Social housing

The links between housing and poverty have been ignored for too long, Kathleen Kelly argues. Continuing to do this could have dangerous consequences.

Large-scale institutional investment in the private rented sector has long been an ambition of housing policy. So should we take our hats off to Sir Adrian Montague for suggesting some practical ways forward to achieve the objective? Or might there also be some dangers in his proposals, particularly for so-called ‘vulnerable’ groups?

There's lots of debate about changing security of tenure in the social rented sector, and the Government's recent consultation (PDF) has suggested offering flexible tenancies. By flexible they mean fixed-term social tenancies for new social tenants. The consultation says this will make better use of the social housing stock and ensure people have social housing only for as long as they need it. But what does that mean in practice?