000 people. Over half of this housing (54 per cent) was leased from private landlords to councils or housing associations.

However, over the past four years, the numbers have risen again. At the end of June this year, they had swollen to 64,610 households. Three quarters are people with children desperately in need of a family home. Only a third (37 per cent) of accommodation is now leased from private landlords.

Sometimes the homes are former council housing, now leased back at a much higher cost than the original council rent. Chris described the problem with temporary accommodation in 2005.

People who have been homeless as children never forget the experience.

“The problem is that it is costly and it is temporary. For homeless families, the worst aspect of temporary accommodation is the lack of stability.

Quite often families have to leave one property because the lease has expired, and move to another temporary home. Children often have to move schools several times, with inevitable disruption to their education”.

Currently, over 93,000 children are in this situation, waiting for a settled home. We should be outraged by this fact. So, why aren’t the stories of these homeless children filling our news and

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our consciousness and why aren’t we holding our politicians to account for this dreadful scourge that continues to haunt our home-obsessed society?

The ending of a shortterm tenancy is now the biggest single cause of homelessness according to official statistics.

One reason may be that homelessness is still misunderstood. For many people, it means sleeping in a cardboard box on the street, possibly in an emergency shelter or hostel, or – at a push – on a friend’s sofa. But they don’t see homeless children bedding down on the streets, as they might do in Manilla or Sau Paulo, so the problem does not register. Thanks to the homelessness legislation, the law can be used to argue that families should be housed, either by the local housing department or as part of social services support. But, as Chris argued, temporary housing is not a home.

Although most temporary accommodation used for families consists of self-contained flats and houses, in some cases, it can mean one room in a council hostel or – as in Alex’s case – a private bed and breakfast hotel, the most unsatisfactory form of temporary accommodation3. At the end of June, 8 per cent, or over 5,000, of homeless households were living in B&Bs, the highest level since the end of 2005.

Just under half are families with children.

As Alex’s words testify, one room in a hostel or bed and breakfast shared with a steady stream of strangers cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be regarded as a home. Cooking and bathing facilities are often shared with a number of other households, making privacy and family routine difficult. Sometimes, this means children not being able to access the toilet when they need it. In some places there are no cooking facilities so families – living

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on low incomes – must rely on cafes or takeaways if they are to eat a hot meal.

The gamut of family life must take place in the one room: eating (usually off the bed or floor); sleeping (often at least two to a bed); homework; play; and arguments. Bedtimes are a nightmare and, once younger children are asleep, there is nothing for older siblings and parents to do but sit in the dark.

Sharing accommodation with other households going through a similar crisis means that children often witness arguments, emotional breakdown, violence and other traumatic events.

Worries about who might be let into the building or – worse still – might be able to get into the room, keep both adults and children awake at night. Health, development and education suffer4.

There is no excuse that can be made for families to live in such dreadful circumstances. No one would want their child or grandchild to set off to school in the morning from such a place.

Obviously, local authorities don’t want to accommodate people in such conditions.

So, what is the alternative? The overall answer has to be the accessibility of permanent, genuinely affordable and decent homes. Sadly, homeless families have been stuck in temporary accommodation throughout the past 40 years because of systemic failings in our national housing system. The supply of rented public housing has steadily reduced since the 1980s. Governments generally have not seen this as a major problem because surveys continually show that most people want to buy their

own home. But, although we may aspire to home-ownership, more and more of us have to resort to private rentals as our only realistic housing option.

But market rents for a family home are often as costly as a mortgage, unaffordable to those already priced out of buying. The answer to this was personal subsidy: housing benefit was expected to take the strain5. Now, a desire to reduce the escalating benefit bill has resulted in restrictions to the Local Housing Allowance available to struggling private renters. It was argued this would bring down rents as well as reducing public spending. But rents have not come down, restricting the pool of affordable properties. Caps on financial support compound these problems for many on low incomes, especially in areas where housing costs are high.

Instead, restrictions to housing benefit have made the majority of private landlords reluctant to let to claimants because, along with possible delays in receiving Housing Allowance payments, there is a risk that they may be unable to cover the rent, however good at budgeting they may be. When higher earners are competing to secure a private rental, where is the incentive for landlords to let to homeless people?

With housing options increasingly left to the market, some areas have become unaffordable to ordinary families. Homeless people, who rely on state support to pay their rent, are being accommodated in temporary accommodation out of their home areas on a scale never seen before. During the last parliament, the number of households

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accommodated in another area increased by almost three times: from 5,430 in 2010 to 16,810 in 2015. Over a quarter of all homeless households are now accommodated outside of the area they were previously living. Not only are they suffering the worry and degradation of losing a home, they must now lose much more, including a familiar neighbourhood and supportive community.

For those who end up in temporary accommodation, in one-room living and out-of-area moves, there is still no certainty of a permanent home: somewhere that will be the centre of family life as the years pass and you grow old, surrounded by longstanding neighbours and friends. 2011 legislation means that councils can now discharge their duty by offering families in temporary accommodation a 12 month private rental, rather than a permanent, affordable social letting.

