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CIH and Shelter at loggerheads over housing bill
A row has broken out between Shelter and the Chartered Institute of Housing over proposed Scottish legislation allowing landlords to discriminate on age in housing allocations.
Shelter Scotland wrote to housing minister Margaret Burgess on Thursday, asking her to remove a measure in the Housing (Scotland) Bill that lifts a bar on considering the age of an applicant when allocating social housing.
Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland, said lifting the prohibition would unfairly penalise ‘vulnerable groups and young people in particular’.
Today, the CIH and housing bodies including the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities said Shelter’s claim was ‘not backed up by evidence’.
In a letter to Ms Burgess appealing to her to retain the measure in ‘section 5’ of the bill, the housing bodies said landlords would only use the measure in ‘very specific situations’.
‘One example which social landlords have cited to us [where the measure could be used] is where there may be a disproportionate concentration of younger, inexperienced, complex or vulnerable households within close proximity to each other and where an interim policy is needed to achieve a more sustainable balance of age groups in housing need,’ the letter said.
David Bookbinder, head of policy and public affairs at CIH Scotland, called Shelter Scotland’s claim ‘simply disingenuous’.
