Helping Lorraine

On Friday David Cameron and I met Lorraine, a mother with a one year old baby living in overcrowded conditions with her own mum. Every day she has to walk past empty homes that she would love to get the chance to live in – the anger and frustration was obvious – and yet the government have let the social housing waiting list hit a record peak without addressing hundreds of thousands of empty homes.

The current economic crisis is pushing house repossessions to record levels and the number of families languishing on social housing waiting lists has reached a record 1.8 million, nearly double that of 1997. There are 300,000 children living in temporary accommodation and homelessness is on the rise.

These trends will only get worse as the recession deepens and repossessions rise.

As I outlined in an opposition day debate in the House of Commons last week, less new social rent housing has been built in a decade of boom under Labour (1997-2007) - than in any year under the whole of the previous Conservative administration (1979-1997).

At the same time, as a result of an astonishing lack of ambition from the government and years of John Prescott’s planning rules, nearly 1 million properties lie empty across the UK (800,000 in England) – a shocking waste of much-needed potential housing.

Local authorities already take the lead on bringing empty homes back into use and in the current climate it is up to us to give them an added reason to engage with housing associations on this issue. By allowing empty existing homes brought back into use to count towards new supply in performance indicators, councils will have increased reasons to take action.

Of course, there will be some empty properties that do not quite meet the standards of new build social housing but we cannot be short-sighted about this - the implementation of special temporary measures to allow the use of these homes is crucial to helping families currently living in far more unsuitable conditions.

Importantly we would also give housing associations the flexibility to allocate the properties acquired as they see fit so they will not be bound by the overarching national criteria for assessment of need, but will be allowed to exercise their own nomination rights. The Empty Property Rescue scheme is therefore likely to provide a way of helping those who might not otherwise currently benefit from affordable housing while creating churn in an otherwise static area of housing.

With the situation deteriorating it’s time to take innovative and original ideas and work with housing associations and local authorities to help Lorraine and the millions of other families into the homes they need.

Inside Housing is running a campaign calling for empty homes to be brought back into use. For more information see our campaign page. You can express your support by signing our petition or emailing emptypromise@insidehousing.co.uk