For those with an on-going need for a stable family home, and little prospect of home ownership, this feels like a sticking plaster rather than a long-term cure.

From the 1980s onwards, private landlords have been allowed to give tenants short-term contracts. For those who are not part of the ‘nation of homeowners’ but must rent their homes privately, the only available accommodation is essentially temporary. The typical private rental is for a fixed term of six to 12 months. After that, they may be lucky and, on payment of a ‘renewal fee’, be given another six to 12 month term, perhaps accompanied by a rent hike.

Or they may have a ‘periodic tenancy’, constantly worrying whether they will be served with two months’ notice to

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leave. Housing insecurity is far from ideal when you are trying to raise a family.

The ending of a short-term tenancy is now the biggest single cause of homelessness according to official statistics. Up-front costs and tenancy checks, combined with unaffordable rents and a reluctance to let to claimants, can impede people who are financially and socially excluded from finding another home. Short-term contracts present an on-going risk of repeat homelessness.

So how do we fix the temporary accommodation crisis? In the short-term, the imperative must be to put to an end to homeless families living in costly bed and breakfast accommodation. If private landlords are now becoming reluctant to lease self-contained housing to councils to use as temporary accommodation, then we must overcome the reasons for this. If, in some areas, it is because they can command higher rents by letting to wealthier households, then we need to make sure that councils can financially compete, by excluding temporary accommodation from housing benefit caps and restrictions.

In some areas, it may be more efficient for councils to build or buy their own temporary accommodation, as they are in the London boroughs of Southwark and Enfield, amongst others. This is certainly worthy of further exploration on a national level. In fact, this was a solution proposed by Chris6: “What the government should do is launch an Emergency Homelessness Programme for buying properties on the open market, doing any necessary

repairs or conversions, and letting them to homeless families living in temporary accommodation.”

Where a council is devoting a great deal of resource taking action against law-breaking landlords, improved mechanisms to take over management of existing housing, or buy it outright, could address both enforcement of standards and the need for temporary accommodation. In areas with high levels of homelessness, it may make far more financial sense in the long term.

But, while this would provide more suitable, self-contained accommodation, it would still be temporary and so the biggest problem – lack of stability – would remain. People need more than housing. They need real homes. It is only when we understand this distinction that we can begin to understand and solve homelessness. The Oxford Dictionary defines a home as “the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household”.

In 2005 Chris wrote: “The use of temporary accommodation has become accepted as normal, even inevitable. Yet it is not necessary, and deeply damaging. When people become homeless what they need is to move to a stable home as soon as possible. Moving home is a stressful process for everyone, even those who move home by choice. Requiring people who have lost their homes to ensure repeated moves is inhumane”.

preferably without the need to claim benefits, and where they can thrive and grow, surrounded by extended family, long-standing neighbours and friends, people will continue to be stalked by the long shadow of homelessness. It is a future Chris invested most of his life in trying to avert.

Deborah Garvie has worked in homelessness and housing policy for over 20 years. She is currently Senior Policy Officer at Shelter, where she leads on the homelessness and other changes introduced by the Localism Act 2011. Previously, she worked with housing association tenants in Camden, Hackney and Islington and is a post-graduate of housing studies at Westminster University.

1. Shelter (2013) Nowhere to Go: the scandal of homeless children in B&Bs 2. Shelter (2004) Listen Up: The Voices of Homeless Children 3. Holmes, C. (2005) A New Vision for Housing.

Routledge 4. Mitchell, F., Neuburger, J., Radebe, D. And Raine, A. (2004) Living in Limbo. Shelter 5. Sir George Young MP, Housing Minister, House of Commons debate, 20 October 1993 6. Holmes, C. (2005) A New Vision for Housing.

Routledge

Until we are willing to invest in permanent homes that families can genuinely afford,

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NICOLA BACON

Making London feel like it’s home for Londoners It is a fact of our times that London’s housing is in crisis. This is evidenced by soaring rents, the difficulties of getting a private sector tenancy and homelessness reappearing on our streets in a way that hasn’t been seen for over a decade. We see it too in the regular newspaper reports of people on low incomes being pushed out of the city, anger at gentrification and the demolition of council estates, and in the mismatch between the sheer volume of building that is going on in all corners of the city and the dwindling housing choices for majority of people who simply cannot afford one of the new homes.

In 2000 Chris Holmes chaired the Housing Commission for London set up by the then Mayor, Ken Livingstone, to advise on the need for new affordable housing in the capital and develop planning policies to create more low cost homes. The commission’s report warned: “The unequal distribution of the benefits of the capital’s booming economy may mean that London is sewing the seeds of its own social and

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economic decline”1. Fifteen years later, coming up to the London Mayoral election in 2016, housing is still a political priority for the city. As both a housing campaigner and a former London borough Director of Housing, Chris would have viewed the current situation with deep concern.

The problem with housing in London today is alarming, particularly so if you are at the sharp end, if you are scared and angry about your home being demolished, if you are struggling with your mortgage payment or rent, if your grown up children can’t leave home, if you increasingly feel that London is not for you, or for people like you. It is also a top priority for councils housing thousands of homeless people in temporary accommodation, knowing that 9,225 council homes have been sold since 2012, and only 689 replaced.

