A view from housing: What would the draft Wales Bill mean in practice?

The draft Wales Bill, published last week, caused all the usual political rumblings. Amid all the talk of insults to Wales, Whitehall being a bad loser, and the looming threat of a constitutional crisis, there doesn’t seem to have been too much discussion about the practical implications of the proposals within the Bill.

A devolved legislature with extensive powers is now clearly the settled will of the people of Wales.

And while technical debates about constitutional mechanisms and legislation probably won’t be a topic of conversation as the people of Wales eat their tea tonight; job security, health, and housing probably will.

What will the draft Wales Bill mean to, for example, a social housing tenant in Bangor? Or a homeless woman in a hostel in Cardiff?

Housing is probably the area of devolved policy where we have seen Wales and England diverge most over the last 16 years.

Not only is devolved government the settled will of the people of Wales, but a vastly different approach to housing (amongst other things) is too.

In Wales, we have had successive governments committed to investment in social housing, through Social Housing Grant, which has allowed the housing association sector to provide an average of 2,000 additional homes each year. At the same time, Welsh Government supports a ‘Help to Buy’ product which allows better access to home ownership. Across the border, UK Government pursues home ownership as the be all and end all of housing policy, with funding for social housing sacrificed for a loosely defined ‘affordable’ home ownership offer.

Devolution has meant that the housing association sector in Wales has had an opportunity to define itself very differently from our friends across the border.

The Right to Buy for housing associations and the 1% cut to social rents will have a profound impact on affordable housing as we know it in England. In Wales, there are proposals afoot to abolish Right to Buy completely, and we hope that Welsh Government won’t follow the same path on rents – a path now roundly rejected by housing providers and tenants groups.

The draft Wales Bill threatens the ability to legislate for these policy differences – voted for by the people of Wales.

Welsh Government suggests that the Housing Act, which took action on the scourge of empty homes, created new models of co-operative housing and takes action to improve the private sector, would not have been within the competence of the Assembly. This is inexplicable.

It is not a leap to suggest that the proposals in their current form take us back to the dark days of the Legislative Competence Order (LCO). Those of us schooled in the history of LCOs, or indeed housing policy, will know that this didn’t work.

The Reserved Powers model this Bill seeks to enshrine should be about simplicity and clarity. For legislators and voters.

In its present form, the Bill adds to the confusion - not only threatening to slam the brakes on the devolution journey, but threatening to halt the significant progress Wales has made as a nation in a number of areas. For housing, devolution hasn’t just allowed us to do things differently; it has allowed us to better meet the needs, and the will, of the people of Wales.



Aaron Hill
Public Affairs Manager, Community Housing Cymru Group

This blog post was originally published on IWA's Click on Wales site. You can read it here. 

Don’t the next generation deserve a home to call their own?

It's my children's future and the future generations to come that I fear for. I don't think my children will be able to access good quality homes or be in a position to get on the property ladder. I’m looking to make changes to my home life to prepare myself for my children's future to be spent with me for some time.

At 17, I started my journey of becoming a social housing tenant and it allowed me to put down roots. Having that security has allowed me to experience positive life goals and made me the person I am today. The stability of housing and having my family close by opened up employment opportunities and I even attended university.

Being housed in social housing allowed me to build roots in my community. I was able to access good education and healthcare links for my children.

The generation after me wasn’t so lucky. Social housing in Wales started to fall and my sister has suffered with the lack of social housing. She has been waiting 9 years for social housing for her and her son. After being housed in 3 hostels and moving into private rented accommodation, her and her 8 year old have had to move 11 times. He has never felt part of a community - he settles in a school and then has to move. This has a knock on effect on his social skills and learning capacity. Once they start to build connections within their community, it's taken away again.

Don't my sister and nephew deserve the same experience I had a generation ago? One that enabled me to build my future in social housing in Wales?

That’s why I attended the Homes for Britain rally. Help us to end the housing crisis within a generation.


Adelle, Cadwyn HA tenant and board member

Faith in Affordable Housing - a growing relationship of trust and partnership

When I was appointed in 2013 to launch the ‘Faith in Affordable Housing’ project in Wales, I couldn’t have been happier. The role brought together the two great passions in my life: my Christian faith and my love for housing. I had visions of me breezing into the offices of senior clergy and them clamouring to hand over surplus church land and redundant buildings to help the poor and house the needy.

One of the first things I did was ask a friend who works as a Director for a large Welsh housing association to tell me his experience of working with churches. To say his response burst my bubble would be somewhat of an understatement. “Churches?” he said. “Pah! They all want top dollar for everything”.

I learned very quickly that although churches and the housing sector are built on very similar foundations e.g. fairness, justice and a desire to help those in need, their relationship was purely commercial with little understanding of each other.

