Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman for England, has issued a report chronicling the poor service meted out to social tenants by their landlords. Blakeway is making a case for retooling relationships between social housing landlords and their evidently much-abused tenants.
Major media outlets have responded with ideas of their own. For example, the United Kingdom-based Guardian characterizes the problem as a ‘health’ issue — social housing landlords are failing to effectively address essential health needs of their tenants.
The Standard focusses on the tenants, who are poorly resourced to cope with their own ‘vulnerability.’ Data gathered for the ombudman’s report supports the view that necessary supports for people who are vulnerable are simply not provided.
Here at affordablehousingaction.org, we consider another take on the poor conditions in social housing and ask: are ‘landlord’ and ‘tenant’ even appropriate terms in this context?
Landlord and tenant are parties in a transactional relationship between market-offering landlords and their market-seeking tenants. That’s a balancing act. Too little service provided? Or too much demanded? Tenants may be shown the door, or landlords may be shunned.
Social housing currently adds a third party to this relationship. Now there is a paymaster that tops up the rents paid by the tenants. This complicates the simple transactional relationship.
Are all three necessary? Although they don’t cover the whole cost, tenants are most definitely paying rent and taxes for their social rent homes. The paymaster fills the gap between the revenue from tenants and the cost of operating their homes.
It is the landlord that may well be the unnecessary. Currently, they are handed all the managerial responsibility and entitled to reimbursement for their services. Could eliminating this role ensure better service? Could social housing tenants, via some form of authoritative council, balance their wants and needs, without an official nanny between them and the paymaster?
Is a healthy transactional relationship possible? As it happens, there is an alternative structure that might be modified and employed for social housing — a co-operative.
In social housing, a co-operative could merge the role of landlord and tenant. It would streamline the interactions to a two-party system. The financier — the government — is one of the parties, and the ‘co-op’ tenants are the other. There are many existing co-ops around the world.
Worthy of consideration?
Read Blakeway’s report at the Housing Ombudsman Service: Spotlight on attitudes, respect and rights – relationship of equals
Here’s the health based assessment in The Guardian:: Housing ombudsman in England calls to re-establish link between housing and health
. . . and the vulnerability assessment in The Standard: Social housing residents’ vulnerabilities too often missed, says ombudsman
There is a good description of co-operatives and how they work in a report prepared for the City of Brampton called Ensuring And Preserving Affordability. The section about co-operatives runs from pages 19 to 22. The report also discusses a range of other models that deliver deeply affordable housing and protect it in the long term. You can access the report at MelissaGoldstein.com: Ensuring And Preserving Affordability In Low Density Intensification: Options For Brampton