Politicians and policy makers are planning and strategising pre-election about what can be done to increase the supply of low cost secure homes, to reduce the

numbers of people who are homeless, to make the private sector more accessible.

They are preoccupied with how to find more money within the system, how to work with the private sector to keep them building at scale. But they also need to pay attention to how Londoners are feeling about their city, what their priorities are and how they want to be involved in resolving the housing crisis.

Living in London can feel as if the private sector, international capitalism, and the pursuit of profit have taken over the future direction of our city. London has made itself available to the global super rich.

Nearly a tenth of all homes in Westminster are owned by companies registered in offshore tax havens2. New homes in high cost areas – by the river, or in the city centre – are visibly targeted at the very affluent, buyers who will live in London for part of the year, who rarely encounter the ordinary world that most Londoners live in, moving from place to place in private cars, cocooned in a bubble. ‘Wardian London’, a new development in Docklands is being advertised with images of the top half of two towers, glowing in the setting sun, with seemingly no connection to ground level. It could literally be anywhere; the connection to place is irrelevant in the marketing strategy.

Living in London can feel as if the private sector, international capitalism, and the pursuit of profit have taken over the future direction of our city. London has made itself available to the global super rich.

What many of us value about London is the mix of people from different countries, religions, ages and social class. In places like Pimlico and Upper Street multi million pound homes sit next to sizeable social housing estates, some of the richest and poorest living side by side. London has in the past, and continues to, absorb waves of difference, people coming from all over the world, in very different economic

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London’s lower income neighbourhoods may be under threat, but many are thriving.

circumstances, to find a home and a future in the city. Londoners consistently emerge in polls as more tolerant and accepting than people living in other UK cities. London has adapted fluidly and skilfully to change, creating opportunities for people arriving from all over the world. London’s state schools are now out performing the rest of the country.

But the sheer pace of change, the way that London is reinventing itself at breakneck speed, is generating a fundamental uneasiness about who is welcome in the city. The proliferation of high rise and high density apartment blocks emerging all over the city are not only for the very wealthy, many are intended for more modest buyers, who still need to pay a substantial price, or rent, for a new home.

The small number of ‘affordable’ homes in new developments are not enough and too few are the stable, affordable social housing that is so badly needed.

There has been a profound demographic shift within London over the last two decades. Wealthier people now choose to stay in the inner city, turning places like Dalston and Peckham into hipster magnets and, as a result, many people on lower incomes have moved further out to the suburbs. A comparison of census data from 2001 to 2011 reveals that the far suburbs are getting poorer, whilst the inner city is significantly more wealthy.

This is a reversal of past trends. There is also a shift in use. Every evening Brixton is swamped by waves of young(ish) mainly white visitors come to eat or to party; a very different demographic from those in Brixton during the day.

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The wave of grass roots protests about gentrification and ‘social cleansing’ that has swept London over the last two years is an angry response to the type of change we are seeing, and what it means for particular communities. There is a sense of disconnect between this rage and the actions of the individuals and agencies that shape the city. The charge of social cleansing that is often made implies that explicit decisions are being taken to drive poor people out of London.

Politicians and agencies seem bewildered by this, unclear why their effort to improve the built environment and create new homes are so badly received. It can seem as if the organisations that are in control of shaping the city are dancing to a different tune to protestors and activists.

Are decision makers and Londoners seeing different things in the same city?

London’s lower income neighbourhoods may be under threat, but many are thriving. There is an energy in many areas of the city, where high streets and local traders catering for very diverse and lower income populations are doing well.

The Walworth Road, which I go down on most days, is home to a mix of shops from poundshops, to independent chemists, a tailor, a long established herbalist. There are few known brands, or household names, amongst the retailers. Their market is the mixture of people living in this neighbourhood, West Africans, Eastern Europeans, Somalis and Iraqis, the long established white working class and a growing number of more affluent people. The everyday diversity and tolerance of areas like this is striking.

Housing campaigners are sometimes accused of nostalgia, of pining for a

London that no longer exists, but maybe they are responding to this London. It is true that the city is massively changed, but working class life is not dead, it has been reinvented in London’s diversity.

In the last two years I have been involved in work on several London council estates and the same story is told by people living in all of them: that their estate is calmer, safer, easier to live in than in the past. London’s estates are socially mixed, with owned and rented homes side by side in blocks and streets (the problem often raised is that of some buy to let landlords, the rents they charge and high tenancy turnover).

But these positive narratives are not always reaching decision makers whose attitudes to council estates sometimes seem to be blind to their strengths, instead seeing stereotypes of poverty, ugliness and poor use of space; blights that must be remedied through redesign.

Some of the most contested housing issues focus on estate demolition. On one side is the argument that demolition allows an increase in the number of homes on the footprint of an estate. On the other, residents advocate fiercely in favour of retaining their homes, and their local communities. Those who defend density are right to say that it can be done well, but some of the high density developments currently being built look monotonous and (to be honest) dull. The low density estates under threat of demolition are often popular with residents: many estates in Lambeth built under borough architect Ted Hollamby in the 1960s and 1970s

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were carefully designed as urban villages, fitting carefully into their surroundings.

