Concern grows over lack of affordable rental homes
an extra 17,000 homes.
The Smith Institute – set up in the name of former Labour Party leader John Smith – says the national supply of affordable properties is nowhere near enough and warns that renters are being pushed into the more expensive and insecure private market .
In Sunderland, 27% of homes were classed as social or affordable in 2019 – above the national average of 17%.
The Smith Institute estimates 90,000 social rent homes need to be built a year to meet demand.
Deputy director Paul Hunter said: “With the loss of stock due to right to buy, demolitions and conversions to more expensive but so-called affordable rent, the supply of social rented housing is actually in decline. This means low-income households are now more reliant on the private rented sector, where rents are higher and tenancies less secure.”
Separate MHCLG figures show the percentage of homes which were social or affordable dropped from 20% in 2001 to 17% last year – while the the private rent sector almost doubled.
Polly Neate, chief executive of the housing charity Shelter, said: "Thousands of families have spent the lockdown in shoddy, overcrowded temporary accommodation and many more are in expensive, insecure private rentals desperately worried about paying the rent as incomes are hit.”
An MHCLG spokesman said: “We’ve delivered more than 460,000 affordable homes since 2010, including over 331,800 affordable homes for rent, and we’re investing £12 billion to build affordable homes in the next five years – the biggest cash investment in affordable housing for a decade."