‘We want to make good housing a basic right for all in Wales’
In his latest Martin Shipton Meets podcast, our chief reporter spoke about Wales’ multi-faceted housing crisis with Aaron Hill, assistant director of policy and public affairs at Community Housing Cymru
AHUGE house building programme planned for Wales will help to solve the housing crisis which afflicts the country at many levels, according to an expert at the sharp end.
Aaron Hill works for Community Housing Cymru, the umbrella body for housing associations.
With an increasing proportion of people unable to afford to buy their own homes, the social housing sector is becoming increasingly important.
Speaking on a Martin Shipton Meets podcast, Hill said: “The housing crisis is multi-faceted. The property-owning democracy is a very British idea. [The crisis] spans a whole range of experiences across the housing sector.
“I had a discussion with a friend who said, ‘The housing crisis is not you not being able to afford a home, It’s people who are homeless on the street’. But actually, what that story tells is that a lot of people are affected in lots of different ways. It’s a market that’s not working, right from the top, where people might be looking to get on to the property ladder, to the fact that we’re not building enough social housing. It comes back to a supply-side crisis: we’re not building enough homes right across Wales – and actually right across the UK.
“The interesting thing I’ve seen working with housing associations is an ambition to overcome that. Some stats have been published showing that over 60,000 people are on housing waiting lists in Wales. There are a couple of local authorities missing from the statistics, so the figure is probably much higher than that.”
Hill said housing associations were now the main contributor for tackling the housing crisis in Wales. They had over-delivered on previous targets set by successive Welsh Governments and were on course to deliver 20,000 new homes in line with the current target.
Over the next 20 years, the ambition is to go “beyond numbers” and change the nature of the conversation: “We want to make good housing a basic right for all in Wales,” said Hill.
“To get there, there are a number of commitments. The headline in that is 75,000 new homes over the next 20 years, and within that social housing will always be at the very core of what we do.”
Of the 75,000, 65,000 will be for social rent, but housing associations will increasingly try to help people who want to become home owners. One scheme, backed originally by the Welsh Liberal Democrats, will see people paying rent to live in social housing, with a small proportion of what they pay going towards a deposit that will enable them to buy the home in a few years time.
Hill said many people retained the ambition to be part of a propertyowning democracy – but there were now different models about how to get there.
Extolling the merits of what good quality housing can achieve, Hill said: “Home is about far more than a roof over your head. It’s where you have your dreams, you fall in love, maybe you get divorced or have children. That whole life journey takes place in a home – and we know it can make you healthier. There’s a very strong link between health and housing, and the benefits of the NHS with good housing and the right support are intangible, almost – and we need to get better at demonstrating that as a sector. We also know that a good home actually makes you feel more connected with your community. If you’re in a settled home with a functioning community and strong local businesses around you, we know the economy grows around that as well.”
Hill said that in rural areas there tended to be a lot of opposition to new home building: “But quite often the same people are saying, ‘my local pub’s closing, my local bank is shutting down’. Actually you build communities with new homes, and it’s so important to the fabric of those communities to connect the local people, to build a neighbourhood.
“Housing associations are right at the heart of that. We know that for every pound that is spent, 84p is in the Welsh economy. We want to increase that to more like 95p in every pound.”
Asked whether the very high salary levels enjoyed by the chief executives of some housing associations were justified, Hill said: “It’s an interesting debate.
“It comes back to the point that housing associations are independent businesses, and increasingly complex businesses. In terms of attracting the talent to run those organisations ... you have to be able to compete with other businesses. We are not just competing in a Welsh market here, and if you were to compare the salaries at a senior level in Wales with a senior level in England, we are significantly lower.
“But we are still attracting talent from England, actually, from housing associations who bring their expertise of a different system, with a different insight.
“They’re coming to Wales not because the salaries are high, but because of the way social housing has been prioritised in Wales.
“Social housing is still a key priority for the Welsh Government, and working in that environment is quite attractive.
“There’s also something about reassuring lenders here as well. A key stakeholder in the housing sector is the lenders. When housing associations are recruiting for those top roles, they need to be reassuring those investors that they are getting the best talent to manage those investments.”