Work on the Tyfu Tai Cymru projects has continued at workshops around Wales. Catherine May reports on progress.
The Tyfu Tai Cymru project is a five-year housing policy project with a focus on providing insightful analysis and filling evidence gaps. Funded by the Oak Foundation, the project is managed by the CIH Cymru and we work across three strands; building the right homes to meet demand, making sure housing is always a priority for local government and demonstrating housing’s role in keeping people well and healthy.
To date, we have published two reports –a survey of perceptions of people in Wales towards housing and homelessness and a snapshot of the views of housing professionals in local authorities towards the proposed reform of local government, previously outlined by the Welsh Government but since withdrawn..
The next stage of the project is to develop a plan for the next four years based on discussions we have held with people throughout the housing sector. To ensure we were speaking to a wide range of individuals and organisation, in September 2018, the Tyfu Tai Cymru team held half-day workshops in Aberystwyth, St Asaph and Cardiff. The workshops were incredibly informative, with inputs from senior managers at housing associations and local government as well as frontline staff and tenants.
We asked attendees to discuss a series of questions and then vote on the issues that most resonated in their lives and work.
The first task we set them to consider ‘what are the biggest issues in housing today?’ As might be expected with such a range of attendees, answers to this question were broad-ranging and covered the use of temporary accommodation, welfare reform and the need for alternative models of housing to boost supply. People also told us their concern about the lack of understanding about the role that social housing plays in providing safe homes and building communities, that not enough is known about the particular issues for housing developers in rural areas.
We then went onto cover the three themes of the TTC project – starting with health and housing, we asked attendees what they thought needed to be done to encourage partnership working between the two areas. People told us there is a need for better understanding of housing and mental healthand a concern that sometimes the housing system makes things worse for people. In several areas, attendees were interested in exploring the potential of staff from health boards being trained in housing issues/solutions. All three workshops had a discussion about the complexities and bureaucracy in bringing organisations together.
The discussion on local government told us we can do better at using systems that are in place such as local housing registers but also to ensure that we are not leaving people who rent their homes from private landlords behind. We were also reminded of the need for local government to be promoting positive messages about the impact of healthy homes.
The final discussion centred on the third theme of TTC of boosting supply. In both rural and urban areas we were told of the need for new ideas about how to tackle the ongoing problem of empty homes, exacerbated in some areas through second home ownership in coastal towns. The role of the private sector was also highlighted, the need for developers (including small firms) to be around the table and to look at social letting agencies as good practice for improving practice in the by landlords in the private rented sector.
Catherine May is manager of Tyfu Tai Cymru