Churches were viewed as not very helpful and the housing sector was viewed as a speculative developer. In fairness to churches, they sought to get the best return for land because they were tied by their interpretation of charity law and were directing the money into other avenues to help those in need.

The challenge for the FIAH project has been to help churches see housing as part of its mission. This has meant showing the difference a good quality home makes to health, education, well being and life chances. As Housing Justice is the national voice in the UK for Christian action on housing and homelessness, this gave us an open door to challenge churches into doing more to be part of the solution to housing need. It also meant acting as an impartial bridge between the church and the housing sector.

Two years later and a number of church sites have been sold to housing associations across Wales through the FIAH project. Work has recently begun near Merthyr Tydfil to build 13 new homes and an old derelict chapel in Bridgend will shortly be demolished to build Move-On accommodation for single young adults. As I write this, discussions are progressing on 25 sites across Wales, many of which involve partnerships between churches and RSLs to jointly deliver community facilities in addition to homes.

Two of the main Christian denominations in Wales have formally adopted policies on land disposal for affordable housing, including below market sale if need be. Hopefully more denominations will follow soon.

So what’s made the difference? I think simply getting the church and the housing sector around the table, then letting them talk to each other. It’s been great to witness the epiphany moment that actually we have really similar aims and values. The result is a growing relationship of trust and partnership between the church and the housing sector in Wales that will benefit generations of people to come. 

Sharon Lee works for the charity Housing Justice and co-ordinates the Faith in Affordable Housing project in Wales, which aims to see surplus church land and buildings released for housing. She is also a board member of Wales & West Housing.

Welsh contingent fly the flag in Westminster

1 bus, 50 Welsh housing enthusiasts, 20 Welsh MPs, 1 manifesto and 3 specific asks….

It was a long day for a delegation from Wales led by Community Housing Cymru and the Chartered Institute of Housing Cymru including staff, board members and tenants who converged on London to meet Welsh MPs in Westminster at a reception hosted by David TC Davies, the Conservative MP for Monmouthshire, before making the short walk across College Green to attend the biggest housing rally in a generation.

It was a productive meeting with 20 MPs from across Wales who were given the opportunity to hear first hand the housing association success story in Wales and, in particular, the more than bricks and mortar message. It also gave us the opportunity to spell out how they can enable us to deliver even more for their constituencies. MPs were particularly interested to learn that Wales will not have the same flexibility afforded to Scotland and Northern Ireland to enable the housing element of Universal Credit to continue to be paid direct to landlords, and the impact that this potentially has on tenants and housing associations. We will be following this up with all parties ahead of the General Election.

As for the rally, there was a huge buzz around the venue and Westminster as rally attendees converged from right across the country. 

2,300 people, a packed Methodist Central Hall in Westminster, and possibly the most eclectic selection of speakers gathered on the same platform. From Nigel Farage to Ken Loach to Grant Shapps to Owen Jones and Frances O’Grady, leader of the TUC, speakers from across the political spectrum pledged their support to the Homes for Britain campaign and committed to end the housing crisis within a generation. 

The event attracted significant media attention and had huge social media impact both in the run-up, during and after the event. As an exercise designed to amplify the message of the housing crisis before the short election campaign, it was undoubtedly a success. Perhaps more significantly, the consensus amongst the housing associations involved is that for the first time in decades, the sector feels and is behaving like a movement again.

Homes for Britain has offered the opportunity to raise the profile of housing issues across the UK. Our main focus now, with housing devolved to Welsh Government is our own Assembly Elections in May 2016. We are already talking with potential partners about how we can translate some of the successes of Homes for Britain into a vehicle to campaign for housing to feature prominently as an election issue in Wales.

Housing has found its voice across the UK and our challenge now is to build on this success, amplify our voice right across Wales and ensure that housing is a key election issue being discussed on the doorstep by our politicians and members of the public in 12 months time.

Are you ready for the challenge?

Stuart Ropke
CHC Group Chief Executive 

You can view the rest of the photos from the day in our Facebook album. 

Out of Stock: The Future of Right to Buy in Wales

Right to Buy, introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1980, has helped thousands of people in Wales to buy their social homes at a discounted rate. However, this has come at a detriment to Wales’ struggling social housing stock. Over the lifetime of Right to Buy, more than 130,000 homes have been bought at a discount and removed from the social sector altogether, accounting for a 45% decrease in the number of social homes across Wales. This is something Wales simply cannot afford. Affordable and social housing are a vital safety net for the most vulnerable in our society and, with Wales being disproportionately affected by welfare changes, this safety net is now more important than ever. Right to Buy has contributed to a lack of availability and to the backlog of people languishing on housing lists across Wales.

