It’s a cost of housing crisis too and we must take urgent action for people in Wales, says Jennie Bibbings.
The rising cost of housing has been on the ‘too difficult’ pile for far too long. Now that other essential expenses are rocketing out of all control, it feels like we’re long past the time when we should have gritted our teeth, opened that scary envelope, and dealt with the growing problem we’re facing as a nation.
At Shelter Cymru we have consistently drawn attention to the fact that arrears and evictions are on the rise, particularly in the private rented sector. Our advice work is the canary in the mine: rises in rents and evictions show up in our casework long before they hit the court statistics.
Over the last year no-fault evictions have more than doubled, while we’ve seen examples of rent rises of up to 100 per cent – beyond anything you can imagine morally possible during a cost-of-living crisis, and forming an extreme contrast with the many examples of private landlords who’ve been supportive and compassionate about tenants’ financial struggles.
Demand on our advice services is at unprecedented levels. We’re helping as many people as we can and as the crisis bites, more and more people whose homes are at risk will seek Shelter Cymru’s help. At the same time, raising funds for our work will likely become increasingly challenging.
During the pandemic we saw the Welsh Government acting decisively to support tenants and tackle homelessness. We now need a package of measures that matches the scale of the crisis we’re facing today.
We’ve already called on the Welsh Government to ban evictions this winter as an emergency measure. We’ve also welcomed the proposal to make six months’ notice of eviction apply to standard contracts sooner, something we lobbied strongly for – meaning that we should see an end to short-notice no-fault evictions within a matter of months rather than years.
Some may find it surprising that we haven’t called for a rent freeze. This isn’t because we think private sector rent levels are OK – far from it. But the cost of living crisis will still be with us in the spring, and beyond. A temporary rent freeze is a blunt tool that risks delaying, rather than preventing homelessness, exacerbating our supply challenges next year. And it’s not the solution for the social sector either, where the need to decarbonise and build more homes needs to be carefully balanced with affordability, especially for tenants who don’t get full housing benefit.
That’s why we’re recommending that an emergency evictions moratorium should be front and centre. At the same time, we want to see tenants get access to a real route to challenge disproportionate rent rises. In Wales, that’s the job of the Rent Assessment Committee. Often tenants are too scared of a no-fault eviction to challenge rent rises via this route, but during a moratorium they could in theory act with more confidence. This solution would need some working through, and the Welsh Government would need to work closely with the Committee to ensure that it has what it needs to make the right decisions for tenants.
How we transition out of a moratorium is a vital question. Bringing in six months’ eviction notice in a smooth way will help to avoid shocks in the system. Any longer-term rent regulation will have to be carefully designed, and we argue that this work needs to be urgently prioritised so that evidence-based decisions can be made about the best way to ensure people in Wales can afford to rent a home, not just today but in the future.
Mortgage repossessions are not yet at pre-pandemic levels but that’s all likely to change with interest rates on the rise. Now is the time for us to look at a Welsh mortgage rescue package. Mortgage rescue can be transformative, enabling people and families to remain in their treasured homes.
Finally – and crucially – we are putting the spotlight back on the UK Government. Bevan Foundation research found that in August only 60 properties across the whole of Wales were advertised with rents at Local Housing Allowance levels. It is an appalling recipe for rent arrears that housing benefits have remained frozen while the cost of renting has spiralled.
We’re orchestrating an email-writing campaign to Welsh MPs, to ask them to support our calls to restore housing benefit to cover at least the bottom 30 per cent of rents, and lift the benefits cap.
We’re asking for as much help as we can get. Here are three ways you can support this campaign:
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- Email your MP and ask them to support our call to make housing benefit adequate to pay the rent to stop homelessness
- Share our campaign on your social media channels
- Donate to Shelter Cymru to help us support people to stay afloat during the cost-of-living crisis.
Jennie Bibbings is head of campaigns at Shelter Cymru