The wilful ignorance of politicians is lining landlords' pockets
|
Version 0 of 1. The Conservative promise of the right to buy housing association homes came at an opportune moment in the middle of the closest election in decades. It caused much frustration and hand-wringing among housing experts whose fears were roundly ignored. And how is their frustration greeted? With a blasting in the right-wing press. For all those who found themselves the target of that blistering attack, no doubt it still smarts, but I found the week-long drama more tiring than shocking. This process keeps repeating itself in a fruitless, Sisyphean exercise in policy-making; the cycle of argument and counter-argument is exhausting, and we’re right back on the treadmill again this week. It has emerged that councils are giving landlords as much as £4,000, which basically amount to bribes, to encourage them to house homeless people from the local authority. When caps to housing benefit were first proposed government ministers argued they were designed to bring down rents and save money on the welfare bill. Politicians and their advisers had concluded that the sheer number of housing benefit claimants was beginning to distort the entire private rental market, and something must be done. That the number of private renters requiring benefit support was rising was never in doubt, but in a time of housing crisis when demand is outstripping supply, landlords could pick and choose their tenants. Experts warned that landlords would simply refuse to house tenants who relied on reduced housing benefit, and now we see that they did. The result? Even more public funding is being used to cajole these same landlords to house council tenants again. Tower Hamlets is offering £2,500 for one-bed properties let for two years, and £4,000 for larger homes. In Westminster, there’s a £4,000 gift on offer. Landlords in Haringey and Barnet can expect up to £3,000 for a two-year deal. This is on top of their rental income, of course, and all just for the privilege of working with local government – something landlords were clamouring to do just months ago. Related: Councils pay private landlords up to £4,000 to house tenants Private landlords are holding our local authorities to ransom, and who can blame them? They are businesspeople first and foremost, and their duty is to their bottom line. When renting to families nominated by the council stopped making financial sense, they found other ways to recruit the tenants who did. So why is it that the same politicians who acknowledge the relationship between supply and demand in the rising cost of property for home buyers appear unable to grasp the full implications of that fact? The conclusion must be that there is a wilful ignorance over housing where ideology clashes with fact. Committing to a policy just because it is expedient can cost us all dearly. Yet the most important political landmarks in our history have been based, above all else, on a simple belief in what is right. That is the paradox of modern politics, and that is the hurdle that housing lobbyists have yet to clear. Sign up for your free Guardian Housing network newsletter with news and analysis sent direct to you every Friday. Follow us on Twitter: @GuardianHousing |