The Community Housing Cymru Group welcomes Labour’s proposal to end Right to Buy, should they win the next Welsh Assembly elections, with the reservation that this measure is like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted – we have an affordable housing crisis in Wales and ending Right to Buy will not build more homes. Ending Right to Buy needs to be part of a bigger approach to tackling Wales’ chronic housing problem including more use of public land for affordable housing development, more planning freedoms and a sustained programme of investment. The Legislative Competence Order already provides Welsh Ministers with the power to allow councils to refuse Right to Buy requests in areas where there is high demand for affordable housing, as has been done in Carmarthenshire. CHC has signed a Housing Supply Pact with the Welsh Government and will continue to work with members and Welsh Government to deliver the affordable housing target of 10,000 homes by 2016 to help ease the pressures of low housing stock and a backlog of unmet housing need.

To own a home is a great ambition but to have a home to go to is essential – ending Right to Buy will help meet the needs of many but it is only a small part of what is a big problem.

The Welsh Government has opened a consultation on the future of Right to Buy and Right to Acquire which will close on 16th April 2015.

Liam Townsend
Political and Administration Assistant

#HousingDay - Tanya's story

In 2001, Tanya MacGregor was a domestic abuse victim and homeless mother-of three. However, today, she is living proof of how the social housing sector can transform lives for the better.

Tanya has gone full circle from being homeless and in the depths of domestic abuse despair to gaining a degree and winning numerous awards. She is now giving back and providing life-changing help to others via the Your Benefits Are Changing (YBAC) campaign run by Community Housing Cymru (CHC).

She said: “It’s amazing the opportunities that social housing has provided for me and my family. I went from being homeless with a young family to finding my way to getting a home, which in turn allowed me to access services, health, a degree, a job. None of this would have been possible without social housing.

“The effect on my family has been transformational. I now work full time helping others to get their houses in order as a money adviser with YBAC. My eldest son completed a degree, my daughter went to college and now works full time, and my youngest is now doing his GCSEs. I couldn’t have even imagined all this a decade ago.

“Without a home, you can’t get access to anything - you don’t exist. Social housing has given me and my family the chance to lay down roots and better ourselves.

“Social housing is a comfort blanket – it allows people access to affordable rents and the chance to re-train and go out to work. We would not have achieved what we have as a family without social housing; we would have been pushed from pillar to post. Social housing has been our safety net and I hope as many people can benefit from it in the same ways that my family and I have.”

More than a decade ago, the married mother became homeless after deciding she could no longer put up with the beatings she was enduring from her then husband.

Overnight, she went from being a homeowner to homeless, with nothing more than a full carrier bag to her name. With her three young children - aged nine, six and five-months old - she took refuge in a women’s hostel.

Tanya spent a year classed as homeless in the hostel run by Cardiff Women’s Aid and owned by United Welsh. During this time she was able to re-build her confidence and take stock of her situation, all the while making friends with fellow victims of domestic abuse staying at the hostel.

Tanya's time in the hostel also started her journey into adult learning with her undertaking a basic skills and IT course along with a Maths course, initially so that she ‘could help her young son with his homework’.

Shortly afterwards, she joined the Board of Management as a committee member/service user and got involved in a Tenant Empowerment Grant scheme. In doing this, Tanya began her ‘giving back’ - using her own experiences to help others suffering as a result of pre or post domestic abuse issues. The tenant service user group offered friendship, craft and DIY classes. It also gave women mental support and well as technical and practical skills, advice, help and, just like Tanya - hope for the future.

Tanya remained a board member for four years, her own experience being a remedy to help others and herself on the road to recovery.

Tanya and the group’s efforts were praised and the model won an award for Good Practice by the Welsh Assembly.

Around this time, Tanya’s confidence and circumstances had improved greatly. She and her young family were rehoused by Cardiff Council and she enrolled on a Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) and Policy Degree at UWIC. During her first day she spotted two other familiar faces in the class. Recalling that time, she said: “Two of my classmates were ladies from the refuge and now they both work in the housing sector, like me.”

On the back of her adult learning success, Tanya won the All Wales Housing Manager Local Council Academic Achievement Award, the 2008 CIH Welsh Student of the Year and the 2008 CIH National Student of the Year Award, which lead to her taking part in the prestigious Tri-Countries Conference in Canada.

In 2008-2009, Tanya worked at Rhondda Housing Association as Tenancy Support Officer. Her housing degree dissertation was about Older People in Extra Care which she did for another housing association - Linc Cymru. The subject theme became particularly poignant in 2009 when Tanya decided to take a break from work to care for her parents who were both suffering with Alzheimer’s disease.

