Ensuring adequate housing for everyone
The right for everyone to have a home is enshrined in law and yet for millions of people throughout Britain, housing is unavailable or unreasonable to occupy.
Throughout the country, thousands of people have nowhere to live. Many more people are living in unacceptable housing conditions. Everyday numerous households are facing eviction, while millions of people cannot afford to buy or rent a home. Appropriate accommodation is out of reach for too many individuals.
Social housing offers people good quality accommodation, with secure tenancies, at affordable rates. And yet fewer people are being allocated of social rented housing and very little new social rented housing is being built. The high demand for social housing and the limited supply is further evidence of the housing inequalities prevailing throughout the country.
Unsuitable housing conditions causes a person to suffer significant hardships, such as ill health due to property unfitness, or hunger and a lack of utilities due high housing costs. Homelessness can result in early mortality, a lack of self-worth and discrimination. Countless of people occupy a home in intolerable circumstances with a perpetrator of domestic abuse.
The lack of adequate housing is having a hugely detrimental impact on the welfare of children. A child living in unsafe housing causes them to become unwell and limits their ability to achieve their potential.
Local authorities constantly work hard to help people in housing need, by providing advice and assistance to find a home and protect them from having to live in hazardous living conditions. Housing associations have always offered decent homes and helped to create thriving communities. Voluntary organisations provide vital support to help people sustain their accommodation and advise people on their housing rights. Other organisations provide much needed investment and technology, which helps increase the supply of homes, or enable the use of software as a service to deliver efficiencies. Despite all of these outstanding efforts, too many people do not have adequate housing.
Local government, housing associations and voluntary organisations have demonstrated throughout the coronavirus outbreak, their adaptability and resilience. These organisations have swiftly amended the way they provide services, to continue providing essential information, advice and assistance that will help people to stay at home.
The current coronavirus outbreak has emphasised the housing inequalities that are widespread throughout the UK. The requirement to stay at home is impossible for anyone who homeless. For a person living with a perpetrator of domestic abuse, the request to stay at home means being subjected to further mistreatment. For a household living in unfit or overcrowded housing, the request to stay at home means having to spend even more time in an intolerable conditions.
National governments have published new guidance and allocated additional funding to help households affected the coronavirus outbreak. Meanwhile local authorities, housing associations and voluntary organisations have offered assistance to temporarily help people whoare homeless get somewhere safe to stay. Victims of domestic abuse have been reassured that refuges remain open for any who needs to flee their home. A range of short-term measures have also been introduced to help people who are at risk of eviction or find their housing costs to be unaffordable. These progressive policies have gone some way to tackle the housing inequalities prevalent throughout the country. However none of these interventions are guaranteed to be extended beyond the coronavirus outbreak.
The forward-thinking strategies adopted to help people stay at home and stay safe during the coronavirus outbreak, provide an ideal foundation to once and for all tackle housing inequalities. A large scale programme to secure suitable housing for all would provide huge economic and social benefits to the whole country.
Neil Morland & Co is determined to make sure everyone has an reasonable and affordable home to live in. That's why we spend our time carrying out research and creating policies that tackle housing inequalities. Our work improves the understand neighbourhood housing needs, prevents homelessness, makes best use of social rented housing, ensures the right to support is available for those who need it. We're collaborating with innovative organisations to source investment and properties to increase the supply of affordable housing, deliver quality and tailored housing advice directly to people in housing need, and provide smarter self-service and configureable homelessness software solutions.
We’re working with national and local governments, housing associations, voluntary organisations and others to ensure everyone has adequate housing.
