Amidst concerns about migrants’ social housing allocations, statistics offer the public little reassurance - we need a new, transparent and inclusive approach.
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Jill Rutter is an associate fellow of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), and one of the authors of “Social Housing Allocation and Immigrant Communities” (EHRC, 2009); she writes here in a personal capacity
There is no doubt that there are real public concerns about the scale and impact of international migration into the UK.
Among the most controversial and misunderstood of these concerns are the supposed impacts of migration on social housing availability.
At a time when five million people are on social housing waiting lists in the UK, and social housing new builds have shrunk to almost nothing, such concerns are not surprising.
The debate over social housing allocation and immigration garnered further attention this week with the publication, by Migration Watch, of a paper on the subject, and associated media coverage by Frank Field. As might be expected from this pressure group, the paper argues that immigration is placing great pressure on social housing in London.
At the same time, the Metropolitan Migration Foundation published polling data suggesting that 66% of people consider birthplace to be irrelevant when allocating social housing. In other words, most people want fairness. But what is the way forward in this most heated of issues?
Even by Migration Watch’s standards, their paper on social housing was a badly researched attempt to raise tensions. It concluded that 11 per cent of social housing lets in London go to foreign nationals: in a city where 37 per cent of the population is foreign-born, what can you expect?
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Their paper was an attempted riposte to research by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, published in 2009, showing that migrants are overwhelmingly housed in the private rental sector, both in London and elsewhere. The research showed that of the migrants to have arrived in Britain over the past five years, only 11% had been allocated social housing – a group that largely comprised refugees granted sanctuary in the UK.
The reality is that many new migrants simply do not qualify for social housing. Those who come to the UK through work visa or student routes are barred from social housing by their immigration status.
The UK sponsor of a spouse or partner has to show that they can house that person, under no recourse to public funds rules, before the overseas spouse is admitted to the UK. Migrants from the European Economic Area have to show a local connection and prove that they have not made themselves homeless by moving to the UK.
Still, arguments about statistics and entitlements are not going to defuse tensions about the impact of immigration on social housing allocations. There are very real perceptions that UK citizens are not treated fairly when it comes to social housing – perceptions that progressives need to address.
In an attempt to address questions about fairness, the last Labour government produced new social housing allocation guidance in 2009 that enabled local authorities to pace greater weight on local connections and waiting time.
This guidance led to minor changes to local authorities’ letting procedures – social housing applicants were, in some cases, awarded a few more points for a local connection. (This had some unintended consequences, since awarding points for a local connection can discriminate against people who want to move to find work.) Yet these changes offered the public little reassurance.
In turn, the coalition government used the Localism Act 2011 to make substantial changes to social housing allocation. The Act allows local authorities to grant time-limited social tenancies, as well as discharge their duties to provide social housing by supplying privately rented accommodation. In future, social housing will no longer represent housing security, but a patchwork of tenancies – a condition that can only inflame resentments and misconceptions.
At the same time, social housing new builds have shrunk to almost nothing. Between April 2010 and March 2011, Homes and Communities Agency statistics show that there were 10,965 social housing starts on site in London. In the six months to 30 September 2011, this figure had shrunk to 56 new social housing starts on site in London. This is a truly shameful statistic.
We need a different approach. We need much greater local transparency in the allocation of social housing. There could be much more involvement of local people in drawing up social housing allocation policies. We need to afford local authority housing officers the time to talk to those on waiting lists about the processes, and why there is a long wait for social housing.
Local politicians need also to listen to concerns about housing, while addressing misconceptions. Talking about migration helps: a study from the Institute for Public Policy Research looked at examples of how tensions about housing had been successfully defused by sensitive but pro-active local leadership. But above all, we need to build more social housing.
57 Responses to “Social housing and immigration: the need for transparency and fairness”
Anonymous
So lets see your logic. We get lots of migrants to occupy housing at subsidised rates paid for by the people who need that housing, but now can’t afford it because they are paying lots of taxes for that subsidy.
Seems to me that you’re the one gerrymandering wanting to get in lots of state dependents.
In practice all you are doing is fueling the racists like the socialist BNP.
Anonymous
No, that’s YOUR logic.
Of course you think the BNP’s racism is fine and dandy. Calling them socialist shows how little you know, of course.
Migrants can’t explain why house prices have risen so sharply above inflation on a consistent basis.
Anonymous
The views of Beveridge twenty years and more before he actually implemented a system of support which comprehensively refutes his earlier views.
Your right took over Eugenics as your cause even before WWII.
Dave Francis
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND POPULATION GROWTH
It is Forty years after a multiple-year bi-partisan government commission recommended slowing U.S. population growth and eventually stabilizing it. Americans still would like to see it happen, according to poll results to be released this weekend at the 2012 Earth Day Dallas festival. In the past three decades we have had a population explosion, caused by the arrival of millions of 40 percent of illegal aliens by overstaying expired temporary visas and even as many numbers crossing our sovereign border without permission. The misgivings shown by Americans today are similar to what Americans indicated in a national poll by “The Commission on Population Growth and the American Future,” which was created just before the first Earth Day (1970) and issued its closing report in spring of 1972.