Tanya aged 48, said: “It was a difficult time, but as my dissertation was about the same issues I felt I was equipped to fight for the rights of my parents and sort everything out. I was juggling the care of my parents and the care of my young family.”

In 2010 Tanya decided she wanted to get back into work on a part time basis and gained a six month position with Cadwyn Housing through the job centre scheme, Go Wales, doing admin for the HA Tenant Participation and Financial Inclusion arm.

Tanya said: “I was feeling down about my circumstances with my parents’ illness and going back to work gave me renewed confidence. This was down to the organisation's managers and staff and support for my situation. They had fundraising events for Alzheimer’s society.”

From 2011 until today, Tanya has been employed as one of the YBAC Money Advisors at CHC, set up to help distribute information about Welfare Reform.

Courtesy of CHC, she gained a MA qualification from Staffordshire University.

Tanya completed an evaluation for Rhondda Housing Association on the Financial Inclusion project. Also, as part of YBAC, Tanya has provided advice sessions for a number of housing associations and attended CHC’s YBAC campaigning events on behalf of tenants.

Tanya said: “Housing Associations are not in the business of evicting people so the work I do is helping people to get their house/home finances in order. I know only too well how hard it can be. I’ve been there and the advice I was given was invaluable, so I hope I can repay the favour by helping others.”


Tanya MacGregor
Money Adviser, CHC

#HousingDay - Jemma's story

My name is Jemma Bere and I am a tenant and tenant board member of Wales & West Housing. I work for CREW Regeneration Wales, part of the CHC Group.

In 2001, my mother died in a car accident whilst in Andalucia, Spain. After the funeral in the UK, my brother and sister returned to Spain with their father where they began school. However, their father turned to drink and eventually became unable to care for them and in 2005, I was told that the children had been taken into the care of social services in Almeria. I went to Spain immediately to see them but there was very little I could do. After a couple of months, I received a phone call from the Spanish authorities who told me that unless someone in the family could take on the children, they would have to be put into foster care. They could give me no guarantees that they would be kept together or that I could visit them so I made the decision right there that I would look after them. I was 24 and had just graduated from university.

It took me two years to navigate the bureaucracy and go through the adoption process to get the children to the UK but I was determined and a few key friends and organisations took sympathy to my cause. On the 15th July 2008, I brought the children back to the UK and they were reunited with their nan and brother who they hadn't seen in 7 years. I had no house and no capital, just the conviction that it was the best decision I had ever made. We were given emergency housing at first but were offered a permanent house by Wales & West after a couple of months. I can't describe the feeling of security that that brought to us. Used to being shuffled around, the children only believed that they were here to stay when we got the house and the change in them from that point was amazing to see.

The children spoke little English at first and we lived on benefits whilst we were finding our feet. The rarity of the situation made the application process difficult and we lived on £90 a week child tax credit for the initial 6 months. I learnt to make everything from scratch, even shampoo! It was a hard time but the safety nets afforded to us through social housing and welfare gave us enough security to start to build a life together.

I'm very proud to be living in social housing and a tenant board member of my housing association. I am delighted at the opportunity to give back and help to make a difference in the sector.

I'm supporting Housing Day because it offered me a lifeline when I thought I had none. I don't want to think about where the children and I would have been without the opportunity for a affordable home. As a social housing tenant, I know my rent money goes toward others in need and providing them with the opportunity to build their lives just like it did with me. 

Jemma Bere
Regeneration Officer (CREW Regeneration Wales) and Wales & West Housing tenant

Read more about Jemma's story here.

Why Council Homes Chat...?

In recent years there has been a torrent of misleading, sensationalist reporting in both the print media and on television programmes. Recent examples include ‘Benefits Street’ and ‘How to get a Council House’. Each of these programmes had its own special brand of reporting, which failed to depict a balanced and thoughtful picture. Instead they opted for heavily biased journalism aimed at boosting ratings and creating a ‘moral panic’ amongst its viewers.

If the TV programmes and skewed reporting amongst the print media weren’t bad enough, the Twitter hashtags created by such programmes are quite frankly scary! You only have to look at the ‘twitter storm’ created by Wednesday’s ‘How to get a Council house’ to get a glimpse of the hateful bigotry and at best massively ill-informed views created by such media reporting. We’ve had enough….

Growing up within council housing gave me the best possible start I could have in life. It was safe, secure and enabled my family to feel part of a community. It meant I had a happy and healthy childhood and I still hold great memories and fondness of my time there. Likewise, as a housing professional, I get to see how social housing brings out the best in people. Having a home shouldn’t be dependent on someone’s income or ability to pay.

