Advocating for more social housing in Wales

It’s well known that the UK has a housing shortage, with a shortfall of 100,000 new social homes every year. As well as providing discounted rents for those who need them, social housing adds value to society by providing stable homes which in turn helps to reduce unemployment and improve health and educational outcomes.

As a funder, we currently partner with around 40 charities in Wales that directly support people who have experienced or are at risk of homelessness. In partnership with them we sent some comments and recommendations to the Senedd’s Local Government and Housing Committee as a response to the Senedd’s consultation on social housing supply.

We commend the Welsh Government’s commitment to build 20,000 low-carbon social homes for rent in Wales between 2021 and 2026. While lower than the target in England, this could be seen as proportionate, given current resource constraints. However, progress so far has been slow.

Due to the ongoing housing shortage, thousands of people in Wales are experiencing ongoing and preventable homelessness. Official homelessness statistics, particularly the number of people in temporary accommodation, show how entrenched this issue is. Temporary accommodation is used by local authorities to fulfil homelessness duties, however Welsh Government needs act more quickly to prevent the need for temporary accommodation for anything other than short emergency periods. We have partnered with the Bevan Foundation and Shelter Cymru to drive progress on this unsustainable situation in Wales. You can read more about this work here.

In Swansea alone, there are approximately 100 people with refugee status living in emergency housing (usually hotels). One of our charity partners, Swansea Asylum Seekers Support, has described this as: “psychologically and often medically very damaging: the lack of autonomy, being unable to prepare food, families with children all sharing one room (frequently leading to domestic conflict if not violence), and in addition, often being forced to move from one hotel to another. People are cut off from advice and support services and from any co-ethnic community.”

The rising numbers of people needing accommodation, such as refugees and others, are not matched by available housing, whether public (social), housing association, or private. Young people, and particularly young LGBTQIA+ people, are disproportionately affected by homelessness. One of our charity partners, Dewis Housing, describes how young people “regress in their independence skills and wellbeing/mental health due to the significant issues in timely move on from supported accommodation to social housing.”

Similarly, our charity partners supporting women, including the North Wales Women’s Centre and Women Connect First in South Wales, struggle with the appropriateness of the housing being offered to clients and the length of time people are in temporary accommodation.  

“Some of the properties are in a terrible state of disrepair and are not being maintained.  The Council and Housing Associations promise to come out and repair but often don't, and the women we support often feel they have no voice.” - feedback from charity partners supporting women in Wales 

Elen’s (named changed to protect identity) story highlights the extreme end of what this can mean in practice. Elen, a survivor of domestic violence from North Wales with several young children, hoped the council could find her and her children a two or three bed property (they were happy to share bedrooms). The council couldn’t offer that and there was nowhere bigger available. The children ended up being split up and placed with different foster families, and the stress of it led to Elen being sectioned. Besides the human cost, the financial cost of social work and care could have been prevented if this family had suitable housing in the first place.

We need more social housing – and quickly  

There is an argument to maintain a proportion of private sector rentals to enable people to move more easily to different areas. However, the current over-reliance on the private rented sector to meet housing need and the over-saturation of second or holiday homes in certain areas is distorting the market and impacting negatively on people, especially in Welsh-speaking and rural communities. 

There are complexities around housing supply such as land use and planning, allocation policies, tenure change and loss of stock, which the Welsh Government is best placed to manage. The public sector has a key role to play in terms of strategically planning, designing, and leading the delivery of large-scale developments, and Welsh Government is well-positioned to work with partners to accelerate the volume of social homes built per year in Wales.  

We recognise that the Welsh Government is operating within tight financial constraints that limit the capital budget available for new social housing.  We hope it will utilise its influence with the next UK Government to both ensure the early release of capital resources that are currently locked up, including Crown Assets and Dormant Assets, but also insist that any increase in capital funding for new social housing made available in England is also reflected in Wales.

Ensuring equity 

It is imperative that Welsh Government find a way to balance the various tenures available in Wales. An appropriate mix of private and social housing is needed to help make rents affordable and to reduce homelessness, particularly preventable homelessness driven by systemic failures such as the recent increase in refugees sleeping rough, and the high numbers of children growing up in temporary housing.

As the Bevan Foundation’s research on Local Housing Allowance demonstrates, we need to move away from an over-reliance on the private rented sector in order to reset house prices and rents, so that everyone in Wales can live in a decent home, whether they own it or not.

Housing providers would benefit from engaging directly with third sector service providers to get valuable insight enabling them to support groups, such as young people, LGBTQIA+ people, refugees, survivors of abuse and trauma. Elen’s story shows how flawed the current system is and how vital it is to promote a more pragmatic, trauma and gender-informed approach to housing allocations. 

As a funder, we advocate for fairness, compassion, and equity and we support increased social housing. While we advocate prioritising people on the lowest incomes initially, to prevent a two-tier housing system in the long-term, Welsh Government should aim to promote social housing as a mainstream option for those on average incomes – not just those on low incomes.  

We encourage a reframing of the term “affordable housing”. Affordability should be seen as a measure of success – if you can afford to live within your means, you are doing well in life, and we want more people in Wales to feel like they are doing well in life. 

We look forward to the next steps in the Senedd committee’s inquiry and welcome the opportunity to work more closely with partners to shape social policy in Wales.

The Senedd has published the complete set of responses to the Social Housing Supply consultation which you can read here. Our response is 'SHS 09 Lloyds Bank Foundation'.