Councils face a difficult task balancing the need to build more homes across tenures, to provide homes and support for vulnerable people, as they are required to do by law, and to respond to what existing residents want and need.

However, when the loudest debates about new homes in London become angry exchanges between residents and councils, and disagreements between advocates of the merits of different architectural styles (mass housing of the 1960s and 1970s versus the ‘new London vernacular’) there is something amiss.

Councils need to find a better ways of working with their residents on new housing, and understand why people can be so opposed to demolition, and building new housing. They have to recognise the value of stable communities and neighbourliness; these are always important, but especially so at a time when services are becoming more and more overstretched.

Councils, housing associations and developers need to be willing to work with residents who are looking at alternatives that promote different models of development; like the group of residents who are putting together alternative plans for Mount Pleasant, which will include 10 per cent more affordable housing than other plans for the site. Understanding and empathy are important to getting under the surface of why Londoners are so concerned about change and about keeping what already exists. They will be needed to appreciate why London’s council estates

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are of intrinsic value and are not just sites of social exclusion; to finding a middle way between the wish to retain what exists and the need to build more homes.

Working with communities will mean compromises being made on both sides, but it should also lead to better plans and designs that respect local people’s circumstances and their wishes. This is an easy thing to say, but difficult to do, and the GLA could have a role in supporting constructive dialogues, and brokering discussions and independent advice.

effectiveness of their voluntary regime). Ed Lee, Mayor of San Francisco, has outlined plans to build or rehabilitate 10,000 homes for low income and working class families in the next five years. Chicago’s Affordable Requirements Ordinance is part of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s ‘Bouncing Back’ policy aimed at increasing affordable housing, and is being opposed by housing builders. For all cities, crafting policies that achieve the right impact but maintain the support of the key stakeholders is a difficult balancing act.

Nicola Bacon is a Founding Director of Social Life. All her work is about the relationship between people and the places they live. Nicola was Director of Local Projects at the Young Foundation for seven years, before that she worked at the Home Office, and ran Safe in the City, an award winning homeless charity. Nicola was Director of Policy at Shelter from 1997 to 2001.

The GLA can also do more to equip local government and housing associations with models, approaches, expertise and skills to help them find ways of making London home for Londoners. Some of these will be modest, with potential to make an impact at scale, like the Y Cube factory made move on units designed by Rogers Stirk and Partners for the YMCA. Other solutions demand a higher level of intervention: the reason London is socially mixed now is because past governments, central and local, have taken practical actions to make sure that low cost homes are built in high cost areas.

In the UK, significant parts of housing policy are government controlled, but London has a Mayor with substantial housing powers. In 2000, Chris’ commission for Mayor Ken Livingstone concluded that at least 50 per cent of housing on new developments should be affordable (35 per cent of this should be social, the rest targeted at people on ‘moderate incomes); that mixed tenure policy should include building more social housing in more affluent areas with less social mix; that there should be a presumption that no social housing should be lost on regeneration schemes or new development. The policy prescriptions of 15 years ago seem to still be relevant today.

2. http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/04/ uk-properties-held-by-offshore-firms-used-in-globalcorruption-say-police

We need to look at other global mega cities for inspiration: at Berlin’s policy on the private sector rent cap; at the Mayor of Paris’ commitment to build housing for low income residents in the most expensive arrondissements; at the model of renting used in Copenhagen which gives tenants a stronger voice when things go amiss: at the introduction of ‘mandatory inclusionary zoning’ – compelling developers to build a certain proportion of affordable homes – being bought in several US cities (in New York this is because of disappointment at the

1. GLA (2001) Homes for a world city

Housing will be a key issue in next year’s election, how to tackle high rents, homelessness, boosting supply, and finding ways to enable people on low incomes to stay in inner London will be hotly debated. The priority needs to be making London feel like a future home for all Londoners. Otherwise we will loose what makes the city great and good.

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ANNE POWER

Estates matter During the post-war heyday in council house building, government funds from Conservative and Labour administrations generously gave a virtually blank cheque to councils to build as fast as they could.

Around five million council houses were built in 30 years, offering housing to people who had been living in poor, even slum, conditions. Many mistakes were made and some of the new council estates were too big, too poorly managed and maintained, and too poorly located and connected to function well as rented housing. Communities were disrupted through large scale demolition, and by the impact of subsequent rehousing policies and discriminatory lettings policies. However the vast majority of the 10,000 or more estates built in the post-war era were solid and popular and became successful communities.

The problems arose in the third of the new estates that were built in modern concrete blocks of unforgiving design.

Virtually no provision was made for their careful management and repair. Many elements of housing management that were well understood before the war were

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either ignored, forgotten or abolished: resident or onsite caretaking; careful allocation of dwellings to ensure maximum compatibility of residents, community links and minimum disturbance; regular cleaning and environmental maintenance; and good tenant liaison. It did not take long for many of the large concrete estates to become rundown and unpopular.

