Friday - Housing in County Durham One of the questions we asked the housing providers at today’s Economy Scrutiny Committee was how welfare reform – particularly the bedroom tax – had affected their tenants. The results are very interesting. Firstly, terminations are up – by 20-25%. Faced with the financial pressures, it would seem that a large number of people have just upped and left. Secondly, houses have become much harder to let. They are staying empty such longer. The number of bids-per-property in one area have fallen from 14 per property in 2011 to only 1.6 per property last year. Three-bedroom homes are proving especially difficult to let, but the expected demand for one-bedroom homes has failed to materialise, and demand is down for them too. This is bad news for the housing providers, who are seeing rent-revenues threatened. Neither has the expected crisis of rent arrears occurred. The majority of tenants affected by the bedroom tax are finding the money, though 40% are in arrears, a few deeply so. This is bad news for the housing providers, but not the catastrophe some feared. One unforeseen consequence is that, though the triage process designed to help them cope with the reforms, the housing providers are in fact discovering £00,000s of unclaimed extra benefits for their tenants, whilst other tenants are benefiting from the much-increased support from the housing providers to get their tenants get into employment. This must have come as a surprise to the government, who had wanted to *save* money, not spend more. I asked what had happened to the huge demand for housing of two years ago. The answer is that is has largely evaporated. Many people, unable to afford their social housing, are moving into the fast-growing private sector. Many are living with parents. And the number of people ‘crashing’ with friends is unknown, but a possible alternative. *An Update On The Bedroom Tax Motion* You will remember that, a year ago, DCC submitted my bedroom tax proposal under the Sustainable Communities Act that, in this County, exemption from the bedroom tax would extend to people for whom suitable alternative accommodation was not available. What has become of it? Despite a requirement to respond within six months, the government has not yet responded – but neither has it yet rejected it, which is interesting. we keep enquiring, and I will let you know when anything happens.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Nov 2014 23:30:05 +0000
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