In recent years, with housing policy increasingly focused on large social housing providers and creeping commercialism, many have asked whether an independent black and minority ethnic (BME) housing sector has a future. As the country marks Black History Month, it is particularly timely to look at this issue.
The answer to this question can be partially answered by looking at the legacy of the BME housing sector in housing policy context. BME housing associations have deep roots, founded from the mid-1980s running to the late 1990s, when they were supported by the Housing Corporation, the then social housing regulator, and championed by the National Housing Federation (NHF).
In this period, more than 100 BME housing associations were established by faith groups and civic activists drawn mainly from the African–Caribbean, Asian, Chinese, Vietnamese and Irish communities. Today the 65 remaining organisations manage 500 to 1,500 homes each on average.
Foundation was driven partly by civic strife in the 1980s, when inner-city riots rocked London, Birmingham and Bristol, and partly by an ageing BME population needing specialist housing and care provision. A third driver was racism in the housing market: many new migrants in the 1950s to 1970s faced appalling discrimination with “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs” signs common in the windows of lodging houses. Newly founded BME housing associations set out to tackle these three issues.
As Lord (Bill Morris) of Handsworth, chair of Midland Heart and former secretary-general of the TUC, has observed: “One of the great successes of black people in the housing field since the 1980s has been the creation of black-led housing associations, which emerged from BME communities and remain today more sensitive to a diverse population whilst bolstering local pride.”
Kwadwo Owusu-Darko, chair of Midlands-based Nehemiah UCHA, which was founded in 1989 and manages 1,000 homes, explains: “There has been an ongoing struggle among BME housing associations like ours to house black people, who since their arrival in numbers in the UK in the 1950s have often experienced the most severe housing needs. This struggle continues in today’s modern setting. BME housing associations play a unique role in housing BME communities and providing neighbourhood services.”
In recent years, about a third of BME housing associations have disappeared, merging with other associations, shutting down or being swallowed by larger mainstream organisations. A handful are part of larger group structures. The sector’s membership and lobbying body, the Federation of Black Housing Organisations (FBHO) was disbanded in 2008 and has since been replaced by a slimmed-down BMENational, sheltering under the wing of the NHF.
Yet new figures released by the Human City Institute (HCI) on social lettings made to BME applicants over the past 10 years provide evidence for the continuing need for – and indeed expansion of – the BME housing sector.
HCI has taken a look at Core data, covering hundreds of thousands of social lettings by housing associations and local authorities between the 2001 and 2011 censuses. While the analysis shows that social lettings to BME households grew marginally from 14% to 16%, the BME population in England expanded from 7% to 14%. This represents a “real terms” fall in social lettings to BME people since they experience greater levels of housing need, also explored in HCI’s research, undertaken in partnership with BMENational.
BME people constitute one in seven of the UK population, yet they represent more than one in three of those accepted as statutorily homeless. Homelessness has been rising in BME communities since 2001, when 28% of homeless households were from a BME background. By 2011 this had grown to 33%; it increased to 37% in 2013. BME communities are also more likely to be living in overcrowded or poor housing.
That’s why the HCI-BMENational research is exploring the future role for the BME housing sector. An expansion of BME housing is a key solution to meeting the greater housing needs of the UK’s BME communities.
The HCI-BMENational report, Deep Roots, Diverse Communities, Dedicated Service: The Legacy, Performance and Potential of the BME Housing Sector, will be published in November.
Kevin Gulliver is director of the Human City Institute