By the late 1960s, long before the council building boom stopped, the government became alarmed by a new phenomenon, difficult-to-let estates. In other words brand new council homes that people did not want to move to, even when they were living in designated slums. As supply overshot demand (partly because of restrictive allocations policies), even new estates like Broadwater Farm in London’s Haringey became unpopular.

On the New Elthorne Estate in Islington in the late 1970s, 19 out of 20 offers of housing were refused. Outside the capital, some new estates in Liverpool and Glasgow were never fully occupied before they were demolished. The problem proved vastly bigger than the government could have imagined.

The government’s own difficult-to-let investigation of 1976 was finally published in 1981 after five years of argument over its alarming contents. An earlier report was never published. The final report revealed deep-rooted problems in about one third of the council stock, covering all main types of council housing.

‘Modern concrete complex’ estates were most conspicuous in the findings, as a category they were most unpopular and hardest to manage, and were heavily concentrated in cities. Balcony block estates, built mainly between the 1930s and 1950s were often rundown but were easier to manage and repair. They were often intrinsically attractive but became unpopular because of poor maintenance, un-modernised amenities and high turnover. Cottage estates of houses and gardens, mostly built in the inter-war years on the edge of villages, towns and cities, with careful layout and modest but good conditions, were by now often very rundown, neglected and out of date.

In the 1970s it became clear that there was a surplus of council housing in most parts of the country, including in London.

The Labour-controlled Greater London Council offered ready-to-let properties on hundreds of estates between 1976 and the early 1980s to first-comers, who queued at County Hall and signed up for unwanted flats – usually on balcony block estates – with few questions asked. In 1974 the Director of Housing for Islington asked where were the needy families, as he struggled to fill his less popular estates across the borough, including Hornsey Lane Estate, York Way, Bentham Court, Addington Mansions and many others.

All this is hard to believe, and is the largely forgotten history of council estates.

These estates became the stomping ground of Chris Holmes, as he helped set up the North Islington Housing Rights Project in 1972, and the Holloway Tenant Cooperative shortly after. The core idea behind his work was to fight for improvements street by street in North Islington. The aim was to keep private and insecure tenants in their homes, to protect their right to stay and to become tenants of a cooperative landlord, a local housing association or the council, while giving them vastly more control, boosting their sense of belonging to the local community and paying more attention to repair and maintenance.

Many of Islington’s previously unpopular estates became caught up in this process.

On the Elthorne Estate, eight cooperatives were formed. A tenant management cooperative was set up on Hornsey Lane Estate. Addington Mansions in Highbury was saved from demolition, upgraded and turned into a beautiful, well maintained balcony block estate, worth a visit today.

Today Islington has one of the highest concentrations of tenant management cooperatives in the country. Recent studies by Islington council, following the 2011-12 Islington Fairness Commission, show how well they are still performing.

Margaret Hodge was Chair of Housing in Islington in the late 1970s. She became persuaded that estate renovation and intensive local management worked.

Islington’s estates are proof of this today.

But a lot has changed, including the introduction of the right to buy, which has resulted in around one third of council

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The vast majority of the 10,000 or more estates built in the postwar era were solid and popular and became successful communities.

properties moving into private ownership.

The arguments in favour of this popular policy are belied by the reality. The original intention was to provide stable home ownership for long-standing tenants, however the longer term result has been a growth in unstable private renting and a vastly increased cost to housing benefit bills as many right to buy owners have sold their flats on to individuals whose main intention is to rent out the property for the highest price.

So why has estate regeneration, normally taken to mean demolition and replacement with mixed tenure communities, become such a burning issue today? From a situation of crude housing surplus in the late 1970s and early 1980s (albeit with many barriers to access), we now face a situation of acute housing shortage. There are various drivers for this: population growth and particularly high inward migration in the 2000s; household fragmentation leading to many more smaller and single person households; an ageing population; people partnering, having children and marrying later; tighter controls and mortgage lending making it more difficult for young people to buy; and a very weakly regulated private rented sector with often extremely poor conditions and high rents.

Private landlords own up to half of the properties (or even more on in areas such as Tower Hamlets in London). They are often conspicuous by their absence and by their neglect of tenancy obligations.

The absolute housing shortage in some areas is made vastly worse by a rapid rise in under-occupation, and speculative buying by rich foreigners, part of a decontrolled housing market

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where market failures are no longer a priority. This results in overcrowding, instability, high rents, poor conditions and homelessness. All this makes the council housing estate, often now owned by housing associations, far more necessary and valuable to communities and to society as a whole.

However, today the greatest pressure on the shrinking supply of social housing (as socially owned rented housing is now called) is the scale of need. There is less social renting available thanks to the right to buy and estate demolition.

There are fewer alternatives; high house prices mean that people cannot buy homes until they are older, and private renting is difficult to access because of high rents, insecure lettings and housing benefit cutbacks. There is simply more housing need, for all the demographic and social reasons outlined, and far less truly affordable stable rented homes.

So estates matter. They are now even more valuable as low-cost rented housing than they were in the heyday of council building. Chris was involved in the early 1980s in the ambitious, government funded Priority Estates Project, championing the rescue of large, difficult-to-let council estates. This advocated the involvement of tenants in estate based management with the close backing of local authorities.

