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What about younger people’s social housing needs?
Jahanara Rajkoomar, director of customer services at Gateway Housing Association, calls for the government’s future plans to focus on younger people’s housing challenges too
Jahanara is the Director of Customer Services at Gateway Housing Association with a track record of delivering strategic and innovative ...more
During his first Labour Party Conference speech as prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer announced changes to social housing allocations for veterans, domestic abuse victims and care leavers. As part of the proposed plans, current processes that require these groups to prove they have a local connection to the area they are applying to live in will be scrapped. Local councils will also be asked to prioritise these groups’ social housing needs.
These changes are to be welcomed and will undoubtedly remove some of the obstacles veterans, domestic abuse victims and care leavers across the UK currently experience when seeking social housing provision.
But what about the younger people within our communities? They have social housing needs, too.
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Generally speaking, here in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, there are two main groups of younger people.
There are those from a disadvantaged background, who may have care or wider needs, and may be receiving, or in need of, some form of support.
Then there’s the group of younger people who may have just moved to London, are trying to find somewhere suitable to live, and are discovering they have limited options available to them.
“What they really need is a helping hand to break free from being stuck in the loop of renting privately”
In terms of viable options, there’s sofa-surfing, house-sharing and multi-generational living at home, which are far from ideal.
Younger people can also rent from a private landlord, but as has been reported widely, these properties are often poor quality and expensive, swallowing up salaries every month and preventing tenants from saving towards getting their foot on the property ladder. However, because they are earning and do not have any wider needs, their housing need unfortunately isn’t necessarily classed as being high.
These younger people are the unseen group. There’s an expectation that they can sort themselves out, but what they really need is a helping hand to break free from being stuck in the loop of renting privately.
It would be great if measures specifically aimed at helping these younger people live in industry-compliant homes, with secure tenures they can afford, and make buying their own place one day more of a reality than a pipe dream, could be implemented to help them overcome this key challenge.
It has been really positive to see initiatives such as the Lifetime ISA, Help to Buy, Right to Buy and shared ownership being implemented. However, they tend to be based on the assumption that younger people have the support of the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’. What’s more, they also prevent younger people from being out-and-out property owners.
These younger people may be able to help themselves a little bit, but they can’t always help themselves all of the way. Because of this, they are trapped in living situations they are unable to get out of, potentially racking up debt, experiencing living conditions of a poor standard and paying money every month for properties they will never ultimately own.
“Now is the time to start clearly seeing this unseen group of younger people and factoring them in as part of the housing allocation process alongside veterans, domestic abuse victims and care leavers”
There’s a lot of work to be done to rectify this issue. Now is the time to start clearly seeing this unseen group of younger people and factoring them in as part of the housing allocation process alongside veterans, domestic abuse victims and care leavers.
Younger people have been overlooked for far too long. They deserve to be recognised and have access to affordable, good-quality housing.
Hopefully, the social housing sector will be given some form of additional funding to provide more homes for younger people and help them do what many of them have always wanted to do: stand on their own two feet.
Jahanara Rajkoomar, director of customer services, Gateway Housing Association