Put simply, a house is someone’s home, where they can grow roots, build a community and have a family. A stable home provides people with a solid foundation for good health, employment and happiness. The tenure of the home shouldn’t matter. It is only right to have a good menu of tenures to suit different needs; however, this does not make one more important or desirable than the others. This is why it’s essential to start challenging the stereotypes created by the mainstream media.

Council Homes Chat was set up to challenge the status quo and to act as a platform for people to tell their stories, especially the ones that the media refuses to report because, dare I say it… they’re positive! The benefits of good, decent and secure housing have been well-documented, both in terms of an individual's health and wellbeing, but also to society as a whole. These are the stories that we need to start telling…

How can you get involved?

If you believe in the right to have a safe, secure and decent home regardless of income and would like to get involved in our campaign, please get in touch. You can find out more about the campaign on the Council Homes Chat blog.


Cheryl Tracy
Community Investment Coordinator, Monmouthshire Housing

‘Council Homes Chat’ is managed and coordinated by Cheryl Tracy, Elisa Faulkner and Michala Rudman and you can get in touch with them on Twitter: Council Homes Chat.

Instagram that breeze block!

I’ve been having fun with Cadwyn’s newest development, a regeneration project for the local shopping parade in Pentrebane, a close knit residential area in the west of Cardiff. As well as setting up the targeted recruitment and training for the site, I’ve been experimenting with using social media and a blog to bring the development to life for local people.

I had the idea for this after my kids were fortunate enough to have a brand new school built for them last year. They were pretty excited about this, but apart from one site visit and the obligatory Ivor Goodsite poster homework assignment, they ended up not really feeling involved in the project at all. This didn’t stop them bombarding me with questions every time we walked past - questions about what was happening with that machine, and why, and how would they get the roof on, and how many bricks did I think would be needed all together, and did the person driving the digger need a special licence, and on, and on, and on….Some of these questions I could (sort of) answer, but for most of them I did what any self respecting parent does these days and relied on Google, and the site project’s occasional twitter feed.

This got me thinking that while there are obvious limitations to opening up actual building sites – health and safety, time, logistics, to name just a few – the internet and social media offers a big opportunity to do the next best thing by acting as a window onto the development. What I didn’t realise then was that I’d have the chance to put my money where my mouth is a year or so later…so, based on my modus operandi of assuming that anything is allowed unless someone specifically tells me it’s not, I’ve been busy getting Beechley Drive a social media identity!

This is what I’ve done so far…

Beechley Drive Blog - the development brief from Cardiff Council included a requirement to set up a website to keep the local community informed of site developments. I really wanted this to be more than a static website with a one way flow of information that nobody would ever return to a second time, so I’ve worked with Cadwyn’s Web Officer to set up a simple WordPress site, which has the required corporate boxes ticked (logos of funding partners, project timeline) but which also offers a more friendly voice to the development, with blog posts written in a (hopefully) chatty and informative tone. I’ve left comments enabled throughout the site in the hope that folk will interact with the site and suggest/contribute further content, and I’m also talking to the local schools about the children taking over parts of the blog, perhaps posting interviews with longtime residents, or other class projects related to the site.

Beechley Drive Facebook Page - the Pentrebane community already makes good use of Facebook with various groups set up for local residents, school parents, Communities First projects and so forth, so I am hoping that a FB page will offer a quick and easy window onto the development, but also of course be a forum for local residents to ask questions, raise concerns, and make suggestions. It’s also an easy way of sharing blog posts and project photos, and driving engagement to the website itself.

Beechley Drive Twitter Feed - I’m envisaging that most of the interaction with local residents will be via Facebook, because of the strong groups that already exist there. However, using Twitter gives us an opportunity to talk with people who don’t use Facebook – and also I think a more effective way of sharing what we’re doing with stakeholders and organisations who are not necessarily local.

Beechley Drive Instagram Feed - the Instagram feed itself does not have much traction; however, I’m using it primarily in conjunction with Facebook and Twitter to share photos and comments as the site progresses. The Instagram feed is also linked to the website, which means that even if there is a quiet week as far as the blog goes, there’ll be new content on the site to draw people back.

It’s early days for all of the above, and now the big challenge becomes keeping the website and social media channels feeling fresh and worth following; and of course to promote and encourage interaction so that this does not just become a one way stream of information blasted meaninglessly into the ether. This will be very much a learning process, and I’m sure there’ll be stuff that goes wrong. I would welcome advice and pointers from anyone who’s done anything similar!

I’ll be blogging progress and lessons learnt (and more than likely the occasional mistake) along the way, so please feel free to join me on the journey!