One of the most pioneering Priority Estates Project schemes was the Bloomsbury Estate in Birmingham where tenants worked extremely hard to secure an estate budget (taken from their rents) and an estate-based team prioritising maintenance, environmental

care and tenant support. Their aim was to encourage the full occupation of their highly unpopular and low demand estate. The Bloomsbury Estate eventually became a tenant controlled cooperative, which been used by governments of different political hues as a source of inspiration for estate renewal. It is a model of regeneration without demolition, without displacement, and with care.

One of the interesting lessons from the experience of tenant management organisations around the country is that hands on staff working the front-line, paid through dedicated budgets, can overcome many community level problems. The model has proved to be cost effective and efficient. Along the way tenants gain many useable skills, and the level of job satisfaction for housing staff is high.

Restoring estates and giving tenants control of conditions seems a fool-proof recipe for a government that is short of cash, and when low cost rented housing is scarce and much needed. Today it is more vital than ever to save social housing estates from the bulldozer.

It is extremely rare to find irresolvable structural problems requiring demolition, although many estates are in need of significant upgrade. It is also extremely rare for the cost of major upgrading, including high-energy efficiency, to be as much as the full cost of demolition and replacement. Most cost calculations ignore the cost of demolition, which on government estimates ranges between ÂŁ35,000 and ÂŁ50,000 for each home.

According to some local authorities like Kent and Milton Keynes, the infrastructure costs of new housing can be as high

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Restoring estates and giving tenants control of conditions seems a fool-proof recipe for a government that is short of cash, and when low cost rented housing is scarce and much needed.

as £60,000 per home. These essential costs must be added to the full cost of a new build home to establish the full cost of replacing it. An additional cost of regeneration is the time lag between the decision to demolish and completion of replacement low cost homes. The time scales involved are huge, often 20 to 30 years. However, this has not been done, and instead costs have been calculated by both Conservative and Labour governments to support a financial approach to estate regeneration that relies on private developers, private sales and only a very partial replacement of the social rented homes, often at vastly higher cost than comprehensive refurbishment.

For all these reasons, social housing tenants have become extremely wary of estate ‘regeneration’, that is, demolition of their homes. There is also suspicion of ‘affordable housing’, which is invariably unaffordable to those on low incomes; and the promise of a better home for their family which even their grandchildren may not see.

When she was responsible for housing in the early 2000s, Yvette Cooper saw that demolition and rehousing under the mixed public-private formula “simply doesn’t work – the numbers don’t stack up”. And they don’t. Without major government subsidy, it is no longer possible to produce low-cost rented homes for those on modest incomes; the bottom 20 per cent of the population. That cash injection will not come from the private sector and the government says it cannot afford it.

Hence the housing crisis, a crisis of cost, of distribution, of access and of control.

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There are alternative models, which Chris would himself have been involved with and applauding, if he were still working today. The Edward Woods Estate in Hammersmith, a large high-rise concrete, low income council estate, overlooking Westfield shopping centre, was difficult to let in the late 1970s. As was the nearby White City Estate. Both are now in high demand. Edward Woods was turned around in the early 1980s, with help from the Priority Estates Project, through estate-based management and close tenant liaison. It was never an easy estate to manage and has always required injections of spending to maintain its 23 storey tower blocks. But recently, between 2010-2014, it underwent major renewal.

With the tenants staying in their homes, including many elderly and long-standing residents, young families, and single tenants living in small one-bed flats, the tower blocks were over-clad with thick insulation. The windows were replaced with double-glazing and lifts repaired, along with an overhaul of the concrete structures, entrances and other elements.

In all the work took less than three years, with scaffolding and sheeting, dust and noise. Tenants were often frustrated; delays were repeated; and some work was curtailed as a result of financial limits. But overall the work has been a remarkable success, thanks in part to the close on site liaison of both the council landlord and the builders. The timescale was less than one fifth of the timescale for replacement. The cost was less than half. No tenants lost their home. LSE Housing and Communities monitored the impact on the community and found not only high satisfaction with the outcome

and lower energy bills, but also a strong sense of neighbourliness and belonging.

The result is a highly attractive impressively energy-efficient, fully occupied, stable, low crime, popular council estate. Portsmouth Council is adopting a similar model for a high-rise concrete estate with major disrepair and poverty problems. The council argues that it is both cheaper, quicker and better for community stability.

Most importantly it protects, upgrades and retains low-cost housing.

Until we find a better way of producing genuinely low cost rented homes for those who cannot afford market rents, we have to find ways of working with existing communities and with the existing stock of homes, to ensure some kind of stability at the bottom of the housing market. Three main ingredients are essential for this to work: residents who are willing to cooperate with their landlords and invest in their community; landlords who understand the importance of communicating directly with tenants and investing in their rented property to maintain and upgrade it; and a strong front line presence so that people know what is happening, how to get things done and actually see them being done. Social landlords are well placed to fulfil these roles. But with light-handed regulation, there is every reason why responsible private landlords could also play such a role; after all, Peabody, Guinness, Rowntree and Cadbury were originally private landlords who decided to do good by providing decent housing.