Leaders from labor, business, civil rights and environmental activists, religion and academic contributed to the report. In 1972 a poll found 57% of Americans believed U.S. population growth was environmentally harmful, with 66% disapproved of adding another 100 million people, 56% said government should try to do something to slow down population growth, 57% said people should limit the size of their families even though they can afford a large number of children and 50% said the number of immigrants should be reduced, with only 3% saying the numbers should increase.
The Census data show that our population would be stabilizing at around 250 million if the American people had controlled things, given that their average family size has been at a zero-population-growth level ever since 1972,”
The new poll found only 10% of U.S. voters approve the current rate of growth that the Census Bureau states will double U.S. population from 313 million today to over 600 million by the end of the century. Of course not too many people believe the official number of 11.million foreigners who have illegally settled here. Very few organizations trust this numbers and think a more logic figure would be around 20 million and up.
In today’s polls 68% of voters said immigration should be reduced in order to slow U.S. population growth; 19% prefer to keep immigration the same and let it double the U.S. population; 4% prefer increasing immigration so that population would more than double this century. Even Hispanic voters and other minority were similar to all other voters in their opposition to high population growth and in preference for a stabilizing population size.
Illegal Immigrants who are constantly pouring across our borders and entering America as international tourists are adding to this population growth. Because of this uncontrolled travesty, our energy supplies are under constant strain as is our health care system, public education and a the erosion of our once admired freeways and highways. Underground our sewer systems, is crumbling, with some pipelines over 50 years old. 30 years of indifferent administrations have allowed this incompetency to flourish and now our grandchildren are facing a 16 Trillion dollar deficit. Unquestionably we need an ultra strong Congress, which must dismiss incumbents that are not doing their job. Not just the do-nothing law makers in Washington, but hard core leftists, Democrats, Republicans and the state Governors, Mayors, and all those involved in pampering illegal aliens at the state, county and local elected officials. These people who are filling their pockets with campaign contributions are sole to blame and ignorance for the Sanctuary City ordinances, the Chain Migration adding to even larger population and other regulations such as making the public pay for Dream Act children and any new secret visa’s for people, that is really just another Comprehensive Immigration Reform known as Amnesty.
As for the controversial issue of the ‘DREAM ACT’ for granting a quick passage of illegal alien’s children will not be Fair? Thousands of people wait patiently for years, sometimes as much as 10 years to receive an entry visa.
One of the greatest menaces to our immigration laws is the ‘unfunded mandates’ forced on every taxpayer by the U.S. courts. All 50 states are held accountable to pay for the large populations of illegal aliens, where taxes are taken to pay for their medical health, children’s schooling and under the birthright citizen law, allocating food stamps, low income housing and numerous other benefits that citizens are denied. Many welfare programs have been crippled because of females who arrive here illegally by any means, with an unborn child can apply for natal care and other subsidies. The fact that our borders are still not secured, that women are able to enter here pregnant, in the years that followed we have children of illegal aliens smothering our public schools. In 20 years the populace of foreigners coming here are directly affecting any chance of slowing population growth through each prior and post administration are responsible for not enforcing immigration laws and not the absconder from their own country? And still over a million new imported legal immigrants are allowed to come here. What are these so called legislators thinking, when they are cutting off welfare for U.S. born American or resident aliens?
The U.S. public are generous and passionate and the biggest philanthropist in the world. But we cannot continue to fight distant wars and take in every desperate pauper from any corner of the world. We must stop printing money and make a giant effort to remove illegal aliens by ATTRITION BY ENFORCEMENT.
This America is the land of opportunity, but only if you come here with permission and a work visa. For farmers and agricultural communities, there must be a well regulated system of arrival and departure, not the mess provided now. In furtherance special visas should be expedited for top professionals in Science, Engineering and a whole range of high technology, given us the brain power for a futuristic U.S, but we must spend the money to check on females who are carrying an unborn infant, with new detection systems at entry ports, as 400.000 arrivals are ready to conceive annually and apply for welfare. Just calculate the uncompensated cost to hospitals that have to pay for this delivery? By the Congress just amending the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011 (H.R.140) the country could discontinue this billion dollar soaking of individual states?
Then just as viable and with a high success rate is the introduction of Verify (H.R. 2885) – Chairman Lamar Smith’s ‘Legal Workforce Act’. Every worker hired would be eligible, if they are not flagged by the employers hook-up to the Social Security and Homeland Security databases. Those declined can fortunately travel to the SSA to get clearance for their new job. Foreign illegal workers would not go to any government agency anyway. Marco Rubio may be providing a less tough immigration enforcement ideology to Romney, but it could mean a loss of votes? Mitt Romney already stated that unauthorized workers would “self Deport” when employment cannot be located. Businesses owners and management that don’t follow the law could lose business licenses, profits, be fined and even end in a prison cell.
The best hope with have is to elect TEA PARTY leaders who have a different approach to every issue, who believe in the free competitive business enterprise, self reliance on our own abundance of oil, natural gas and clean coal. Huge deposits await us that are so plentiful, we can supply it to Europe and other friendly countries.
BevR
RT @leftfootfwd: Social housing and immigration: the need for transparency and fairness http://t.co/qk5wXXma