At the beginning of 2016, I received a handful of letters from social housing residents complaining about intermittent hot water and heating, persistently broken lifts, mould growing on their walls, and rat infestations in their homes.
In March 2016, I was invited to meet constituents in Roman Road market in East London with similar problems. By lunchtime, nearly 200 fed-up social housing residents had turned up, with similar stories of problem properties and absent housing associations. It was clear that these problems were not isolated to just a few residents.
There are 2,500 housing associations in BritainWith historical roots in mutual and cooperative traditions, they are a vital part of the solution to Britain’s current housing crisis. Designed to be responsive to their residents’ needs and working on the side of local communities, they provide affordable, quality, rented and shared-ownership accommodation.
From that morning in Roman Road however, it became clear that some housing associations are not living up to this progressive aim. With no legal advice or support, and helped by their hard-working councillors, my constituents launched a campaign to expose the systemic failings of one particular housing association. That association, which then merged with Affinity Sutton and more recently became Clarion Housing, had failed to carry out correct maintenance and repairs.
One of my constituents called this particular housing association 40 times over a three-month period to fix leaks that left them using an umbrella when using the toilet. Another of my constituents slipped when she was eight months pregnant, on water leaking from her toilet, which she had reported on 88 occasions. Another couple had a boiler that broke down repeatedly for nearly six months. A disabled resident was left without heating for the best part of two months. Another family had to sit with bowls on their laps and towels on their heads because of unrepaired leaks from above. Cases like these cannot be repeated.
Unfortunately, as the Guardian revealed recently, systematic neglect like this from large-scale housing associations is on the rise. That’s why the existing regulation of the housing association sector needs an urgent overhaul.
Currently, when there is a systemic failing in a housing association, responsibility for addressing the issue falls between the housing ombudsman and the regulator, the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). The ombudsman’s complex and slow complaints procedure that residents have to complete has no mechanism to quickly alert the regulator should a housing association’s service quickly deteriorate. To respond more rapidly, an early warning system needs to be created whereby the housing ombudsman can alert the HCA.
The performance of housing associations also needs to become more transparent. The mmbudsman needs to be open with the data it collects from social housing residents who have registered complaints. It will then allow the HCA to take immediate action if a housing association is failing to deliver safe housing, rather than waiting until residents are forced to gather in a local market with their MP.
A fining system, similar to that used in the energy sector, could be introduced for housing associations found guilty of serious neglect, and a league table of the best and worst performing housing associations. This would lay bare the quality of their services and publicly benchmark their performance offering serious public consequences of bad practice.
The current system encourages MPs’ offices to be the complaints departments of publicly-funded housing associations. Relevant agencies need to begin sharing information between themselves. They need to make their complaint data more accessible to the public and gain greater powers to take action against badly performing housing association. It is only then that preventative work to improve the lives of social housing residents can begin.
Rushanara Ali is the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow.
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