Social housing has never seen such a sustained attack, coming from all quarters the providers, the councils and the Government. To cover it all in detail, just for Salford, would probably take a book. But this Saturday, April 2nd, the Greater Manchester Housing Action Network is hosting a community conference focusing on renter's rights, homeless rights, social housing and community housing solutions.
In Salford, from this month, Salford Council has changed its allocations policy that will see an estimated 7,000 people kicked off its housing waiting list, while it admitted that "most applicants have little chance of ever being re-housed" (see previous Salford Star article click here).
Meanwhile, according to the Local Government Association, 66,000 council homes in England will be sold to tenants under the Tory Government's Right to Buy scheme, reducing available affordable housing. And, as Salford Star has shown many times, the obligation on developers to provide social housing as part of planning applications has almost been ripped up by Salford Council, leading to the loss of over 1,000 of these properties (see The £19million Planning Scandal in the last print issue - click here).
Now, it's getting even worse, as public funding for housing is being diverted towards unaffordable private developer's schemes as part of the Greater Manchester Housing Fund, via GM Devolution (see here). We could go on and on and on...about how Salford is in the top ten for the highest rents in the North West (see here), how social housing providers are increasing service charges all over the place (see here), even for those in sheltered accommodation (see here and see here)....but hopefully many of these issue will be discussed at the Housing Conference...
"The Greater Manchester Housing Action Network (GMHA) was formed back in October 2015 as a response to the impact of the housing crisis in the North West, with the intention of creating community support-forums and resources for everyone affected across the region" the unfortunately named `Manchester Conference' publicity states "GMHA was inspired by the fantastic proactive work of other community-led housing groups such as Focus E15 and the London Radical Housing Network helping retain social housing and resolve shared issues such as illegal evictions, prohibitively high rents and loss of social housing.
"Throughout the day the discussions will filter into four working groups centred on key issues: renter's rights, homeless rights, social housing and community housing solutions" it explains "As part of the so-called Devolution Deal a £300Million Housing Fund has been allocated for housing in Greater Manchester. It will stretch to cover the ten local authorities over the next ten years. This Fund can only be spent on housing within private development schemes.
"Greater Manchester's ten local authorities currently have over 105,000 people on housing waiting lists while Devolution as planned has no current solution to the regions housing crisis" it adds "We invite the communities who will be affected by this, to establish a housing action plan, to ensure that the Devolution Deal serves people, not just property developers. Following the conference further meetings are planned across the Greater Manchester region."
Manchester Housing Conference
Saturday April 2nd 10:30am-4:30pm
Mechanics Institute
103 Princess Street
Manchester M1 6DD
For more info and to register for free tickets click here
See also the Manchester Housing Conference Facebook page
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