Key Worker housing in the UK: a union’s view

SYLVIA JONES, assistant policy officer, Unison

Key Workers face many challenges relating to the cost of housing. We’ve seen that increasing numbers of Unison members, who are also Key Workers, are having to use food banks. It’s shocking that these workers whom we all depend on, and who are providing essential services for us, are having to cut back on essentials like food.

Many Key Workers are on low incomes but they don’t qualify for social housing, which pushes them into the private rental sector.

The national picture tells us that the private rental sector is at the sharpest end of the housing crisis, with renters facing skyrocketing costs for what is often a negative experience in terms of the quality of their housing.

As a union we’re campaigning for more social housing but in particular for increased access to social rent.

We know that private rents are unaffordable for people who work in the public sector on modest incomes. It follows that people who can barely afford even the lowest private rents are never going to be able to afford homeownership. How would they save a deposit when every penny is accounted for each month?

Most of the schemes that are available to Key Workers (if you can even call them that, because these days there isn’t really any commitment by the government for such schemes) encourage people to buy their own home or a portion of a home through shared ownership.

This means that the majority of people are not being helped. They are left floundering in the private rental sector, with few rights and unaffordable costs.

Even if they did have access to social rent, the so called “affordable rent” simply isn’t. Local authorities and housing associations can charge up to 80% of the market rate for social rent thanks to the coalition government which, in 2011, decided to cut grant funding for social housing drastically.

It told social housing providers they would have their funding cut by 60% but it would change the criteria to allow them to charge rents up to 80% of market rate. Now that social homes are being let at those higher rates, essential workers are priced out.

Housing within the private rented sector is not secure. Essential workers are at risk of no-fault eviction even if they can secure a rented home.

We’ve seen that many older workers with secure jobs go into shared accommodation to be able to afford to live. This has fuelled a rise in Houses of Multiple Occupation, a part of the private rental sector which lacks regulation and is often poor quality.

At Unison we’re calling on the government to invest significantly to increase the supply of all types of housing but particularly social housing for social rent. We’re campaigning to end so called “affordable rent” at 80% of the market price.

We need a new definition of “affordable housing” linked to peoples’ incomes and not to market prices. We also want the government to legislate to effectively regulate the private rented sector to make it secure, stable and affordable for renters long-term.