to wonder what this means for social housing long term.

[HelenaDove]

Does it mean all tenants will be offered the right to buy their homes. Or face higher rents. It sounds like the council housing sell off of the 80s.

www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/apr/01/slow-death-social-housing-affordable

Ahhh. Weirdly enough I saw one of these new "affordable rentals" on Rightmove earlier on and I couldn't work out what the feck it was. I get it now.

One (poss. the only) plus point of it is that if HAs start offering them up through lettings websites, then a much broader range of people get a fair chance of being able to rent and affordable home. It was also only on offer to those in full-time employment. Usually round here you have to be in homeless/temp. accommodation for a couple of years before you can get social housing.

Ah i see Ive seen conflicting reports about this and wasnt sure.

No, I have no idea if it's standard. As I say, I only saw the one on Rightmove earlier. It was definitely offered via a social housing provider tho.

I suppose it's a glass half empty or full thing. If you see it as a loss of normal, cheap social housing then it's definitely A Bad Thing. But if you see it as an increase in cheaper housing with more rights for those who would otherwise have had to go private, then it's A Good Thing.

I guess it's just the two (social and private) meeting in the middle.

Will there therefore be fewer HA properties available at standard HA rates as a result of this then?

There are conversions from social to affordable rentals but we're talking properties in their hundreds per HA. I've heard frequently they are still being occupied by social tenants and the rent met by HB where they can't be filled by the tenants they are designed for. As saucy said, they're for the "working poor"

I've never understood the RTB point- for years now RTB discounts have been so minimal when compared to the cost of the property their uptake has been minimal. Certainly in HAs you're talking handfuls a year. No idea about council.

In Canada we have 'low market' places. They are at around 10% less than the average rents. In effect it doesn't work because they tend to be 10% less nice than comparable places so you really aren't getting a deal over market rent.

If they take an area and average the rents for one-bedrooms, some will be in more desirable parts, near transport, near parks etc. so these 'affordable' places aren't really affordable. If it drops to 50-70% that might be different. I see that it's a solution to people being stuck in social housing because it is so cheap and market rents are so expensive.

Co-op housing is another solution.

The thing about 'affordable rents is that they often aren't. They are reducing the supply of genuinely affordable housing. Increasing rents often also means an increase in the HB bill.

feckegg. I think you are a bit behind the times with the RTB discounts. They were increased some years back and are now about £77K across most of the country, £102K in London (linked to inflation). A not insubstantial reduction in price. As a consequence, RTB applications which had dried to a trickle increased hugely.

HA tenants don't usually have the RTB in the same way although this Govt have said that they will introduce it if they are re-elected. Not sure how that's gonna go. HAs are already talking about a challenge.

Personally I think that RTB is at a tipping point and likely to move from a vote winner to a vote loser.

I am a director of a HA, 'affordable' rented properties at 80% market rent are inevitable in order to fund social rented properties at lower rent iyswim. Our association is finding that we have scarce capacity to build traditional social rentals due to the grant being slashed and our gearing covenants at risk of breach. Therefore we build a mixture of social rent and 'intermediate' rent. The intermediate rents are lower than market but above social and still always fall within the accepted rent level for housing benefit should a tenant's circumstances change. By building intermediate rent properties with less grant we are able to still build traditional social housing with full grant but in greater quantities because of the covenants that govern our lending ability (this is too complicated to explain). The mission of our association is good quality homes for the community- by building both levels of property we are providing more good quality affordable homes for those in need. Our intermediate rentals are advertised through estate agents and marketed at key workers initially.

I have an 'Affordable Rent' tenancy with a famous London HA that seem anything but charitable to me.

Apparently all their new tenancies will be offered as these.

I was offered it as part of the normal council housing bidding system. They invited the top 5 people to view it and I was 5th place.

The man doing the viewing said that he wished I could have it over the other 4 (who all wanted it) as I wasn't on benefits and I was the sort of tenant that the HA wanted.

A week later he rang me to give me the news that he had been told to offer me the flat. He even asked if I knew somebody in the HA as I was not supposed to be next on the list!

I think certain HAs are trying to price out certain types of tenants - the tenants they were set up to help in the first place.

* Yes I know it's rather hypocritical of me to complain about something that has benefitted me- but, well, I'm not exactly rich myself- just earn a bit too much to claim HB. And my rent isn't exactly 'affordable' either (40% if my monthly wage).