Michelle Davis
Targeted Recruitment and Training, Cadwyn HA

Challenging the Benefits Street stereotypes

The Channel 4 documentary Benefits Street focuses on people living in one particular street in Birmingham – a city where we, the Accord Group, work.

It has immediately become the subject of hard hitting headlines, the hot topic on Twitter and Facebook and reignited a topic that polarises Britain – the benefits system.

Having worked in social housing for 25 years, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting hundreds of people in Birmingham and across the Midlands from many different walks of life.

I’ve met pensioners, young single mothers, women who have fled domestic violence, ex-offenders, people with disabilities and people in low paid jobs, just to name a few.

What do all these people have in common? They’ve all, in some way, needed state support to get by in life and a helping hand at a difficult time. Should they all be labelled as 'scroungers' as a consequence? We don’t think so.


Here are some facts you may find interesting:

• In 2012, 18% of working-age households were workless, but only 2% of cases demonstrated that no one had ever worked – dispelling a myth that we are overrun with generations of feckless families who have never had gainful employment.

• It is estimated (for 2011-12) that 0.8% of total benefit expenditure was overpaid as a result of fraud, again challenging a common view that benefit expenditure is high because of fraudsters and cheats.

• Interesting, the proportion of housing benefit claimants who are in work is rising to fast approach the one million mark. These are those people who work but are on low pay. A sign perhaps that wages are not keeping up with the ever increasing cost of living?

• It is estimated that over 55% of the local government workforce are entitled to some form of in-work benefits* and yet help to provide some of the most essential services in the country.

There will also be a significant percentage of health services workers also in receipt of state benefits. Are these people 'scroungers' too?

It’s time to put down the labels and challenge the knee-jerk assumptions and stereotypes about people who claim benefits.

Concentrating on creating sustainable, well-paid jobs, economic growth and affordable housing that really is affordable, would be far more profitable than constantly attacking those individuals and households for whom a benefit claim is the only way they can survive.

Dr Chris Handy OBE
Chief Executive of the Accord Group (www.accordgroup.org.uk - @theaccordgroup)


*New Policy Institute Report - TAX CREDITS: POLICY ISSUES FOR UNISON

Three things we should learn from Benefits Street

Apart from the unfortunate title, Benefits Street is pretty good.

Having seen the first two episodes I genuinely can’t understand what the fuss is about.

It’s a great piece of commercial television (think – My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding) that’s designed to shock.

And , boy , have we fallen for it.

Primetime TV + Benefits = Bang: The Twitter Liberal Left erupt in a perfectly predictable frenzy.

But by dismissing the show out of hand (I reckon less than 10% of people tweeting about it have actually watched it) we miss vital opportunities.

• We don’t learn from people who are superb storytellers and know how to construct a genuinely populist narrative. (Something the social housing sector has failed to do time after time)

• We don’t learn lessons about the way our organisations have failed to connect with some communities, and have contributed to their social exclusion.
• We get distracted and start indulging in petty campaigns (petitions to get it taken off air – for heaven’s sake!) rather than thinking big and innovating.
  

If we did more listening and a little less talking we would pick up three important lessons:


1. You change hearts and minds with stories not statistics

The past couple of weeks have seen a number of infographics and articles that aim to challenge the actual size of the welfare problem or show that tax avoiders are the bigger issue.

All of which are very interesting and probably correct but serve no purpose whatsoever in moving the debate forward.

Does anybody think that someone with an entrenched belief that welfare is a lifestyle choice gets one of these things in their inbox and says “Oh. I see. I was wrong all along. Apologies”.

Of course not. The producers of Benefits Street know that storytelling trumps statistics every time. As Thom Bartley points out in his latest post:

“The public doesn’t respond to blah blah million lost off a balance sheet, they respond to the story about a mother losing benefit because her disabled kid uses an extra room”


2. Real people tell a better story than professionals

This is the master stroke of Benefits Street. They’ve allowed people to speak for themselves. The professionals who help and, sometimes, hinder their lives are mercifully absent.

Here’s how we are referred to:

• Letter from Work Programme provider: “What f*****g work programme? I’ve never worked in my life”

• DWP changing payments: “There’s going to be riots soon unless people start getting paid”

• Housing: “These landlords think they are clever (chasing rent). They’ll have to pay to go court and it’ll take you about a year and a half”
  

So – not a great level of advocacy for the agencies who are paid millions to support them.

The residents come across as likeable, aware of their own shortcomings and display a deep sense of community.

It’s refreshing to hear the impact of reforms – positive and negative- untainted by professional bias. We need more of this.


3. The best ideas come from communities

The greatest thing about the programme are the many innovations that residents employ to get through their day to day lives.

These are not people without talent.

They are people who have existed in a system that has concentrated on what they can’t do rather than what they can.

