Housing Associations Should Take Wider Role

Housing associations must be vehicles for social change and not just provide a roof over people heads, a leader in social thought has said, source Inside Housing.

Phillip Blond, director of think tank Respublica, told delegates at the Chartered Institute of Housing conference in Harrogate that housing associations should help their tenants to improve their lives through gaining skills and assets, through the government idea of the Big Society.

At their best, housing associations, arms-length management organisations and councils are already doing the Big Society and are agents of change in their sector, he said. The housing sector at its best must become the minimum standard for the housing sector as a whole. The Big Society sets a new high bar for housing he added.

He further added that our strong communities now are weaker than the weakest communities in the 1970s. Families are fragmenting he said. When you destroy networks you destroy part of the way people advance in life.

Our social housing is trapping people rather than facilitating them to break out. Many MPs see housing associations as not giving a damn and that is worrying. He also suggested that larger associations should consider breaking up to deliver a more localised service.

Unless we give people at the bottom assets we will never tackle poverty effectively says Philip Blond.

Cliff Prior, chief executive of social enterprise group UnLtd, on the other hand said that every community facing problems has within it the people who can provide the solutions. He urged the housing associations too to step out to teach people skills so that they can enhance their lifestyles and step out of poverty.

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