Town Hall to wipe thousands off the waiting list for council homes with new allocations policy
Thursday, 23rd July 2015
MORE than 20,000 people on the waiting list for council homes are set to be kicked out of the queue as Camden Council gets tough on who can apply for housing.
To heckles from the public gallery, cabinet councillors last night (Wednesday) passed a new allocations policy which will thin down the list by two-thirds.
Labour finance chief Councillor Theo Blackwell said that, for some people, applying for a council home had been a “luxury”.
The new rules will see a local residency test in which people must prove they have lived in the borough for five out of the past six years. Those who claim overcrowding must show that they are maximising their space with “living rooms and dining rooms” considered as possible bedrooms.
Those with assets of more than £32,000 will be excluded with a new savings threshold. The council, however, will make allowances to help vulnerable children in need of housing.
Chris Nicholas, representing protesters gathered outside the Town Hall who say that rather than razoring the waiting list Camden should be demanding money from the government to build more homes, told the meeting: “It has a serious impact on people, most of whom are having all their housing benefits wiped out – now they are going to wipe more off them from the list. It is essentially social cleansing and walking away from the essential purpose of council housing. It is walking away from the people who voted for the party in the first place."
Camden's Theo Blackwell: Council homes allocation system is 'out of date, everyone knows it's in need of reform' https://t.co/ynoprc4Qjg
— Camden New Journal (@NewJournal) July 24, 2015
Protest a the Town Hall: Unison rep Mandy Berger says Camden must build more council homes https://t.co/sGiPpsBRXJ
— Camden New Journal (@NewJournal) July 23, 2015
Security guards snatched a banner reading “homes from all” from the front row of the public seats, as the meeting was interrupted with chants of “stand up” and “what would George Bernard Shaw have made of this?” Camden Council leader Sarah Hayward threatened to have the gallery cleared if the shouts continued.
The Town Hall says that, after a consultation survey lasting several months and 2,000 responses, it has public support for the changes.
Some of those who will be removed are no longer actually seeking homes but a bureaucratic quirk at the Town Hall means there is no way of taking names off the list once they are added.
The meeting followed a protest on the Town Hall steps. Mandy Berger, from Unison, said: “We need to expose Camden, a Labour council, for doing the Tories’ work for them.
“We know there is a crisis in council housing. This isn’t the way to deal with it, by cutting people off the list. We need to urge Camden Council to get a bigger backbone: start building council housing, not allowing contractors and developers to whittle down the amount of the homes they are building, in places like King’s Cross.”
Green councillor Sian Berry said: “The principle of council housing, that working people as well as people in need, ordinary people of all kinds, should be able to be housed by the council – it is being utterly got rid of by this policy.
'What do we want? Council housing. When do we want it now? Now'. Protests at Town Hall over new allocations policy. https://t.co/CCjulcery9
— Camden New Journal (@NewJournal) July 23, 2015
But inside the meeting, Cllr Blackwell said Camden had been left hamstrung by a government cap on local authorities borrowing to build new homes, adding: “We are in a situation where we are up against it.
“The idea that you can put your name on the list regardless, wherever you are, has always seemed to me like quite a luxury.”
Cllr Blackwell said that the current system gave “false hope” to long-term waiters on the list that they might one day get a council home when the prospect was actually highly unlikely.
'6,000 people on the list don't even live in Camden'
Housing chief PAT CALLAGHAN responds to the protests
AS I write to a family who need help to get a flat, I’m not just saddened by how often I hear these stories; I’m filled with fear about what the future holds for families like this if the government get their hands on our housing stock.
Camden Council’s cabinet meeting on allocations will be lively; and so it should be.
We have a proud history of council housing and we’ve shown our passion as a community to protect what it was set up to do.
The diversity of our communities is what makes them thrive.
And it’s my job to do whatever we can to defend this and make sure the system works fairly to give those who need a home the best chance of getting one.
But our current system isn’t fair and the housing list isn’t accurate – 6,000 people on the list don’t even live in Camden.
Most other London boroughs have already updated their list.
We are only able to allocate around 1,000 homes a year, but the list suggests there are currently 30,000 people waiting for homes.
We know that figure is misleading as 60 per cent of those never actually bid for available homes; some have been on there over 20 years and never bid.
Letters to the New Journal recently suggested people with jobs will no longer be eligible.
This is nonsense.
Or if you are overcrowded by one bedroom you’ll be slung off the list – that’s wrong too. The new system will better tackle problems like overcrowding.
I’ve never thought it was acceptable for a mum to be expected to sleep in a living room and count that as a bedroom, so that’s one of the things we’ve changed.
This has been in development for four years to make sure we get it right. We received a record response to the consultation using over 2,000 people’s responses to shape the scheme.
People said they want a fairer system – because those who really need a home aren’t always able to get one – so we’ve put those groups first and brought common sense to a system that all too often failed the people it was set up to support.
This is an important step that will make a real difference to the lives of overcrowded families, children living in poverty, people with disabilities, and their carers.
I’m in no doubt that the need for social housing is greater than ever and who the beneficiaries of it should be. It’s not just about rising house prices and spiralling rents any more. It’s about the principles we live by in Camden, what makes us the borough we are and changes to the allocations system go right to the heart of these challenges, like giving priority to local people to help them stay in Camden.
The biggest threat to our diverse communities isn’t our allocations policy. It’s this government’s destructive housing policies. Their extension of “Right to Buy” could rob us of 40 per cent of the homes we place families in, and their latest attack on working families – known as “Pay to Stay” – would charge sky-high rents to tenants with a combined household income over £40,000. Anyone who lives in London knows this is far from a “high earner”, and seems counter-productive to encouraging people to work.
Taking our housing stock will not reduce the need for social housing; it continues to grow as the private rental market prices people out. This is a concerted effort by this government to threaten the fabric of our communities, by attacking the very existence of social housing. And they have no right to buy our social housing in Camden.
We need to protect our communities and fight for our homes.
