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The facts of the matter are this: people once helped by #SocialHousing now have to rely on the fag end of the #PRS because there isn't enough social stock in high demand areas. People who can't buy are also stuck in #PRS which, owing to demand 1/ https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/14/waiting-list-for-council-homes-in-england-will-double-to-2-million
sees prices increase way above pay (though Covid has done some weird things to the London market recently). At the centre of this has been the wilful failure of Govt to properly invest in social housing. Purely for reasons ideological. Home ownership is king, so that's where 2/
the money goes. But #HomeOwnership isn't its own isolated ecosystem. The PRS, Social Housing and Home Ownership sectors are all part of the same whole. What happens in one affects the others. So the proliferation of buy to let landlords hoovers up stock for first time buyers. 3/
Loss of social housing via #RTB increases demand for #PRS making it more attractive to #BuyToLet landlords. And cheap mortgages owing to very low interest rates push prices up, pushes savers into B2L as it provides a return. All the while disincentivising developers to build 4/
at high rates as they look to avoid distorting local markets by flooding it with new stock. And thus the cycle repeats. Govt ends up spending BILLIONS on temp accommodation instead of properly funding the very type of (social) housing that will meet the needs of those guys. 5/
Many have been saying this for years. If not decades. It's not just a Tory failure. All the major parties have failed to tackle #ukhousing issues holistically. Though some were more successful then others on homelessness and temp accommodation use. We can, & must, do better. ENDS
