How can we tackle homelessness when there are no affordable housing options? asks Katie Howells
In Merthyr Tydfil the local housing allowance (LHA) rate for those who are single and under 35 is just £48.00 per week. This is the shared accommodation rate, but general needs shared housing is almost non-existent in the area.
The private sector is becoming more and more unaffordable. The shared accommodation rate in this sector is £21.23 per week, which is less than the cheapest one-bed property on the market currently; another factor to consider is the inconsistency in the market rents in Merthyr, for example, the current rent for a one-bed private property on the market ranges from £300-£500.
Social housing stock of one-bedroom accommodation in the area is low, making it difficult for young single people to easily access social housing. The solution to this you may think is to simply build new homes; unfortunately it’s not that easy. Low rents make building single bed properties not a financially viable option. Social housing stock in the area is old and needs constant investment therefore this takes priority.
Could the answer be increased or even differential grant levels?Well this certainly would take the financial pressure off. However, increased grants across the board may be unaffordable for the Government to commit to long term so could we not look at a grant scheme which is based on the need and subsidy needed for a particular scheme? We still have a housing crisis in Wales; therefore we need to be thinking outside the box and being as flexible as possible to ensure the needs of the people who are most in need are met.
Grants or incentives for private landlords could also be considered. At the moment they are feeling the pressure of renting to those on benefits; recent stats released by the Residential Landlords Association shows them becoming increasingly reluctant to rent to those claiming benefit.
In this case a higher financial subsidy could secure homes outside of the social sector for those in need, and would also provide young people with more housing choices. This is something that must be considered to prevent the most vulnerable being pushed into situations where their only housing choice comes in the form of a rogue landlord willing to put them in a potentially dangerous situation, ie ‘sex for rent’.
More needs to be done to encourage smaller private landlords to sign up to Rent Smart Wales. A way to ensure they do this is when landlords apply for a direct housing benefit (which often happens), in order to receive the payment a condition could be that they are signed up to Rent Smart Wales.
The employment market in Merthyr Tydfil is largely made up of retail or hospitality-based vacancies; with many offering zero hour contracts and paying minimum wage. Even the large multi-national companies who have moved into the area over the last decade fail to offer many employees job security, with fixed-term contracts and contracted hours as little as four hours per week being offered.
The benefit system simply isn’t set up to adequately react to fluctuations in income levels. As a result tenants are put at risk and become uncertain of what rent ‘top-up’ they need to pay causing them to accumulate large arrears that they struggle to pay off, in some cases this can result in eviction. ‘In work poverty’ is a shocking reality for many people in the borough.
The local authority are tasked with housing those faced with homelessness, yet for those who are under 35 there aren’t enough affordable housing options. How is it fair that the shared room LHA rate for the borough was set using not one current single property rental figure? As a country we are invested in ending youth homelessness and the LHA rate along with benefit restrictions is part of this. These policies desperately need reviewing, if we cannot change the policy, then a system is needed that mitigates the real issues they bring.
Katie Howells is a member of the Housing Futures Cymru panel