Should we pick a fight with Octopus Real Estate, a United Kingdom firm eyeing profit from building much needed social housing, which aims to bring free market partners in the door to work with housing associations and councils?
According to the article linked below, Octopus is “a leading UK specialist real estate lender and investor which has recently published landmark research into the cost of providing social housing.” The article calls the challenge facing Councils and Housing Associations that operate social rent housing “a perfect storm.”
It describes the “pressures the social housing sector is facing, including inflation, construction costs, higher interest rates, decarbonisation work, regulatory and policy-related pressures, and cost of debt.”
This perfect storm pronouncement will hardly come as a surprise to anyone following, over the last few years, the fortunes of the United Kingdom’s social housing structures themselves, as well as the physical safety of their residents.
Unfortunately, though memorably, those misfortunes have included the Grenfell Tower Fire in which 72 people died and 70 more were injured. There is also the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak, because of toxic mould in his council home.
There is little reason to doubt the thinking behind the Octopus report, beyond sensible precaution when considering ramping up new social housing construction and retrofitting existing buildings. Octopus is touting its specialty, which is organizing private investment to allow Housing Associations and Councils to construct new housing. Under current circumstances, few alternatives (such as full government funding of new social housing construction) are likely to appear on the table to contest what Octopus has to offer.
One of the few rays of sunshine that can be brought to this ever-increasing affordable housing crisis comes from Scotland. The focus is not on generating new public housing, but providing better protection for current and future social housing tenants.
Partly this is a reaction to the injurious, even fatal, funding preoccupations that have recently consumed Housing Associations and Councils, and not only in the UK. Those charged with responsibility for the safety of social housing residents have taken their eyes off the ball.
Meanwhile, responsible governments have increased the pressure on non-profit housing providers to make their properties safe for tenants. For a potentially useful self-improvement resource, read more Scottish Housing News: New dedicated tenant and resident safety network for Scotland
And, for those interested in learning more about how ‘responsible investment’ can assist the construction of new affordable housing, read more about Octupus Real Estate and its report in showhouse: Research reveals the depth of the challenge facing the UK affordable housing sector