We need to think differently about estates.

We need to treat them as vital assets,

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examine successful models of estate upgrading, follow the logic of hands-on, management work with tenants, and train front-line staff for the challenge of making estates work. We need to recognise the real, full value of low cost, well maintained, secure housing estates and their vital contribution to social stability, integration and the economy.

Anne Power has been involved in European and American housing and urban problems since 1965. She is Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Head of LSE Housing and Communities, a research group based within the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion.

She is author of many books, reports and articles on housing, cities and low-income communities.

DAVID ORR

Optimism and action Public awareness of the housing crisis is at an all time high. Few days go by without another story highlighting the madness of the property market and the hardship facing people unable to afford a stable, good quality home. Housing was the focus of the 2015 general election in a way that hasn’t been seen for decades.

Homelessness is at the sharp end of the housing crisis. The number of rough sleepers in London has risen by more than 90 per cent since 2010, now standing at more than 7,500 (up from 3,975 in 2010/11 to 7,581 in 2014/15)1.

Similarly, the number of households accepted as statutorily homeless rose by 80 per cent in London between 2009/10 and 2013/142. The numbers of ‘hidden homeless’ relying on family and friends to provide a roof over their heads and levels of overcrowding are both on the rise. It is notable that almost threequarters of the increase in homelessness acceptances over the last four years can be attributed to a rapid increase in those made homeless as a result of losing their private rented tenancy.

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This reflects an ever-worsening housing crisis. A failure by successive governments to take a long term view locks people out of housing and robs them of the stability they need to achieve their economic potential. Those most at risk are the young with few resources.

We could take a negative view on all this. These are undoubtedly challenging times with more clouds on the horizon in the form of further welfare cuts. This has led some commentators to describe rising homelessness as an inevitable result of a perfect storm of austerity cuts and a failure to build enough homes.

If he was still with us, Chris would rightly be highly troubled by the current state of housing in London but he would not despair or wring his hands about how terrible everything is.

However big the challenge to creating meaningful change, he would look for the opportunities to make it happen.

In his book a New Vision for Housing, Chris said of the housing crisis in London:

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A failure by successive governments to take a long term view locks people out of housing and robs them of the stability they need to achieve their economic potential.

“It has been almost universally accepted that London’s housing problems are so severe that there is no prospect of solving them in the foreseeable future. That assumption is defeatist, and stems from a failure to imagine radical new ways of reforming the housing market so as to satisfy better the aspirations of those wanting to rent and wanting to buy.”3

solutions that meet the challenges we face. In addition to this, we must cultivate the will to create change, ensuring there is both political leadership and public support. Our knowledge and passions will not be realised unless there is a collective will for change; until citizens and political leaders are prepared to make the difficult choices needed.

Prior to the 2015 general election the housing sector came together to deliver the historic Homes for Britain rally.

This united private industry, housing associations, tenants and homelessness charities behind one goal: to get all party political leaders to commit to ending the housing crisis within a generation.

For me that was an important moment in politics. Now it is time to turn that moment into a movement for change.

As Chris would have said, doing nothing is not an option. The costs of homelessness for the people affected are enormous. The costs for wider society and the economy are equally grave.

The Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) calculated the cost of homelessness to government as anything up to £1bn annually4. Such calculations do not take into account the cost to society of squandered potential and thwarted hopes that characterise the experience of homelessness.

There are opportunities now to do that.

We know the causes of homelessness and the wider housing crisis. We must put this understanding to use by creating solutions and driving them through to realisation.

There are green shoots of hope and we must capitalise on them. For example, we are seeing a resurgence of campaigns using social media; forcing Foxtons, Tescos and Southwark Bridge Road developers to remove anti-homelessness spikes from outside their stores.

However, the scale of the housing crisis demands ambitious solutions; we simply cannot ignore it any longer. We must do two things, which Chris demonstrated so well throughout his career. First, we need to maintain a clear focus on the problem we are trying to solve. Second, we must develop bold but practical

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The absence of homes at the right price and in the right places is a central barrier to the economic growth of the country.

The London Chamber of Commerce has pointed out the lack of affordable housing in London poses a critical threat to the capital’s economic competiveness and resilience. Its report states that: “for London to continue to be a leading global city, housing has to be seen and accepted as the critical infrastructure upon which to build for the future” and calls for the required political capital to be expended to addressing the lack of affordable housing in the city5.

Addressing our affordable housing need in full would add £8bn to the economy.

The economic and social necessity of addressing the housing crisis is breaking

through politically. In the 2015 general election we saw all three major parties commit to ending the housing crisis within a generation. Now we have a new government, we have a responsibility to ensure this promise becomes a reality.

As Chris always did, we need to look to history to learn the lessons of the past and apply this knowledge in pushing forward effective and lasting solutions.

If we go back all the way to 1869, it was Conservatives in Liverpool who built England’s first council housing6. The scale of the overcrowding and poor sanitation was such that the council was compelled to act. The urgency of the problem and the recognition that private enterprise was unwilling to provide good quality homes at a price the working poor could afford, led the council to develop numerous housing schemes themselves. They pioneered innovative solutions to what at first seemed an intractable problem and created the first generation of council homes. That long term view is a lesson we can revisit today.