I see more innovation on display on James Turner Street than I see across many organisations. Some examples:

• Neighbourhood mouthpiece “White Dee” using a community favours scheme to get a guy to save money for clothes and not blow it on drink and drugs.

• The “50p Man” who sells household essentials like washing powder in smaller affordable portions. He came up with the idea in prison and dreams of turning it into a national franchise.

• The Romanians turning trash into cash – literally going through bins.
  

One of the problems across the social sector is there’s too much top down innovation and an over reliance on tech based solutions.

We need to listen to communities, seed fund some grass roots projects and get out of the way.

The only real problem with Benefits Street , as Charlie Brooker has pointed out , is that title.

It’s designed to get your back up.

So let’s stop falling for it.

Now is the time for big transformational innovation.

Now is the time for our very best social innovators to work with the residents of James Turner Street and others like them.

• We could fund the likes of White Dee to become a Community Connector.

• We could try a localised approach to job creation and a resident led Work Programme.

• We could create a new deal for tenants rather than just moving them in and leaving them to it.

• We could have a social accelerator programme to scale up business ideas – like the 50p man.

• We could attempt to pilot a whole new system of benefits and help the Government out rather than sitting around willing Universal Credit to fail (Matt Leach outlines just such an approach in his excellent post here)
  

Or we could just get angry on Twitter, do battle with Daily Mail readers and become ever more polarised in our views.

I know how I want to spend my time.

How about you?


Paul Taylor
Innovation Coach

Read Paul's original blog post here.

RSLs as place makers

The Royal Society of Architecture Wales conference I attended recently on 'The place of home' inspired me to write this blog post. For me, the conference raised a key question: How do you define a home? In the sector we often refer to creating 'homes' instead of 'houses', but what is the difference?

In my opinion, the word 'housing' denotes a physical structure or a 'unit' as the development industry would say. Comparably, the word ‘home’ is a word with deeper meaning. The perception of the word ‘home’ depends on the individual and their experiences but will often resonate feelings such as security, happiness, freedom and comfort. It may refer to a residence or a place such as the community or the city you live in.

So how do RSLs create the ‘place of home’?

No longer are RSLs considered as just affordable housing providers. The 2013 Welsh Economic Research Unit report highlights this by showing that in addition to new build development, maintenance and renovations, RSLs spent approximately £509m during 2012/13 on community regeneration initiatives. In this year’s WERU report, we wanted to highlight the types of community regeneration that this includes which cover areas such as financial inclusion, skills and employment, tenant engagement, food poverty, energy efficiency, open space improvements, social enterprise, digital inclusion… the list goes on.

What all these areas of work have in common is the fundamental principle of supporting deprived people to help them to reach their potential and have a place they can call home. Supporting both place and people through these initiatives ultimately contributes towards the thriving of communities, empowering those who live within them. RSLs are place makers in this sense, contributing to both the physical and social regeneration of the most deprived communities across Wales.

The WERU infographic summarises the findings of the report and you can view the full report on CHC's website.

Hayley MacNamara
Regeneration Officer, CHC and CREW Regeneration Wales

'Bedroom tax' will mean 1,000 fewer affordable homes. Devolve welfare to Wales!

The moral and ethical arguments against the ‘bedroom tax’ have always been weak. While ideology may lead you to divide between the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ poor, ideology cannot deny the evidence, and it is ultimately evidence which should dictate government policy.

Since the ‘bedroom tax’ was introduced just over six months ago, we see a double whammy affecting the housing supply crisis. Arrears from the ‘bedroom tax’ have exceeded £1m and a rise in the number of void properties has meant that over 700 homes in the sector are empty. Just 3% of the 22,000 housing association tenants affected have been successfully downsized. We have always argued that there are simply not enough one and two bed properties to move people to. With an estimated 90,000 on social housing waiting lists, how can we justify a policy that sees Wales losing out on 1,000 affordable homes?

Of course, the effect on housing associations is only half the story. Tenants are already struggling to afford the basics, the use of food banks is increasing, energy companies are increasing their prices and we are seeing a surge in the use of high interest lenders and loan sharks. Some payday lenders are reported to be planning to treble their business on the back of so-called welfare 'reform’, people are being pushed further into poverty and the threat of losing their home is very real.

Landlords are faced with tough choices. We note what’s been happening around Wales with various protests, often the landlord getting the blame. Tenant groups and some politicians have campaigned for a ‘no bedroom tax evictions’ policy, but landlords can’t continue to subsidise the extra costs brought about by welfare reform which would impact on the potential reduction in services for other tenants who pay their rent.

