Friday 29 November 2013

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

Wednesday 20 November 2013

'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.





Monday 11 November 2013

Working with the Young Foundation's Accelerator Programme






 “Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.”
                                                                 John D Rockefeller

Is there an advice or support agency out there who doesn’t agree with this sentiment? It has long been acknowledged that an environment which fosters co-dependency is counter-productive, both for the service user and service provider, whose resources are invariably becoming ever scarcer.

This is mirrored in the relationship between service provider and funding organisation. Gone are the days when advice providers, or any third sector organisation for that matter, can expect indefinite hand-outs from funding bodies. Everyone is being asked to do more for less and with the increase in the number of social enterprises; the expectation is that most organisations will eventually be able to 'wash their own face'.  

This was the situation CHC’s money advice service, the Your Benefits are Changing (YBAC) team, found itself in as we moved far too quickly towards the end of the 3 year funding allocation we had received from the Big Lottery (Thanks BIG!). YBAC is an awareness raising campaign. We aim to raise awareness of changes impacting on the most vulnerable in our communities and offer practical, workable solutions and advice. The YBAC team has spoken to over 4,000 people at community events this year. 

Luckily for us, the Young Foundation happened to be in town and a couple of months ago we found out that, along with 8 other projects, we had been chosen to take part in the Young Foundation’s first Welsh Accelerator programme.  

Every couple of weeks, the projects meet up with experts brought in by the Young Foundation for an intensive two days. We are all at different stages of development but everyone seems to agree on one thing: we know our customers well.  

Nevertheless, the tools which have been bestowed upon us by the Young Foundation have allowed us to look at YBAC under the microscope and spot the gaps in our business plan. And access to people who make funding decisions in their daily work allowed us to ponder on some of those really difficult questions. 
We are just about to reach the half way mark in the process, at which point we can expect to hear news of which mentor we have been matched with.  This is particularly exciting for me as it is the bit I have been looking forward to the most.

But what does this mean for YBAC? It means that by January we will have a water-tight business plan with which to approach funders. It means that we will have skills and expertise at our disposal to develop our products which will make us more attractive to funders – funders who ultimately want to know that we have put measures in place to enable us to become a self-sustaining enterprise, and eventually independent of their charity.  


To date the YBAC team has:
  • Advised 3,625 customers
  • Helped 740 people in fuel poverty to claim £105,000 via the Warm Home Discount scheme
  • Helped people manage over £1.2m of debt
  • Identified over £1.3m of unclaimed welfare benefits
  • Identified £1.6m of water debt, reducing annual billing for 360 people by over £100k per annum and giving 600 people the opportunity to write-off £800,000
  • Identified 216 appropriate trust funds to help people find grants suitable for their need


If you would like to know more about the work Your Benefits are Changing is doing with the Young Foundation, contact clare-james@chcymru.org.uk


Clare James
Housing Services Policy Officer, CHC