Moving forward a century to the era of Cathy Come Home, when a publicity campaign run by reforming conservatives William Shearman and Iain Macleod, highlighted the plight of homeless people and led to the creation of Crisis (with the help of Nick Beacock, the local curate at St Barnabas’ Church in East Ham). The recognition of a pressing social need led to meaningful action, and the creation of an organisation that has driven the agenda and provided innovative solutions and meaningful change in the sphere of homelessness.

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Whilst Chris was always acutely aware of the complex problem of homelessness and always vocal about the human suffering that results; he was also focused on finding the solution.

These examples show that a desire for a thriving economy in which all of society engages also needs to recognise the need for good quality affordable housing for all citizens. Indeed, former housing minister Grant Shapps stated: “the level of homelessness in society is likely to be a truer measure of how civilised we are than almost any other factor”7.

In this age of ‘aspirational’ politics the role of the home cannot be ignored. A good quality, affordable home is the springboard from which individuals and families can pursue meaningful, productive and fulfilling lives. The politics of aspiration must recognise the role of the home and its central role in peoples’ lives, not least their economic lives. If we get housing right it’s invisible. Get it wrong and the costs to the UK are huge. Housing at the right price can help make work pay. If this aspiration remains unmet then many others are rendered unachievable.

Luckily, innovation is something that comes naturally to the housing sector.

The landscape of homelessness and the nature of the housing crisis is constantly shifting and changing, as is the political context. Rooted in a true understanding of the issues and complexities of this landscape, those working in housing are capable of developing innovative solutions.

For housing associations this can be born of necessity. They are the most successful example of a private-public partnership at work making effective interventions in a sector that is integral to the UK’s social and economic success.

Despite the decline of grant funding, housing associations are finding ways

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to increase the number of homes being built whilst also finding ways to invest in families, individuals and communities and ensure they thrive. They invest six times more of their own resources than they receive from public investment.

Despite the challenges and complexities of the current housing crisis, the independence, entrepreneurialism and social mission of housing associations mean they have real impact. Their desire to play an integral part in providing solutions to the housing crisis is demonstrated in their ambition to be building 120,000 homes annually by 2033, their priority to help people find work and their long term focus on the communities they work with.

So, some of the key ingredients are there for a real and sustainable solution to the housing crisis. Yes, the situation is grave but there is much to give us hope. Whilst Chris was always acutely aware of the complex problem of homelessness and always vocal about the human suffering that results; he was also focused on finding the solution.

For housing campaigners, the public awareness and pressure for change that followed the broadcast of Cathy Come Home will always be a powerful collective memory. As Chris said: “Cathy was the first of its kind. Until then, there wasn’t the awareness about the sort of conditions that people were living in.

It was an exceptional film.8“ Yet even though the film had a powerful effect on the national conversation and public understanding of homelessness, it took years of tireless campaigning for

this to result in big policy shifts such as the 1977 Homeless Persons Act. Yes, we still face a crisis in housing but we also are starting to see the public engage with the issue in a way not seen since for some decades. We need to use our power as a sector to speak in one voice, continue to push housing up the agenda and capitalise on the political and economic reality of the need to act.

Chris was an imaginative thinker who pressed for change, never put off by the difficulties of the road ahead. He pressed for people not to brush aside meaningful change as impractically optimistic but to think radically and imaginatively about how it can be achieved. We need this optimism as much as ever to maintain a steady focus and steely determination to see the vision of solving the housing crisis turn into reality. In the words of Chris: “achieving it will not be easy, but it is far better than doing nothing”9.

David Orr is Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation and a former President of Housing Europe, the European network for Social Housing. He is the Chair of the board of Reall, previously known as Homeless International. He has recently retired from the board of The Housing Finance Corporation (THFC) but chairs the credit committee of its subsidiary, the Affordable Housing Fund. He is one of the founding directors of My Home Finance, a social enterprise set up by the Federation to provide a new high street service offering affordable loans, money advice, bank accounts

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and linked savings accounts. He is also the Chair of the board of Jobs at Home and a board member of Building Lives. Previously, David has been Chief Executive of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and of Newlon Housing Trust, having also worked with Centrepoint.

1. GLA, CHAIN Annual Report 2014/15 http://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/chain-reports/resource/dd12fe650a44-465d-96e6-5339fc5c505d 2. Crisis 2015 Homelessness Monitor http://www.crisis.org.uk/data/files/publications/Homelessness_Monitor_England_2015_final_web.pdf 3. Holmes, Chris (2005) A New Vision for Housing Rouledge 4. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ costs-of-homelessness-evidence-review 5. http://www.londonchamber.co.uk/docimages/12438.pdf 6. https://municipaldreams.wordpress. com/2013/10/08/liverpool-first-council-houses-in-europe/ 7. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/ sep/11/housing 8. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2006/feb/15/2 9. Holmes, Chris (2005) A New Vision for Housing Rouledge

September 2015 Published by Social Life www.social-life.co

SEPTEMBER 2015