This divisive measure threatens social justice and cohesion, turning tenant against tenant, tenant against landlord and vice versa. We need to stand back and realise that the only solution is to take power closer to the people.

As a sector we have been doing all we can to mitigate against the reforms. We’ve launched the ‘Your Benefits Are Changing’ campaign to raise awareness and have set up an advice line to provide free independent advice to those affected. We’ve also supported the expansion of Moneyline Cymru, a not for profit organisation set up and part funded by Welsh housing associations for people largely ignored by mainstream lenders. Moneyline Cymru branches have issued over 13,000 loans to the value of more than £6m since it was set up in 2009. Customers are also encouraged to open a savings account with nearly a third opting to do so, collectively saving a total of £900k.

Last week the Labour Party tabled a motion in the House of Commons to repel the ‘bedroom tax’, and the vote was lost by only 26 votes. So if robust statistical evidence which shows that this policy is failing is not enough for the UK Government to axe this pernicious policy, what can we do? The solution is for Welfare Reform to be devolved to Wales.

In an asymmetric union, we can now look to Northern Ireland and see them use their powers in welfare policy to do something different. They have legislated to stop the ‘bedroom tax’ affecting existing tenants. Like Wales, it is affected to a far greater degree than England and Scotland, but their devolution settlement has allowed them to protect the people of Northern Ireland from the policy, and also to adapt the upcoming changes to Universal Credit and Direct Payments to fit the needs of Northern Irish tenants. With the Silk Commission due to report on further powers for the Assembly in the New Year, what chance they listen to CHC’s recommendation that Wales is given parity with Northern Ireland on welfare powers?


Nick Bennett
Group Chief Executive, CHC Group


You can read the full press release on CHC's 'bedroom tax' research here.

Innovate, collaborate or die

The Young Foundation have been in Llandrindod Wells at Community Housing Cymru's One Big Housing UnConference. Whilst we are only part way through the 2 day event, there are already some interesting, exciting and rather worrying topics being debated (or not). Tony Colville, Senior Associate at the Young Foundation and our current lead in Wales, presents his thoughts so far.

It’s fair to say that the last 6 months of the Young Foundation’s exploration of the work carried out by housing associations in Wales has only filled us with hope, excitement and a desire to show our English partners how innovative you can be if you just think differently!

Yesterday was the first opportunity we had to speak with, hear from and engage with a broader range of housing associations and issues from across the sector. Along with my two colleagues, I’ve held some great conversations around the challenges of affordable and accessible community credit, the scaling up of time-credit schemes (see Spice for more information), and how you make best use of an umbrella organisation like Community Housing Cymru to collectively challenge the policies of Westminster that simply don’t work for rural communities here in Wales. I’ve had 7 organisations instantly book in follow up meetings to turn these conversations into ideas we can act on. But for every great conversation, I’ve had either an equally bad conversation or a conversation where the desire to challenge or push for innovation was simply non-existent. This is something we should all be concerned about.

The most frustrating parts of the day for me have been occasions in the discussion rooms where statements made or questions asked have received either flat responses or no response at all. I know there are innovative people at this event with ideas, expertise and passion. I have heard and seen first-hand some of the great ideas being developed. So why so little push for innovation, collaboration or challenge throughout today? Are we just being over-polite and not wanting to talk about the elephant in the room or is there a much bigger problem on the horizon?

Here are three big issues and my thoughts on how we ALL address them:

Challenge: How many statements have you heard today that you don’t agree with? How many questions have been asked that you think are just totally missing the point? Speak up, put your ideas and challenges out there. Through challenge we can start to innovate and build stronger alliances on issues we are passionate about. Use your umbrella body!

Personality: I’ve come across some fantastic personalities in my time here in Wales and the majority of them in the housing sector! If we are going to face a tough ride in the next few years then bring those personalities to the forefront of what you do and how you present it. Bring some energy to what you are doing and provoke, invite and engage us to agree, disagree and collaborate on the answers. I personally want to see more of the great private 1 to 1 conversations I’ve been having with you all shared in a bigger audience (you know who you are!)

Collaborate: The time of big building programmes is over. The time of large funds for social programmes is over. The time of not collaborating and working in silos is over. Start talking about your passions, your shared visions, your resource gaps, the things you have done that have worked, common geographies etc. and turn that talking into genuine collaboration. It shouldn’t be about competing for funding – it should be about maximising the resources, connections and expertise for the benefit of all your residents and communities.

The housing sector is in for a big fight over the next few years and it is inevitable that the landscape in 5 years’ time will be very different. Some of us won’t be here. Now is the opportunity to raise your voice, challenge yourself and challenge others. Innovate, collaborate or start getting ready to fail.

Tony Colville
Senior Associate, The Young Foundation