Shelter – Social housing survey!

shelter receives most of its funding from govt–why it is allowed to be a charity is beyond me-UK is dying because of quangoism

Alan, “a tad slanted against private landlords” is a commendably mild understatement. There are many leading questions steering respondents towards a ‘social housing good, private renting bad’ answer. Suffice it to say my answers will not fit the expected pattern of responses.

Reply to the comment left by Old Mrs Landlord at 15/05/2018 – 11:59
same here–i answered negatively–social housing costs private sector tax p[ayers billions a year–most rsl are conmen

Reply to the comment left by Old Mrs Landlord at 15/05/2018 – 11:59
My comments may also have not conformed to their expectations – love the opportunity to make comments!

Thanks Alan for the notification and link to questionnaire. Agree some questions biased against PRS although they are cleaver not to be specific, so have also responded with what I feel is a fair view.

I replied too, hopefully without being too biased because I’m a private landlord. I feel the social sector needs to:
1) Sweat its assets much harder. It should be working with private developers to redevelop many of its estates, dramatically improving the housing quality and density, whilst also improving transport links and local facilities. The funding would be mainly raised “internally” through better use of land, selling some of it to developers who will co-build the redevelopment. This will be especially attractive to developers if such partnerships also relieves them of S106 social housing taxes on their other new-builds: it is crazy that almost all of the Government’s social housing policy and funding has been laid on the backs of the private housebuilders, as an incredibly harsh extra tax that goes a long way to explain the low housebuilding rates in this country.
2) End all tenancies longer than 1-3 years. People who can easily afford the rent should be asked to move on, or pay a full market rent. Under-occupied houses should be given to families, with the original residents moved to new flats or older houses that have been sub-divided.
3) build or convert many more HMOs, to provide some competition for the private sector, especially at the cheaper end where standards are lowest. It is ridiculous that single people under the age of 35 on benefits are restricted to just a room if they receive housing benefit, but the only people who provide rooms are HMO landlords in the PRS. More Social HMOs, with support services, would also help greatly with downsizing, and helping people who are progressing from homeless shelters into their own accommodation.

rsls are about profit