We recently published a post about L&Q Housing, a large social housing landlord in the UK, which manages some 105,000 homes. It seems they have lost the plot, thrown caution to the wind and systematically mistreated their tenants. Doing so earned L&Q the largest ever financial penalty handed out a to social landlord by the UK’s Housing Ombudsman1.
Poor chastened social housing executives! Over the past few years their role as guardians of the social and physical wellbeing of their tenants has been partly redirected by the very government that wields a scolding Ombudsman. The UK government is demanding that social housing landlords partially reboot as venture capitalists. This requires interaction with free market housing in order to profiteer, so they can raise enough money to at the very least pay their salaries and save enough to build new social housing.
Is it any longer possible for social housing management to work more than one job at a time as guardians of tenant welfare and free market capitalists? There is some good news out of the UK. L&Q may be the social housing exception rather than the rule. For a social housing manager with tenant support in mind, read more at BBC NEWS: Social housing group opens foodbank and money advice service
