Another Year Over………

So as Christmas fast approaches and another year draws to a close it’s always worthwhile using the lyrics from one of those Christmas songs you hear everywhere you go to stop for a few moments to reflect on the world around us.

For Halton Housing Trust it has been one of our best years since we were launched in December 2005.  Many of the highlights I covered in my earlier blog to coincide with our 8th birthday earlier this month.

I am continually surprised and impressed by how my colleagues are responding to the rapidly changing environment in which we operate. Our Board have also faced up to these challenges by embedding the principles outlined in Our Direction.

Our longer term plans are now underpinned through the delivery of our new £130m funding facility. This will see further investment in addition to the £115m already invested to date as well as an additional 800 much needed homes being added to our portfolio.

At a national level the economic signs are now looking more positive.  However there remain several areas where close attention still needs to be paid due to the fragility of the economic recovery. There are concerns that a housing bubble is forming in some areas of the country. This could be compounded as interest rates are predicted to increase in the New Year.

Everything in the housing garden isn’t rosy.  This has been brought into sharp focus in recent weeks through the publication of three reports.  All of these highlight the growing gap between the haves and the have nots in the UK.

First came the JRF New Policy Institute Report  that shattered the illusion that poverty was only linked to those receiving welfare benefits. The report highlights that more than half of the 13 million people living in poverty in the UK in 2011/12 were in a working family.

Then hot on the heels came the Second Report from the Real Life Reform Study.  I remember tweeting when the first Study was launched that if you aren’t moved by reading this report then call an ambulance as you have no heart. The second report makes for even more hard hitting reading. It is like being slapped in the face with a brick as the comments from real people trying to make the best of their lives in increasingly difficult circumstances really does hit home.  How many of us could live on a food budget of just £2.10 per day?

Shortly afterwards the NHF published its Home Truths Report. This highlights how the headline messages on the health of the UK economy are masking a much more complex set of underlying issues. Each day an extra 310 working people are having to resort to applying for housing benefit.  Rising rents in growth areas such as London are pushing more and more working people over the edge, forcing one working person every five minutes to turn to the Government for housing benefit to keep the roof over their heads.

Then earlier this month there was the W&P Select Committee hearing. Looking to the future PlaceShapers alongside other witnesses from the housing world made four key points:

1. The under-occupation deduction should be based upon a ‘common sense’ bedroom standard, which allows households an additional bedroom above the standard adopted by the Government for the purposes of calculating housing benefit.
2. All households entitled to disability benefits should be exempt from the impact of the under-occupation deduction, bringing it into line with the operation of the overall benefit cap.
3. There needs to be a major rethink about the way direct payments of housing costs to claimants works under Universal Credit (UC).
4. Any realistic approach to developing a workable Alternative Payment Arrangement (APA) mechanism for vulnerable tenants under Universal Credit, should be founded on the principle of two way data sharing between DWP and landlords

If that isn’t enough evidence then also reflect on the concept of food banks. Five years ago if you had said to me I would be supporting organisations without whom people living in the UK in the 21st century would go hungry I would have laughed at you. But that is the stark reality for a rapidly increasing minority in the UK this Christmas. Food bank usage in the Liverpool City Region has increased by 50% in just the last three months.

So what does 2014 hold in store for us? Well I’m no futurologist. However it is a fab career choice as whoever goes back to prove what you predicted 20 years ago to have been wrong?

However what is clear is that the importance of housing associations and what we do each and every day will increase still further as for many people in the communities in which we work we are now the last organisation standing. Without our help and support how many of our customers would fall through the net and their lives become even harder?

So the housing world has changed more in the last 18 months than probably at any point in the preceding 40 years. We have been given the flexibility and freedom to do much more than we have ever been able to do before and take charge of our own destiny. We have the tools and the resources. The explosion of social media and the wider digital platforms also means we now have a much louder voice. The challenge for us all is to use all these ingredients wisely and where they produce the most impact.