Forgot to add, HA's are having to be more entrepreneurial to provide social housing: as an example, our newest development is a 50:50 split of intermediate and social rents. The houses are identical but our funders were willing to lend more on the basis of the intermediate properties meaning that we could add the green bling to all properties on the development such as PV panels, solar hot water, ground source heat pumps and passivhaus technology. On the intermediate properties the FIT is set aside per property into a 'deposit' savings account through a co-op scheme meaning that that is match funded at various levels over the years to enable those tenants to become home owners in the future if they would like. The FIT on the social rents becomes a neighbourhood pot for future estate improvements, if an intermediate tenant converts to HB then their FIT is paid into the pot. Everyone benefits from incredibly low bills, those paying a bit more are building up a deposit faster than if they were just saving and the housing stock is increased to provide more homes. It's a bit more complicated than my basic explanation but I am quite passionate about the affordable housing sector and am constantly amazed at the ideas and effort that goes into providing it :-)

Frizzy, we have an allocations policy which favours working/ local connection/ community work/ volunteering. We make no secret of it: we like to see applicants who are breaking the mould of the 'shameless' stereotypes and find that we are building communities. Applicants are made aware and can access advice on how to get involved in community projects etc- this gives them extra allocations points. However this is not to say that we don't house those in greatest need- homelessness is a critical priority.

Oh, and we never convert social properties to intermediate's- grant funding for social properties is greater than for intermediates and we would have to re-coup the grant and pay it back. HA's shouldn't be doing that!!

The other tactic is the destruction of big council estates for the sake of 'regeneration'. If you're a bit pissed off about all this and can get to Southwark this evening there's a demo at the Aylesbury estate at 6.30.

I'm not sure how it works but I know that I pay £200 more a month for a flat than my friend on the same estate who lives in a house. This is due to the advertised rent, not any hb that she may or may not receive.

Each new person that moves in has an 'affordable' 5 year tenancy now.

Frizzy, I'm in wales so could well be different. Is your HA one of the stock transfer ones- did their properties used to belong to the council? This is an area I know little about as we are not a ST association.

No as far as I know, it has always been a HA.

I don't want to post anything too identifying but it's well known for its large red-brick estates.

I know they have an intermediate rental scheme as well that is advertised publicly, but I was surprised that these changes have been made to their traditional housing stock that is advertised through the local council choice-based lettings.

Frizzy, I'm in wales so could well be different. Is your HA one of the stock transfer ones- did their properties used to belong to the council? This is an area I know little about as we are not a ST association.

They were founded in the 19th Century by a man who wanted to 'ameliorate the condition of the poor and needy' ...

Not sure why that came up twice :-/ not sure then frizzy- we couldn't do it.

I think that in a few years time they'll be no poor people left in London.

I feel very lucky that I live here, even though I think it's completely unfair on the people who are in an even worse position than me.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more coverage of the reduction in the RTB qualifying period, it's gone from 5 years to 3 years recently.

'Affordable rents' are not really affordable where I am (inner London borough). I have friends who are paying £360pw for a 2 bed HA property which are supposed to be 'affordable' but are 80% of market rates. We live in a very expensive area - but it has lots of council flats and HA flats, and lots more are being built in nearby streets. I'm fortunate to be in a council flat and my rent is only 25% of market rents (£110pw).

My friends who are in HA flats are in much nicer buildings, some of them are in the same buildings which are marketed towards very well-off professionals, so the whole area feels safer and there's less stigma to living there, plus the fittings are very modern and stylish. My council flat is 1950s and is admittedly a bit run down, and the whole block is council so we do have more social problems on the estate. So there's a bit of compromise I've had to make to keep my social rent. All my friends were on maximum HB when they got their flats, so the higher rent didn't matter at first, and they thought it was better to live in a nicer building, but one is struggling now they've moved into work and have to pay towards some of the rent.

There are still lots of council estates around where I live, and people tend to live there for years (some have been here for generations). So I don't think it's true that there will be no poor people left in London, all of my neighbours are very poor. These flats aren't going to be bought up because the residents don't earn enough (similar flats to mine cost £400k, so no chance of me buying even with £102k discount) and our council are committed to charging social rents not affordable rents on council flats.

Frizzy i cant understand why they have charitable status either.

11 weeks.

9 weeks

6 months.

Just some lengths of time that an HA has left tenants without heating and/or hot water and in some cases over the winter.

I would like to see a legal requirement for all tenancies to be offered at 100% of market rates. Housing benefit can be made as generous as it needs to be to ensure poorer people can afford those rents.

The alternative is a world of financial smoke and mirrors where no-one knows who is being subsidised by how much, and therefore the taxpayer has no way knowing that benefits money is being spent rationally, and fairly. Which it probably isn't.

Imagine that where I live (Tower Hamlets) there is government funding for allocating a £400-a-week flat to a deserving family. The family can afford to pay £200 for it. If you charge them £200, no public accounts show the £200 a week subsidy they are getting. If you charge them £400 and give them £200 cash subsidy to pay the other half, they are getting exactly the same benefit, but we're no longer lying to ourselves about the extent of the subsidy. If their circumstances improve to the extent they can afford £400, the subsidy gets withdrawn, unlike the case of council tenants who get cheaper housing now just because they qualified for a subsidy at some point in their past.

Housing benefit can be made as generous as it needs to be to ensure poorer people can afford those rents.

This might mean the figure for how much is spent on housing benefit might increase, but it doesn't necessarily mean the cost to taxpayer has gone up, as the cost of hidden subsidies is being eliminated.