More than 4.3 million homes in England do not meet basic standards of decency. It is more prevalent in the private sector, and among residents with lower incomes.
Although it’s not framed this way in official documents, it can be seen as a direct legacy of the Right To Buy program championed by Margaret Thatcher and her successors. The devastating impact on the supply of social rent housing has been well documented. But there is more to this picture.
Many of the tenants who were living in Council housing took the opportunity to buy their homes at a deeply discounted price. Some of these homes are still occupied by their owners, who are getting on in years. For those on fixed pensions, it can be very challenging to pay for regular maintenance. The owner might also need to make renovations to improve accessibility (e.g. installing a ramp or grab bars in the bath) and to reduce energy costs (e.g. insulation). All of these changes require money which, on a fixed pension, they don’t have. Nor is borrowing money to pay for the repairs easy or feasible.
Other right-to-buyers have moved on and now rent out their right-to-buy home. They may or may not have the intention of being good landlords, but for one reason or another, the upkeep of these homes isn’t happening. Homes in the private rental sector are more likely to be in worse condition than council rented housing and ownership housing.
The poor conditions are hard on seniors who become less agile with age. Navigating uneven steps and footpaths can be a deterrent to leaving the house. Nor are these homeowners inclined to have visitors in when the house has mold or faulty wiring.
The Centre for Aging Better decided to come up with some ideas about fixing the growing backlog of repairs. The Centre struck a committee of Peers to investigate.
The committee members sensibly looked to the past and found a host of programs that had been in place to monitor and pay for essential repairs. Further, they are calling on the government to put public funding toward loans and grants to make the structural repairs that are needed as well as to lower utility costs. They also identified trusted community organizations as good candidate for program coordination and administration as well as calculating the cost of implementing such programs.
The Centre for Aging Better has published a report of the committee’s work here: Housing policy and poor-quality homes
As the committee’s report points out, the value of the proposed programs will likely extend beyond physical repairs. For example, fewer falls mean lower health care costs from hospital stays, less demand for beds in nursing homes, and so on.
The Centre For Aging’s report also says that physical repairs are a start. It suggests there are likely further programs that could make a big difference for the health and wellbeing of older people, especially those with low and fixed incomes.
Researchers who are based at the Universities of Bristol and Stirling have independently been investigating tenant health and well being in the private rental sector. Their study includes tenants of all ages. A top finding of their study links tenant health and wellbeing to a positive relationship with the landlord. This, along with other findings, suggest avenues to complement the Centre for Aging’s report. There are two sources for the study of tenant health and wellbeing available from CACHE (The UK Collaborative Centre on Housing Research) — a written report: Health and wellbeing in the UK private rented sector – Enhancing capabilities Part 2: Findings from tenant interviews and this webinar: Health and wellbeing in the UK private rented sector – Webinar