Britain does not have a housing crisis but an empty homes crisis

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Thousands of homes in Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire left empty, the Gazette reported on November 24, 2017.

Despite concerns about the lack of housing in the area, almost 3,000 homes are registered as being unoccupied and while the number of empty homes has fallen since 2010 Gloucestershire saw a rise over the last 12 months. Figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government show that there were 2,464 homes in Gloucestershire left empty and 321 in South Gloucestershire.

Well, that is just in Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire. It can be safely assumed that the figure in other counties, towns and cities across Britain would, no doubt, show similar numbers or much greater ones even as, no doubt, would be the case in London.

Britain does not have any housing shortage. The crisis is that of homes being left empty, and that for a number of reasons, but none of the reasons is valid enough when we have homeless individuals and families.

If, in fact, all the homes left empty for the various nefarious reasons would be added together we could, as has been estimated some time back, house our homeless population several times over and that is not even counting those properties that, with very little work, could be turned into perfectly good homes.

There is no need to build more homes; we already have them. We just need to occupy them.

There will, without doubt, now people be popping up out of the woodwork saying that that may all be fine and good but that those homes are in the wrong place and not where people work or want to work.

But that would be rather disingenuous for where the new “affordable” homes are to be build jobs are also not close at hand either in the main which, again, means commuting. That is also true for the proposed – though it has gone rather quiet about it – new garden cities, once called eco-towns.

We do not need such, whether eco-towns or the other, but we need to refurbish old homes and building to be suitable and we must bring the empty homes back into use. If need be those homes – and other suitable buildings for self-conversion – must be taken over by whatever organization or the state and have people put in them.

Alas, we could not possibly do that as that would not give the Tory donor house builders any profits and that just cannot be allowed to happen now, can it. And no profits for the Tory donors would mean fewer and lower donations to the Tories.

© 2017 

Charity builds "Lego-style houses" to tackle UK rent crisis

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

One of Britain's leading housing charities has come up with a novel way to beat London's housing crisis, in the form of “Lego-style” housing. Though they say housing crisis and the government does neither London nor the UK has a housing crisis, nor a homelessness one; all the UK has is an empty homes crisis.

Y: Cube, developed by the YMCA, offer 26 square meter prefabricated “studio” apartments that can be easily built almost anywhere.

According to the charity, the housing blocks provide everything from clean water to central heating, making them the ideal home for people working in London unable to afford the capital's rent. And that problem was created by one of the previous government, namely the Thatcher regime, when it more-or-less forced the councils to divest themselves off their social housing stocks.

One unit costs around £30,000 to build, and are let for £140 per week, making the units 65 percent cheaper than standard London accommodation.

The units were developed with Roger Strik Harbour, an award winning architect partially owned by Baron Rogers of Riverside, which specializes in functionalist structures.

Closely resembling the red hotels found on a Monopoly board, the units can also be stacked in a tower in order to save space and fit more residents.

“The average disposable income going on housing now is going on fifty percent. People are having to make huge compromises, they're having to share flats, share houses. Ideally, what people want is their own front door,” YMCA Director of Housing and Development Andy Readfearn has said.

“So there's a massive, massive gap and what we want to do is begin to address that, challenge the sector to provide choice and give hope to people.

“You have to innovate, you have to bring different people to the market. Y: Cube is our solution. This allows us to procure accommodation quickly, we can keep these rents really low so everyone benefits,” he added.

Such solutions come as homelessness is spiking across the UK.

According to the Combined Homeless and Information Network (CHAIN) database, 112,070 people declared themselves homeless between 2013-14, while the number of people sleeping rough in London grew by more than 70 percent, to 6,437 people.

Other reports suggest one in three Britons are just one pay check away from homelessness, as wages at the bottom end of the economy continue to stagnate.

Shelter, another homeless support charity, estimate more than 90,000 children in the UK are without a permanent home, the highest number of homeless children since 2011.

The biggest scandal, as already mentioned, is the fact, though, that there are homeless people, individuals and families, while at the same there are thousands upon thousands of empty homes, not to speak of other empty properties that groups of people would be happy to turn into homes themselves, that are allowed to decay, that are not even on the empty homes register as they are waiting for the right time and price to be sold off to developers, including and especially council homes.

The government, and, I am afraid to say, housing charities in the main, are harping on about the lack of (affordable) homes and the need to, therefore, destroy the countryside to build more homes.

The truth of the matter is, however, that not more new homes are needed but old ones need to be made habitable and rented out to those that need them. But there is no money in for the boys and no backhanders for the politicians, central and local alike, and civil servants.

Only new home building attracts tax relief from government for the home builders and thus it is why also self-build is rather discouraged in Britain and it all has to be built by building companies. Self-builders also don't give nice little handouts to politicians and civil servants, whether in money or in kind; companies, on the other hand, who are being awarded, or hope to be awarded, such government contract, on the other hand, do give such incentives to those “helping” them.

A change of system is needed in order for all to live in decent homes that they can afford.

© 2014

Homelessness and empty homes in the UK

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

We are being told time and again by the British government and the building industry in this country that there are not enough (affordable) homes in Britain and hence that this is the fact that there are so many visible and even more invisible homeless individuals and families.

This, however, is about as far removed from the truth as Toronto being the capital of Canada or Melbourne that of Australia.

Fact is that there are a multiple number of empty homes to homeless in Britain both in the public and in the private (rented) sector.

Many of those homes, in the public domain, however, are not even on the “empty homes register” as they are earmarked for “redevelopment”, as in the case of the Ocean Estate in Stepney (London), which has been in this limbo state for a decade or more already, or, as in the case of the Robin Hood Estate in Poplar (also in London and in the same Borough, namely Tower Hamlets), for destruction.

In the case of the latter it is about money as the site is prime real estate for development just on the border of original Docklands and now, in fact, slap bang in the middle of it.

In neither area did or do the residents want to move but were and are being forced to. Relocation has been well out of the area, and out of the borough, thereby breaking up long-established communities, many working class communities. But, then again, the latter is the very aim in this, namely the social cleansing of London and here especially areas close to the Docklands.

As far as empty homes in Britain are concerned there are enough to house all of Britain's and all of Eire's homeless with room to spare.

Thus the claim that Britain has a housing shortage and crisis is absolute baloney as there are masses of empty homes and if we would look at other empty buildings that could be used as good and decent homes with but a little conversion we could house more homeless folks still.

However, when this government, and those before, makes the statements about housing shortage it is not really talking about homes for rent even though the speeches may include reference to this but about homes to own and of creating a nice little earner for politicians' cronies in the house building industry.

Why else is it then that, when the talk was about the building of eco-towns under the previous Labour administration, self-build was a big No! No! And those “towns” were to be built by the likes of Laing, Barratt Homes, Wimpy, and one or two other large players in the game? Because the brown envelope division had been working overtime.

If government would just have the political will to do something about homelessness and supposed housing shortages then it would refurbish – or enable residents to refurbish – places such as the Ocean and Robin Hood Estates and permit people to take over derelict objects such as old hospitals, military bases, etc. to turn into homes and communities. The Christiania Community in Copenhagen, Denmark, was an abandoned army base taken over by Hippies and it turned into a real great community and even a tourist attraction.

But, the UK government is not about even to remotely consider such a thing. There is far too much money to be gotten from letting their cronies build homes (on such sites) that the people cannot afford and thus perpetuate homelessness.

We do not need a new government; we need a new system.

© 2013